546 BUREAU OF AI^IERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 175 



A brief preliminary review of the relevant facts will aid in this 

 analysis : 



1. Hivsu: TuiJo:ma (Case 139) committed incest and killed his mistress and 

 her father by means of witchcraft while sober, and then confessed these acts 

 while drunk. 



2. Sahaykwisa: (Case 140), a former lesbian, committed witchcraft, and 

 also what may have been unconsciously an incest equivalent, while sober, and 

 confessed her act of witchcraft while drunk. 



3. In a number of other instances (Devereux, 1939 a), incestuous acts oc- 

 curred when one or both partners were intoxicated, and usually involved per- 

 sons who engaged in witchcraft, or witch killing, or both. 



The occurrence of an alcohol-incest- witchcraft cluster and the near 

 absence of an overt alcohol-homosexuality cluster require explanation, 

 since, at least superficially, these facts appear to contradict the theory 

 that alcoholism is intimately connected with homosexuality. In view 

 of Lynd's (1939) defense of "outrageous hypotheses," it might be 

 worthwhile to consider whether or not the intoxicated Mohave might, 

 conceivablj^ substitute incestuous or excessive heterosexual activities 

 for homosexual behavior. 



It is a widely accepted psychoanalytic theory that homosexuality is 

 related to a failure to come to terms with castration anxieties elicited 

 by oedipal impulses. Specifica^lly, many psychoanalysts hold that 

 homosexuality is sometimes evolved as a defense against the incestuous 

 and aggressive wishes, and against fears of castration, wliich arise in 

 connection with oedipal impulses. 



The occurrence of permanent transvestitism and overt homosexual- 

 ity during sobriety, the absence of casual homosexuality during in- 

 toxication, and the performing of incestuous acts by persons who are 

 witches, or intoxicated, or both, suggest that, in certain cases, alcohol 

 may, in some manner, retranslate homosexual impulses into those 

 heterosexual-incestuous impulses which originally served as a point of 

 departure for the development of defensive homosexual impulses. 

 This tentative hypothesis is compatible with the well-established fact 

 that alcohol tends to promote regression by "dissolving the superego," 

 which was originally responsible for the genesis of homosexual im- 

 pulses. It is quite possible that this regression may also be fostered 

 by the presence of massive oral elements in alcohol addiction, which 

 gratifies oral wishes and hence leads the male at least, back to a hetero- 

 sexual love object : the nursing mother. As regards women, it should 

 be recalled in this context that the actively lesbian Sahaykwisa: be- 

 came acquainted with the effects of alcoliol in connection with her acts 

 of heterosexual prostitution to white men, and turned into a consist- 

 ently heavy drinker when, as a result of being raped, she was "con- 

 verted" to a rather immature kind of heterosexuality. The inescapa- 

 ble inference appears to be that she was unable to accept heterosexual- 



