Devereux] MOHAVE ETHNOPSYCHIATRY AND SUICIDE 547 



ity without the regression induced by alcohol (Case 105). Since the 

 woman's first heterosexual oral objective is the father's penis, and 

 since Mohave mythology explicity calls Bullfrog's swallowing of her 

 father's feces (anal penis) the "first act of witchcraft" (Devereux, 

 1948 f), it seems permissible to assume that female homosexuality can 

 likewise be overcome by means of an oral regression induced by 

 alcohol. 



Summing up, regression from the homosexual line of defense to in- 

 cestuous acts and wishes, usually involving also oral sadistic acts of 

 witchcraft, often appears to be facilitated by the ingestion of alcohol. 

 This implies, perhaps, that the drinker regresses to the early develop- 

 mental stage in which oedipal problems are still closely intertwined 

 with oral impulses. 



Fmally, it is important to stress once more that the preceding 

 paragraphs are highly tentative in character, and that they represent 

 an "outrageous hypothesis" (Lynd, 1939) rather than a genuine theory, 

 in the traditional sense of tliat term. This hypothesis was formulated 

 only because the construction of an outrageous — and possibly in- 

 valid — hypothesis is at least open to refutation and tends to suggest 

 better formulations, w^hereas the mere statement of a difficulty is 

 simply the sterile evasion of a genuine problem. 



5. THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED 



Throughout the preceding pages it was suggested that, in alcoholic 

 intoxication, there is a return of the repressed, and that climactic or 

 unusual modes of behavior occurring in a state of intoxication should 

 be interpreted as eruptions of repressed material. It is therefore 

 interesting to observe that the Mohave themselves are by no means 

 unaware of the fact that the ingestion of alcohol tends to liberate 

 repressed material. This fact was demonstrated in a striking, because 

 indirect, manner by Tcatc's previously cited statement, which deserves 

 to be repeated in this context. When asked to comment on the Greek 

 adage, "The more I see of people, the better I like dogs," Tcatc re- 

 plied : "The things I saw in my youth, when I urns old enough to re- 

 meinbev xohat I saw^ were better than, and different from, what one 

 sees nowadays. These constant rumors of incest, for example — they 

 would have been unthinkable in the old days. In my youth the Mo- 

 have did not even know what alcoholic intoxication meant." 



Tcatc's spontaneous and elaborate reference to infantile amnesia, 

 and her "accidental" pairing of incest and alcoholism, are psycho- 

 logically too significant to be considered fortuitous. Regardless, there- 

 fore, of how accurate or inaccurate the special formulations and 

 interpretations proposed in this Appendix may be, the general thesis 

 that the strikingly atypical acts of certain intoxicated persons are 



