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+      <title>Washo Religion</title>
+      <author><name reg="Downs, James F.">James F. Downs</name></author>
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+      <date>February 27, 2010</date>
+      <idno type="etext-no">31429</idno>
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+    <div rend="page-break-before: always">
+      <p rend="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center">Washo Religion</p>
+      <p rend="text-align: center">By</p>
+      <p rend="font-size: xx-large; text-align: center">James F. Downs</p>
+      <p rend="font-size: x-large; text-align: center">University of California Publications</p>
+      <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">Anthropological Records</p>
+      <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">Vol. 16, No. 9, pp. 365-386</p>
+      <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">Editors (Berkeley): J. H. Rowe, R. F. Millon, D. M. Schneider</p>
+      <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">Submitted by editors September 16, 1960</p>
+      <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">Issued June 16, 1961</p>
+      <p rend="font-size: large; text-align: center">Price, 75 cents</p>
+      <p rend="text-align: center">University of California Press</p>
+      <p rend="text-align: center">Berkeley and Los Angeles</p>
+      <p rend="text-align: center">California</p>
+      <p rend="text-align: center">Cambridge University Press</p>
+      <p rend="text-align: center">London, England</p>
+    </div>
+    <div rend="page-break-before: always">
+      <head>Contents</head>
+      <divGen type="toc" />
+    </div>
+
+  </front>
+<body>
+
+<pb n='i'/><anchor id='Pgi'/>
+
+<div rend='page-break-before: always'>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Preface</head>
+
+<p>
+This paper is the result of two and one-half months' field work among the Washo
+Indians of California and Nevada supported by the Department of Anthropology of the
+University of California and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. In it I have tried to
+describe the religious beliefs and ritual activities of the Washo as they can be examined
+today. Where possible I have attempted to reconstruct the aboriginal patterns
+and trace the course of change between these two points in time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A second purpose has been to supplement the culture element distribution lists
+prepared by Omer C. Stewart in 1936 (Stewart 1941). In a number of instances his
+findings were at variance with those of Smith, whose notes Stewart incorporated; I
+have been able to resolve some of the differences between Stewart and Smith. Where
+my own research has led me to disagree with the statements in the culture element
+distributions I have discussed the problem. In general my own work simply expands
+the rather sparse descriptions of the element lists (Stewart 1941, pp. 366-418). The
+culture element distribution list numbers which refer to traits dealt with in the various
+sections are indicated in parentheses following the headings. Where a trait or
+complex is dealt with in detail it is indicated by parentheses in the text. Statements
+not otherwise attributed are the result of my own field work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I am indebted to Mr. W. L. d'Azevedo, who encouraged me to carry on field work
+among the Washo and who has made his own field notes and knowledge available to
+me. I have indicated information attributable to d'Azevedo by placing his name in
+parentheses in the text; where his name appears with a date, the reference is to
+a work published by him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I also wish to express my thanks for the suggestions made by J. H. Rowe, R. F.
+Millon, and D. M. Schneider, who read this article before it went to press, and to
+acknowledge the final reading given the manuscript by the late A. L. Kroeber.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In addition, my thanks are owed to Mr. Frank Yapparagari, Mrs. Juanita Schubert,
+and Mrs. Lois Buck of Gardnerville and Minden, Nevada, to Mr. Richard Shulter of
+the Nevada State Museum in Carson City, Nevada, and to Mrs. E. M. Keenan of
+Paradise, California, who assisted in various ways in the progress of the investigation.
+Last, to the various members of the Washo tribe, who with patience and good
+humor bore the probing into their lives, my deepest gratitude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+James F. Downs
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<pb n='365'/><anchor id='Pg365'/>
+
+<div rend='page-break-before: always'>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Introduction</head>
+
+<p>
+This paper will devote itself to a description of the
+religious life of the Washo Indians living in the communities
+of Sierraville, Loyalton, and Woodfords, in
+California, and Reno, Carson City, and Dresslerville,
+Nevada. Smaller numbers are scattered throughout the
+area which was their aboriginal range, roughly from
+the southern end of Honey Lake to Antelope Valley and
+from the divide of the Pinenut Range in Nevada, almost
+to Placerville, California.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A short ethnography by Barrett dealing in large part
+with material culture, Lowie's Ethnographic Notes, and
+Stewart's Element Lists constitute almost the only general
+references on Washo culture. Various other writers
+have dealt with specialized questions such as linguistics
+(Kroeber, Jacobson), peyotism (Siskin, d'Azevedo),
+and music (Merriam).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Most of the statements about the Washo give the impression
+that they have long been on the edge of oblivion
+(Mooney, Kroeber, etc.), and population estimates
+have been well under one thousand for the past fifty
+years. However, I find myself in agreement with d'Azevedo<note place='foot'>W. L.
+d'Azevedo, basing his opinions on extensive field work in the
+area, contends that early estimates of Washo population were incorrect
+and that modern figures based on these estimates are inaccurate. A contemporary
+estimate, made by a resident journalist in 1881, was somewhat
+over 3,000.</note>
+that the Washo are a vigorous and continuing cultural
+entity. My own rather impressionistic estimate
+of population is that there are perhaps two thousand
+Indians in the area who consider themselves as Washo
+and form a part of a viable cultural unit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My own field work was devoted to an attempt to
+trace the patterns of change among these people since
+the entrance of the white man into their area. To this
+end I spent a great deal of time with older informants,
+but my work was not exclusively <q>salvage ethnography.</q>
+Many aspects of Washo culture have changed dramatically
+in the past century; this is particularly true in
+the area of material culture and subsistence activities.
+On the other hand, I was impressed by the tenacity of
+the less material aspects of the culture. The always-difficult-to-define
+world view or ethos of the Washo,
+which so clearly separates them from other cultures,
+is very much an entity expressed in the attitudes and
+actions of the Washo Indians, whether they are oldsters
+who can remember many aspects of the <q>old
+days</q> or children who have not yet entered the newly
+integrated schools of Nevada. This continuity seems
+most clearly expressed in the area which we subsume
+under the title <q>Religion.</q> Almost all Washo, even the
+youngsters, are familiar with, or at least aware of,
+Washo mythology, attitudes about ghosts, spirits, medicine,
+and a number of ritual actions and beliefs which
+are common elements in Washo life today.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This is not to imply that Washo religious activity
+has not been affected by the tremendous changes which
+have taken place in western Nevada and eastern California.
