[Transcultural psychiatry of heva behavior among natives of Easter Island]

The heva of the Easter Island presents itself as a rite, founded on an antique myth--the text of which we have obtained through a contemporary reporter of the Pascua Island. Transcultural psychiatric investigation is useful for the understanding of heva behaviour, as it allows us to discard, from the formal point of view, its character of psychiatric entity. It is possible that, due to the cultural importance of the heva myth and ritual manifestations, it has turned into a model to express psychiatric situations of the type English speaking authors call cultural-bound syndrome. In the course of our study we have been able to ascribe this behaviour to other rituals of mourning and vengeance, and we have stated that, as social expression of violence, it oscillates between forms of group manifestation, as it can be seen among the African Konso, and individualized manifestation, as seen among the Tauade of Papua New Guinea.