+I suggest that rather than disappearing under
+the withering rationalism of civilization the religion
+of the Washo has simply altered and expanded to serve
+the Washo in new situations.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In this work I take the broadest possible definition
+of religion, conceiving it as any institutionalized activity
+or attitude which reflects the Washo view of the
+cosmos. In so doing I have included a number of categories
+which may not generally be considered suitable
+for inclusion under the heading of religion. Stewart,
+for instance, includes shamanism, curing, special powers
+of shamans, miscellaneous shamanistic information,
+guardian spirits, destiny of the soul, ghosts or
+soul, and jimsonweed. My own work includes some of
+these specifically, incorporates some under other headings,
+and treats a number of subjects not included in
+the list given above.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reason for this approach is practical rather
+than theoretical or philosophical. As anthropological
+definitions of religions are extremely varied and the
+activities described as religious under various definitions
+cover a greater or narrower range, it seems
+valuable to include as many activities as possible in
+a purely descriptive work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The goal of this paper is to make as much information
+as possible about the religious and ritual activities
+of the Washo available to scholars who may be
+interested in religion. The inclusion of as many fields
+of activity as possible permits them to select information
+which they feel pertinent to their interests.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Wherever possible I have tried to include direct
+quotations from informants as well as information
+about their behavior and attitudes, so that my own
+interpretations and conclusions can be examined by
+others in light of the information on which they are
+based.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Statements made by informants are indicated by
+quotation marks. I did not have a recording device
+available and did not attempt to record entire interviews
+verbatim. However, whenever informants indicated
+that they considered their statements important
+I took them down word for word. If I felt some passing
+remark to have significance, I asked the informant
+to repeat it and often read it back to him for verification.
+Other stories, particularly those of a mythological
+nature, or semilegends, or experiences which
+were important to individual informants, were repeated
+voluntarily on almost every occasion of our meeting.
+Whenever statements are presented in quotation marks
+the material was gathered in this manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This paper contains material from a number of
+sources. Statements of fact or interpretations taken
+from published anthropological or historic works are
+indicated by citations in the customary manner. Information
+based on conversations or other private communications
+with other investigators is so designated.
+All statements of fact which are not credited to these
+two sources are taken from my own field notes and
+represent statements of my informants.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<pb n='366'/><anchor id='Pg366'/>
+
+<div rend='page-break-before: always'>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Mythology</head>
+
+<p>
+Washo mythology has been presented in the form
+of interlinear texts by Dangberg (1927) and in Lowie's
+Ethnographic Notes (1939, pp. 333-351). There are two
+versions of the creation myth, one describing the creation
+of Paiute, Washo, and Diggers from the seeds of
+the cattail by the Creator Woman, and the second attributing
+the creation of Indians to the Creation Man,
+who formed the three groups from among his sons to
+keep them from quarreling. Lowie also reports the
+common theme of several previous inhabitations of
+the earth. The most important myth, or at least the
+one which is still commonly told and seems to be the
+favorite among the Washo, devotes itself to the adventures
+of Damalali (short-tailed weasel) and Pewetseli
+(long-tailed weasel). These heroes are responsible for
+many of the natural features of the region so references
+to this myth are rather frequent. The Coyote,
+in the form of a rather malevolent and stupid trickster,
+and the Wolf, a generally patriarchal and protective
+figure, appear in several myths, as do cannibalistic
+giants and a giant bird, the an.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Figures which appear only incidentally in the myths
+as recounted are elaborated almost infinitely in what
+might best be termed folk fantasy.
+</p>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Water Babies</head>
+
+<p>
+Most prominent of these figures are the Water
+Babies (Stewart 1941, p. 444, 2574). In the mythology,
+Water Baby figures as the creature responsible for
+the many lakes of the eastern Sierra. Killed and
+scalped by the rascally Damalali, Water Baby commands
+the waters of the area to rise until the weasel
+returns the scalp to avoid drowning. The waters left
+in mountain valleys as the flood receded formed the
+lakes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Water Baby is not confined to mythology. My
+informants were able to describe the appearance of a
+Water Baby in detail, to supply me with population
+figures, and to recount an almost endless series of
+incidents in which Water Babies were involved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All informants agreed that the Water Baby is a
+creature about one and one-half feet tall, gray in
+color, with extremely long black hair which never
+touches the ground but which floats along behind the
+Water Babies when they walk. In general, these creatures
+look like small humans. However, they are
+boneless, cold to the touch, and damp.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Between two and three thousand Water Babies live
+in the Sierra, according to one informant. They inhabit
+lakes, streams, marshes, ponds, springs, and irrigation
+ditches. They speak a language of their own but
+are always able to speak Washo. With a single exception,
+every Washo of middle age and over to whom I
+talked claimed to have at least heard Water Babies
+calling from some body of water in the night. Several
+others claimed to have seen Water Baby footprints
+(one even reporting that the footprints he had seen
+were those of a female because the tracks were clearly
+those of high heeled shoes!). One informant steadfastly
+claimed to have seen a Water Baby, at least
+fleetingly, in 1956.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Two distinct attitudes about these creatures are displayed
+by the Washo. Most informants openly admitted
+being afraid of Water Babies. If they heard one they
+remained in their houses or attempted to avoid contact.
+They claimed that if a person saw a Water Baby by
+accident, at the very least he would be struck unconscious
+and greater harm, in the form of sickness,
+might be inflicted on him or on one of his relatives.
+The general attitude was that Water Babies were best
+left alone because they were extremely powerful.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This attitude is perhaps summed up best by one of
+my informants, a rather sophisticated Washo who has
+lived in cities for long periods and who is an active
+leader in the tribe's legal battle with the federal government.
+He is also a devoted peyotist who often conducts
+curing ceremonies and is conceded to have a
+curing power. He said, <q>If they ever get up a bunch
+to trap one of them [Water Babies], I don't want to
+have nothing to do with it.</q> When I asked why not, he
+replied: <q>Why hell, if you make one of them things
+mad they'll flood the world. I just don't want nothing
+to do with them. I ain't that desperate.</q> I asked, <q>desperate
+for what?</q> and he replied <q>for power. I like
+to dream about womens [sic] and things like that, not
+about Water Babies and that funny stuff.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This last statement clearly indicates the other attitude
+about Water Babies; they are often guardian spirits
+of Washo who have special power, particularly shamanistic
+curing power. Another informant expressed
+this other attitude about these creatures. He is about
+seventy, attended Stewart Indian School for ten years
+and lived among the Hopi for ten years. He boasts a
+stone and cement-block home, the only such dwelling
+owned by a Washo. He has learned to bead baskets
+and during most of the year earns a reasonable income
+from this. His seeming adjustment to white culture
+is confounded when his philosophic position is examined.
+He can only be termed a mystic who interprets
+the world in Indian terms. Exposure to such influences
+as the writings of Kroeber and Huxley has
+only confirmed his essentially Indian viewpoint. Both
+his parents were famous Indian doctors and his maternal
+uncle, who was also his mentor,<note place='foot'>This statement
+should not be considered as an indication of matrilineality
+in Washo society. Freed and d'Azevedo, who have done extensive
+work in kinship and social organization of this group, seemed to agree
+that the Washo were loosely bilateral with certain formalized patrilineal
+elements. However, because of fragile marriages, many Washo have had
+a longer and closer association with their mothers' families than with
+their fathers', or with those of any of their mothers' subsequent husbands.</note>
+was a famous
+shaman. My informant implied that his uncle's spirit
+(wegeleyo), from which his power was derived, was
+the Water Baby, and his own carefully guarded statement
+implied that the creature was potentially his own
+spirit. His view of the Water Baby was quite the reverse
+of other informants. <q>Some people think the
+Water Baby will hurt them, but he won't. If they see
+him by accident he won't do nothing. But if he has
+given you his power and you see him&mdash;then wham, he
+maybe knock you right down.</q> This appears to have
+been his way of describing a seizure by the Water
+Baby, which although a fearful experience, usually resulted
+in the gift of additional power. There was, however,
+<pb n='367'/><anchor id='Pg367'/>
+general agreement among informants that the
+Water Baby could, if he gave his power to a person,
+demand repayment with the lives of his protégé's
+close relatives or entire family.<note place='foot'>Kluckhohn
+reports that the payment for joining a coven of Navajo
+witches is often the life of a relative (1947, p. 131).</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The various powers and activities of the Water
+Babies are perhaps best described in the following
+stories recounted by informants:
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<p>
+1. <q>One time my Dad was sick. He called in
+two, three doctors and they said he had to give a
+basket to the Water Babies at Lake <hi rend='italic'>Išmedel</hi>. There
+is an island in this lake and my Dad was supposed
+to go out to that island and leave a basket. I was
+too young then but he took my brother. They went
+up there and my Dad just started walking out to
+the lake and the water never got any deeper than
+there (pointing to his knees). He walked right on
+that water. He left that basket and came back and
+he got well. Them Water Babies helped him walk
+on the water. My brother saw it happen.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+2. <q>There is this deep pool up in the mountains.
+There is a kind of black sucker live there but no
+Indians ever caught them because that was a Water
+Baby place and they was Water Baby food. Womens
+used to sit on a platform of logs and weave baskets
+there [special baskets for the Water Babies,
+apparently, such as the one used as offering in the
+story above]. One time I took another fella like
+you [anthropologist] up there but when we got there
+we couldn't find nothing but sand with a little water
+bubbling up in the middle. He wouldn't believe me.
+I showed him where them womens had sat but I
+think he thought I was lying. I guess them Water
+Babies did something.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+3. <q>There is this women called Frances. She
+was up at Blue Lake with her husband following
+him along the edge of the lake. It was kind of dark.
+She saw them little footprints right on top of her
+husband's in the sand.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+4. <q>I'll tell you what happened to me right in
+this house about two years ago. I was in bed in
+that room there and I felt these little hands creeping
+under the covers. I brushed 'em away but they
+just come back. They tried to feel me down here
+[indicating his genitalia]. I yelled for my mother
+and she come in and said something and something
+went zip (waving arm violently to indicate direction)
+right out of that window. We looked out that way
+[to the south], that's toward Walker Lake. Everything
+was kind of hazy blue.</q>
+</p>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+In light of Washo views about receiving shamanistic
+power, it would appear that my informant was suggesting
+that this visitation was a Water Baby making its
+patronage known.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<p>
+5. <q>My old uncle had been doctoring up by Genoa.
+He had a tough one and fallen in the fire and burned
+all his pants off and was walking wearing his coat
+like a skirt. He got by Wally's Hot Springs when he
+felt like he wanted a bath. Them Water Babies must
+have been working on him. He went over by the
+creek and started to lean over and then he passed
+out and fell into the water and there was a Water
+Baby. That Water Baby said, <q>come on,</q> and he took
+him down to Water Baby country. The chief of the
+Water Babies lived in a big house made out of that
+black shining rock [obsidian]. But they didn't go
+there. The Water Baby said <q>we got some girls that
+want to give you something,</q> and he took my uncle
+to a place and there was five girls there. They all
+sat around my uncle and sang him a song and told
+him that it was his song from now on. Then the
+Water Baby took my uncle back and then he said
+it was like waking up from a dream and there he
+was laying in the creek down under a bunch of cattails.</q><note place='foot'>This
+story very closely parallels one recorded by James Hatch among
+the Yokuts. Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers, No. 19, Fall, 1958.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+6. <q>There was this white man up here fishing.
+He caught a Water Baby but he didn't know what
+it was. He thought it was some kind of fish and
+took it to San Francisco and they put it that place
+where they have a lotta fish [aquarium]. Captain Jim
+went all the way down there to tell the mayor that
+they had better let that Water Baby loose, but nobody
+would pay no attention to him. Well you know
+they had a big earthquake down there and the water
+came up around everything. When it was all over
+that tank where they had the Water Baby was empty.</q>
+</p>
+</quote>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>The Giants</head>
+
+<p>
+Washo mythology features several creatures which
+may each have contributed to the wild men I will describe
+in this section. Both Lowie and Dangberg report
+myths in which a giant, Hangawuiwui, is the principal
+figure. Although the myths do not describe him,
+my informants generally picture him as a colossus
+who hops on a single leg from the top of one mountain
+to another. He has a single eye to match his
+single limb and a proclivity for gobbling up Indians.
+Several miles southwest of Gardnerville, in the hills
+overlooking Double Spring Flats, a cave is known by
+the Washo as Hangawuiwui aɲ¿l (the place where
+Hangawuiwui lives). Present-day Indians tell a number
+of stories about this giant and display a certain
+uneasiness when they are near places he is supposed
+to haunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another kind of giant appears in a myth reported
+by Lowie. These beings appear to be considerably
+more human than Hangawuiwui. Traditionally they
+camped south of Pyramid Lake and terrorized the
+Paiutes. However, when one of their number attempted
+to take fish from a Washo the tribe rallied and routed
+the giants in a battle near Walker Lake. The giants
+did not have bows and arrows. They fortified themselves
+behind rock walls and threw stones.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+According to my informant on the subject, the mountains
+are still the home of a tribe of <q>wild men.</q> These
+people have managed to hide the location of their camps
+so that no one knows where they live. My informant
+felt that they were in fact some kind of Indian. Despite
+the mythological ability of the Washo to defeat
+the giants, modern stories about them suggest they
+have a great deal of supernatural power in addition
+to their physical prowess.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following stories were told to me as contemporary
+or relatively recent occurrences:
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<p>
+1. <q>There is these wild fellas up in the mountains.
+I guess you call them giants. One time there
+was an old man who had set up a blind to hunt chipmunks,
+<pb n='368'/><anchor id='Pg368'/>
+like I told you yesterday. He was up in the
+pine-nut hills and he had killed four chipmunks.
+One of these fellas come along and he snatched up
+a chipmunk and he ate it. Then he snatched another
+and ate it. He tried to grab another but the old
+man wrestled with him and stopped him from getting
+the chipmunk and then he got away. He tussled
+with that wild man and got away. But a long time
+after when he was real old and went around with a
+long stick [staff], he went out walking and he didn't
+come back. They went out looking for him and found
+his tracks leading up the foot of Job's Peak and
+they ended there. His stick was stuck in the ground
+and at the end of his tracks it looked like something
+had snatched him up.</q>
+</p>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+When I asked if the wild men had gotten him my
+informant said he thought so. The theme of a wild
+man's attempting to take part of a catch from a Washo
+recalls the myth as reported by Lowie, although in the
+version he recorded the incident occurred between
+Wadsworth and Sparks and the final battle took place
+at Walker Lake, whereas my informant changed the
+locale to the Carson Valley area.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+2. <q>My old grandfather had this happen to him.
+He was hunting up by the Lake [Tahoe], In them
+days hunters just carried little thin rabbit skin
+blankets. They covered up their front and put their
+back to the fire. My old grandfather was just laying
+there when he noticed the fire going down (maybe
+that wild man did something to the fire). Pretty
+soon he saw a big shadow. He was pretty scared
+and just laid there. Pretty soon he felt a hand feeling
+his feet and in between his toes and up his leg
+and all around his hole [anus]. Pretty soon it reached
+his face and tried to put his finger in my grandfather's
+mouth. My grandfather bit that finger real
+hard and the wild man yelled and ran away.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+I asked if the wild men still existed and my informant
+replied: <q>Sure. They are up there in the mountains.
+They are pretty smart and you can't see them. But us
+Washo can hear them talking. We can understand their
+language. I have thought a lot about it and they should
+have called some Washo over to Oroville when they
+caught that fella over there. I read about it in the
+newspaper when I was younger. I know they had a lot
+of them California Indians come up there but they
+couldn't understand him. I'll bet a Washo could have
+understood him.</q> I asked if he thought it had been a
+wild man and he nodded in affirmation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <q>wild man</q> of course was the now-famous Ishi,
+the last of the Southern Yana who wandered half starved
+into a slaughterhouse in Oroville in 1911.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>The Coyote And Other Figures</head>
+
+<p>
+Washo myths contain a number of tales about a
+bumbling, not very bright, generally malevolent Coyote,
+who as a companion of Wolf seems to devote a great deal
+of time to eating Indians and to sexual misadventures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Modern Washo seem less willing than their forebears
+to weave Coyote into tales but are no less conscious
+of his malevolent presence. Peyotists often see
+visions or dream of Coyote (d'Azevedo and Merriam
+1957), and quick asides about Coyote's influence are
+apt to come up in conversation either as tentative
+jokes or in seriousness. One tale of a modern occurrence
+involving Coyote did come my way through the
+kindness of Warren d'Azevedo. His informant was the
+brother-in-law of my own informant and, like his kinsman,
+a semimystic, very conscious of his Indianness
+and credited by other Washo with powers beyond those
+of an ordinary man in hunting.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>I was staying in this shack with the guy who
+owned it. One night he didn't come home but I
+kept hearing something walking around that shack.
+The next morning when that guy came home he
+was all tired out and there was Coyote tracks all
+around that shack. I got my gun and told that guy
+to stay away from me</q> (d'Azevedo).
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+The Aɲ, a huge man-eating bird described in Lowie's
+myth number 13, is no longer alive, but according
+to several informants the creature's bones or at
+least the island on which it nested can be seen by
+people flying over the lake because they are only a
+bit below the surface. Washo insist that white airplane
+pilots see the shape of the island daily but keep silent
+because they don't want to confirm an Indian story.
+One day on a trip around Lake Tahoe my Indian
+companion, a sometime leader among the Washo
+asked: <q>If we get that money from our claim do
+you think one of them archeologist fellas could
+go down under the water and find that there aɲ
+bird's skeleton?</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The foregoing paragraphs illustrate the tenacity
+with which Washo mythology has maintained itself
+among these people. The entirety of many of the
+myths is no longer part of the repertoire of every
+adult Washo, but variations, on-the-spot reconstructions,
+and the introduction of mythological themes into
+contemporary stories of a secular nature are definitely
+part of the oral literature of the Washo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is interesting to note that some aspects of Washo
+mythology appear to have more viability than others.
+Thus the Water Baby remains an important and vital
+aspect of modern Washo life, as does the Coyote. The
+twin weasels have lost much of their appeal, as has
+the giant Hangawuiwui. The giants of the mountains
+are acknowledged to be alive today but are seldom referred
+to, whereas Coyote and Water Baby are almost
+always mentioned and spoken of as living entities even
+by the most progressive Washo.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Except for the making of offerings to nature, which
+may be defined as purely religious, other religious or
+ritual activities dealing with what we would call the
+supernatural are so integrated with other aspects of
+Washo life as to be almost inseparable. Thus in describing
+the religious activities of the Washo I will
+proceed through various phases of their life, pointing
+out the ritual actions which are part of Washo behavior
+in specific situations.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<pb n='369'/><anchor id='Pg369'/>
+
+<div rend='page-break-before: always'>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Curing And Shamanism (2469-2541)</head>
+
+<p>
+The Washo word da¿man¿li¿ has a wide range of
+meanings which include almost all people with supernatural
+powers, including curers of several orders.
+The terms which they use when discussing the subject
+in English are somewhat more precise and will
+be used in this paper.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Washo make a distinction between curers
+(2594-96) and Indian doctors. The latter, as will be
+shown, are true shamans whereas the former are
+somewhat less powerful. Curers appear to be women
+who have certain powers revealed to them in dreams.
+Such persons are usually members of what the Washo
+describe as a <q>doctor family.</q> An informant described
+the activities of such a curer:
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<p>
+<q rend='pre'>My mother was a curer. She just smoke and
+talk. You would meet her on the way to town mebbe
+and say <q>I don't feel good</q> and she'd just sit down
+and smoke and talk [pray?] a little and then mebbe
+tell you what was wrong and what you should do.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>Along about the first war I got sick and couldn't
+make no water at all. My mother smoked and then
+spread ashes all over my belly and talked some and
+after that I passed a lot of blood and got better.</q><note place='foot'>Regular
+Indian doctors were forbidden to treat members of their own
+families, a prohibition which appears not to have extended to a non-shamanistic
+curer.</note>
+</p>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+Far more important than the curers, however, were
+the Indian doctors. Such men were never exclusive
+specialists and were apparently expected to share in
+the work of hunting and fishing with less gifted men.
+With the introduction of money by the whites, shamans
+appear to have approached something like specialization,
+charging fees of up to twenty dollars a session
+for their services.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Until the middle 1930's there were a number of
+shamans among the Washo (Stewart 1944). However,
+with the introduction of the peyote cult, which among
+the Washo is concerned with curing, the shaman was
+superseded. Today only a single Washo practices shamanistic
+curing. Interestingly enough this man, now
+seventy-five, was an informant of Lowie's in the 1920's,
+and at that time Lowie described him as a sophisticated
+young Washo, somewhat mystic and with shamanistic
+ambitions (Lowie 1939).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This man, Henry Rupert, spent ten years in the
+Indian school at the Stewart Agency and after graduation
+worked for a number of years in a printing plant
+in Reno. When questioned about the old days he was
+a fair informant, seldom offering more information
+than was asked for and clearly enjoying the business
+of making a white man work for every scrap of information.
+He was also given to dropping subtle hints and
+waiting with stolid indifference to see if I had been
+alert. He did not deny his shamanistic practices but
+was less than willing to discuss them in detail.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+His equipment, he admitted (but refused to show me),
+consisted of a butterfly-cocoon rattle, an eagle-bone
+whistle, and a feather headband. <q>I don't really do
+nothing but help nature,</q> he said. When I replied that
+only some people know how to help nature he was
+gratified and smiled. <q>Oh well, it's all psychological
+anyway,</q> he answered, confirming Lowie's description
+of him as a sophisticate.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He is noted for his rather atypical practice of tending
+a garden, which consists mostly of fruit trees, and
+for his open liking for old-fashioned foods, which he
+collects, including fly grubs and locusts. I was not able
+to observe his curing procedures, but they were described
+to me by another informant, a seventy-five-year-old
+woman, considered one of the most progressive
+of the residents of Dresslerville.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>I took my granddaughter to Rupert after the white
+doctors didn't do nothing for her. He don't doctor
+in the real old Indian way [a phrase I later learned
+meant that he did not hold a series of four one-night
+sessions but only a short ceremony]. He don't give
+you nothing, just sings and prays and talks over you
+for a while. He has a rattle and a whistle and a
+band on his head. After we went to him my granddaughter
+got well.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+Another informant, the man who was cured by his
+mother&mdash;curiously another graduate of the Stewart
+School and outwardly a progressive Indian&mdash;was a veritable
+fountain of shamanistic knowledge. His father and
+maternal uncle were both well-known shamans. Although
+he insisted that he had no particular power himself,
+other Indians generally claimed that he had certain
+hunting medicines which assisted him in taking game.
+There is little doubt that he believed he had been approached
+by spirits offering him shamanistic power.
+His life story was a long recital of ailments and mystic
+occurrences. The ailments, coupled with his attitude
+about spiritual power, suggested strongly that his suffering
+had been due to a rejection of the power offered
+(Whiting 1950). He supplied the following account about
+the process of becoming a shaman.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<p>
+<q rend='pre'>Young fellows sometimes have dreams but usually
+they don't pay no attention to them. But when
+you get older and keep having dreams you begin to
+pay attention. Maybe you see a bear or a rattlesnake
+or Water Baby or anything. It tell you that
+you are going to be a doctor. The next morning you
+go out and bathe and pray. This thing keeps coming
+[in your dreams]. It may take any form, a skeleton
+or an animal but you know it's always the same
+thing as the first time, just taking different shapes.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q rend='pre'>These dreams keep coming for four, sometimes
+eight, years to get you to be a good doctor. But
+during all this time you don't get no song. But they
+do give you your water. It tells you some certain
+place up in the mountains where there is a spring.
+You mebbe think there isn't no spring there, but
+there is. Then it tells you where to gather tobacco.
+Later it will tell you to make a rattle out of cocoon.
+Mebbe at first you only make a rattle with one cocoon.
+Later it says for you to add more. Finally it
+will give you a song. You dream this song. But you
+don't really remember it. You just begin singing it
+like you had known it all the time. For a while you
+may get a new song every year. Sometime you have
+<pb n='370'/><anchor id='Pg370'/>
+a dream that tells you how to handle your paraphernalia.
+Sometime a dream tells you that you have to
+be all alone in your house. I don't know what happens
+in there but some of them doctors, I think, go
+over to visit the dead for a little while.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>After you been dreaming for a long time maybe
+you try to cure somebody but you don't ask for nothing.
+You never tell them dreams or what your
+spirit is but other doctors, they know. If your dreams
+are right you can cure people and then you can ask
+for something [payment]. The real Indian way was
+to doctor for four nights. Then he'd lay out all his
+stuff and give it a drink by sprinkling water on it.
+Then he'd shake his rattle and sing and touch the
+patient with his hands. He'd talk to the sickness,
+like he knew it ... like maybe he was friends to
+it ... he'd say <q>now you behave and don't bother
+this person no more. If you don't behave I'm gonna
+take you out and show you to everybody and then
+you'll be embarrassed!</q> Then he'd suck at the patient
+(some of these young doctors suck on a stick
+with a feather on it that they pointed at the sick
+person, but the old ones didn't do that), and get out
+the sickness, it would be a feather or a stone. Sometime
+that sickness come out and go into the doctor
+so hard they can't get it out and have to get another
+doctor to help him. Sometimes it hit them so hard
+that they defecate. I seen them doctors just fill
+their pants. If it's real tough they get all stiff and
+fall over. Sometimes fall right in the fire and their
+clothes all burn off but it don't burn them none. You
+can't touch them then or it will kill them. But when
+they begin to shake a little and that rattle begins to
+go then you can pick them up. If he can, the doctor
+will vomit out the sickness. When it's out he puts
+it in his hand and rubs it with dirt and throws it
+away toward the north; that kills it.</q>
+</p>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+This recital of the process of becoming a doctor
+shows clearly the ideal situation, the receiving of
+powers, unsought, from supernatural sources, the
+guardian spirit watching over its protégé's career,
+providing him with the wherewithal in the form of
+songs, spells, and paraphernalia. In fact, however, it
+would appear that the process of becoming a shaman
+was far more a conscious and voluntary act on the
+part of an individual than would be supposed from the
+foregoing story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doctoring power clearly seems to have remained
+within certain families. The informant who gave the
+foregoing account was himself the son of a woman
+curer and a famous doctor and the nephew of another
+doctor. From his childhood he was familiar with the
+procedures of curing, with stories about dreams, spirit
+visitations, trips to the afterworld, mysterious and sacred
+locations. He somewhat proudly admitted that as
+a boy he <q>used to shake that rattle</q> himself. In short,
+until his shamanistic education was interrupted by white
+man's schooling, he was a shaman's apprentice.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This view is supported by the statements of other
+informants: <q>Of course them people that is from a doctor
+family, they have dreams and get curing power,</q>
+said one rather assimilated woman of about seventy-five.
+Another informant, a man of sixty, who repeatedly
+indicated his fear of <q>power</q> but at the same time
+was reputed to be an important curer in the peyote
+church said: <q>If you come from a family of dreamers
+there ain't nothing you can do. You're trapped by it.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young shamans appear to have undergone a period
+of informal apprenticeship under an older doctor. Although
+there appears to have been no special requirement
+that a shaman have an assistant, it was not uncommon
+for a younger man to help out. According to
+one informant, when Blind Mike, one of the well-known
+doctors in historic times, was becoming a doctor, his
+teacher required him to smoke four hand-rolled cigarettes
+in a row without allowing the smoke to escape
+from his lungs. This was not considered an exercise
+in legerdemain but a way to develop the younger man's
+control over his power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Each doctor received instruction from his spirit
+familiar as to what paraphernalia he should gather but
+there was a great deal of uniformity in the outfits of
+Washo doctors. The following description is of the kit
+of my informant's uncle, who practiced until the first
+decade of this century, and it includes some items
+clearly postwhite in origin.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>I don't know what all doctors had but I'll tell
+you what my old uncle had 'cause I seen it lots of
+times. [At this point another Indian entered the
+house, obviously curious, and my informant stopped
+talking until the visitor left.] He had eagle feathers
+and magpie feathers. He had a rattle with six or
+eight cocoons on a stick wrapped in weasel skin and
+humming bird feathers. He had a tobacco pouch of
+tree-squirrel hide. He also had a stone. It looked
+like a big tooth with a cavity in it. He told me how
+he got that stone. He was walking to town [Genoa,
+Nevada] one day and he heard something whistle.
+He kept on walking but it whistled again. So he went
+looking for what was making that noise and he found
+that stone setting by a fence post. I heard that stone
+whistle sometimes when he was doctoring. He also
+had a tie made out of beadwork. Lots of times a
+doctor would pay some woman to make him a real
+fine basket or some bead work because that's what
+his power told him to do.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+Washo doctors often worked together on <q>tough</q> cases.
+One such was the treatment of what seems to have been
+an infected elbow by my informant's uncle and Blind
+Mike. The first step in the process was to blow smoke
+in a circle around the painful area so that the sickness
+couldn't move. This was followed by singing, rattling,
+and sucking until something bright began to come out.
+It was, according to witnesses, as bright as a star, so
+bright in fact that even Blind Mike could see it. The
+bright object proved to be (if we can trust descriptions)
+the stone and setting of a cheap ring which was removed
+from the sore arm. It is interesting to note that while
+this process was successful my informant seemed to
+consider the cure less than one-hundred-per-cent effective
+because the woman who was being treated died two
+years later.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Doctors were privy to a number of secrets which
+were not common knowledge among most Washo. Such
+a secret was the cave reputed to be inside Cave Rock
+at Lake Tahoe. This cave was a retreat for shamans
+who went there to commune with their spirits or to
+secrete a particularly important piece of paraphernalia.
+The cave could be entered through a narrow opening
+on the landward side, but most shamans preferred a
+more dramatic entrance. By standing on a certain rock
+and singing a special song they were lowered through
+the water and then lifted into the cave. The last doctor
+to attempt this was Blind Mike. He was directed
+to go to the cave in a dream. However, he permitted
+<pb n='371'/><anchor id='Pg371'/>
+his wife to accompany him and when she saw him begin
+to sink into the water she screamed with fear.
+The rock stopped sinking with Mike only knee deep in
+the water. Since that time no one has attempted to
+enter the room. This promontory is the center of
+Water Baby habitation and is reported to be the upper
+end of a tunnel which extends under the mountains to
+Genoa so that Water Babies can move freely from the
+lake to the valley. The rock also marks the eastern
+end of a road of white sand reported to cross the
+lake bottom. On the northwest end of the road was located
+a bed of plants, probably wild parsnips, which
+doctors gathered for medicine. The wild parsnip was
+poisonous but doctors ate it to demonstrate their power.
+They also chewed it into a paste and spread it on
+rattlesnake bites.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another spot familiar to doctors was a mysterious
+hole in the mountains near Blue Lake. The hole could
+be located by following a spiraling path of white quartz
+toward the center. According to the Washo tale, if a
+man dropped even as much as a hair into this hole it
+made a great roaring sound. Suzie Dick, a Washo woman,
+whose claim of being one hundred years' old is
+borne out by white residents, insists that as a fifteen-year-old
+girl she went to see this hole and was terrorized
+by a huge hand which reached up out of the darkness
+and tried to seize her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Vaguely known to most Washo but familiar to doctors
+was a cave situated south and west of Gardnerville
+where ready-made grinding stones were to be
+found. These, depending on the informant, were made
+by old Indians or were put there by <q>nature</q> for the
+use of the Washo.
+</p>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Noncurative Use Of Power (2567-2593)</head>
+
+<p>
+Indian doctors often used their power in spectacular
+displays, apparently to impress patients. Often
+these displays were competitive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the words of one informant: <q>Them old doctors
+used to see who had the most power. They'd stick four
+or five sticks in the ground, each one farther away
+than the last one, and see how many they could knock
+down.</q> Then, disconcertingly, he added: <q>You can read
+about that in Kroeber. He tells about some other Indians
+who did that but I guess he didn't know the
+Washo did it too.</q> This informant considered Professor
+Kroeber as an authority second only to himself
+in matters pertaining to Indians.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Divining And Rainmaking (2553-2556, 2566)</head>
+
+<p>
+There were no doctors with rainmaking power among
+the Washo. However, anyone, particularly a man deemed
+to be a leader, might encourage rain during the summer.
+The rite, which is still observed occasionally by
+individuals, consists of soaking a pine-nut cone in water
+and placing it on the ground in the pine-nut hills. Modern
+Washo look upon this more as a prayer, but in the
+past it may have been considered as a spell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ancient matriarch Suzie Dick steadfastly insists
+that less rain falls in the Carson Valley than in neighboring
+valleys because <q>nobody is talking to God anymore
+around here.</q> While she talked she pointed to the
+clouds hanging over Washo and Antelope valleys and to
+the cloudless sky overhead.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Older white residents speak of Indian rainmakers,
+which is a source of much amusement among the Washo.
+Until a few years ago an Indian, who still lives in
+Dresslerville, used to take advantage of the gullibility
+or generosity of white ranchers by performing <q>rain
+dances</q> on their property in return for handouts of
+food. The Washo generally frowned on this, but because
+white men were the victims of the fraud it was considered
+harmless.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The father of the false rainmaker was a diviner of
+stolen articles. His method was to sit and smoke until
+the location of the desired article was revealed to him.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Objects Of Power</head>
+
+<p>
+Eagle and magpie feathers were considered to be
+the most powerful items of a shaman's paraphernalia.
+Doctors are reported to have captured eagles and even
+to have tried to raise them to obtain feathers (223-231)
+The tail feathers were the most prized. Eagle feathers
+were extremely valuable and could be traded for anything
+including <q>a woman or a sack of pine-nut flour
+or anything worth a lot.</q> Ideally the eagle was tied up
+until the shaman removed three tail feathers. The doctor
+then tied a string of beads to the bird's leg and
+released it as a messenger to the spirits. Description
+of eagle-down costumes suggest that birds were stripped
+of many more feathers than the ideal three. In historic
+times individuals have attempted to contain eagles. One
+old man in Woodfords is well known for having kept
+them on cradle-boards for easy transport, but such
+experiments usually ended in failure. Magpie feathers
+were considered less powerful than eagle feathers but
+still were highly prized. Today they are gathered by
+chance&mdash;taken from dead birds on the highway or picked
+up where they were shed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the past, eagle and magpie feathers were important
+parts of the dress of warriors. Magpie feathers
+were used to make a feather cap with a single feather
+suspended from the top. Informants recall their elders'
+describing eagle feathers' being suspended individually
+from the upper arms and thighs of particularly powerful
+warriors.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Modern peyotists have lost none of the traditional
+Washo feeling about these feathers. The ceremonial
+fans of road chiefs, believed the only persons capable
+of handling the immense power, are made of eagle
+feathers. Other peyotists favor the less powerful but
+nonetheless potent magpie feather (d'Azevedo and Merriam
+1957).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tobacco, as the foregoing accounts illustrate, played
+an important part in Washo shamanism. It appears to
+have been used as an offering to the spirits. In addition
+it is clear that it was felt to have special power
+of its own. Today older men smoke sparingly and are
+often somewhat embarrassed to be offered a cigarette
+casually during conversation. In prewhite times the
+tobacco was a native variety gathered and dried by the
+shaman. Today Bull Durham appears to have replaced
+the wild variety as <q>Indian</q> tobacco. The Indians seemed
+delighted to see me rolling a cigarette; they acted as
+if I were mastering what they felt was a particularly
+Indian art. Bull Durham is also important in peyote
+ceremonialism because it is <q>real Indian tobacco.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Incense cedar plays an important role in modern
+peyote meetings. It is dried and thrown into the fire
+to create a fragment smoke which is considered beneficial.
+<pb n='372'/><anchor id='Pg372'/>
+Meeting officials fan it into the atmosphere and
+<q>rub</q> themselves in the smoke to obtain power or
+purification. This has a connection with traditional
+Washo ritual, but the relationship is unclear and the
+aboriginal practices obscure. One group of Washo,
+which was assigned a special place in the large camp
+circle formed during the pine-nut dances held at
+Double Springs Flats in the late nineteenth century,
+is said to have special rights in connection with cutting
+cedar. Modern informants do not have a clear
+picture of what the rights were or what the customs
+surrounding cedar were. One informant did say that
+if the cedar <q>bunch</q> found anyone else with cedar they
+would say <q>you aren't supposed to have that</q> and would
+make fun of them. She could offer no further details
+or explanations.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Sorcery And Witchcraft (2562-2564)</head>
+
+<p>
+There is no real distinction in the Washo mind between
+a doctor and a sorcerer or witch. Particularly
+powerful doctors were able to kill their enemies. One
+of the most feared bits of paraphernalia was an obsidian
+point found by a doctor. These large points were
+not made by Washo and are apparently remnants of
+some previous cultural occupation in the area. If a
+Washo finds one point up he carefully knocks it over
+with a long stick before touching it. These points are
+called mankillers, but I was unable to learn exactly
+how they were used. They are still viewed with a certain
+amount of awe, and the finding of a large point
+in a sandpit in Smith Valley was known in Woodfords,
+fifty miles away.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sorcery was used to explain the abandonment of an
+ancient campsite at Dangberg's Hot Springs. This site
+is a trove of grinding stones, points, and other Washo
+artifacts. Formerly there were numerous skeletons in
+the area, according to both Indian and white informants.
+However, the site has not been occupied in historic
+times because of the following incident.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>One winter there was a lot of Washos camped
+around the hot springs. My old aunt was camped
+there. There was this northern Washo [from Sierra
+Valley] came into the camp. Nobody know'd him
+and nobody would feed him. But my old aunt fed
+him. But he was mad at them people so he went
+to Markleville and made a lot of medicine. [Why
+he went to Markleville is unclear. This is the site
+of another hot springs, a fact which may figure in
+the magic used.] After he made medicine for a
+while he kind of spit on his fingers and pointed at
+Dangberg Hot Springs. Right where he pointed all
+the grass got brown; you can still see that line of
+brown if you know where to look, and a lot of Indians
+died. Nobody ever went back there. My old
+aunt she didn't die.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+Only one Washo disputed this story. She, a very
+progressive old woman and sometime Christian, attributed
+the deaths to an epidemic and <q>didn't think</q> the
+doctor was responsible.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Witchcraft and sorcery among the present-day
+Washo is a difficult subject to investigate. Even among
+themselves it is treated with extreme indirection and
+veiled hints. In discussing the problem with d'Azevedo
+I found that we were in agreement that a number of
+killings reported among these people could probably be
+attributed to revenge for, or prevention of, antisocial
+use of power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One woman, now dead, was described as probably
+a witch. The wife of the diviner mentioned earlier was
+considered a powerful and dangerous woman. She was
+useful to the community because she knew prayers and
+songs for the pine-nut celebration, but dangerous, particularly
+if she met you at night. One informant describes the
+attitude of the rest of the community toward her.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>She used to come around at night and knock on
+your door and say she was lost. She came here one
+night and pounded on the door with her cane but we
+wouldn't let her in. After she went away my husband
+rolled up a newspaper and set it on fire and ran it
+along the inside of the door where she had knocked.
+I don't know why he did that except we was afraid
+of her.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+Stewart also reports this attitude toward the same
+woman (1941, p. 444; 2562).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The woman who told me this story is herself under
+the shadow of indictment for witchcraft. Curiously
+enough the same phrase, <q>I am afraid of her,</q> serves
+as an accusation. She and her sister-in-law quarreled
+over the disposal of her husband's body two years ago.
+Since that time they have not spoken, and the sister-in-law
+has been proclaiming her fear.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>War Power</head>
+
+<p>
+The Washo have not engaged in real hostilities with
+the Miwok or Maidu for well over a century and Paiute
+hostilities appear to have taken the form of occasional
+defensive skirmishes; thus the details of war magic
+are vague. However, Washo tradition repeatedly mentions
+a month-long period during which doctors gathered
+and made medicine against the enemy before
+launching a campaign. Usually this took place at Woodfords,
+which was the site of a large earth lodge dance
+house copied after Miwok structures and described as
+<q>where the young mens learned them Miwok dances.</q>
+(A second dance house is known to have existed in
+Sierra Valley; attributed to the Maidu, it fell into disuse
+after the death of its owner.)
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Summary Of Shamanism</head>
+
+<p>
+Although there appears to be only a single practicing
+shaman among the Washo today (and he certainly
+not a practitioner of the old school), it would be a
+mistake, in my opinion, to claim that Washo shamanism
+is a thing of the past. Few, if any, Washo over
+forty have not attended a shamanistic curing ceremony
+and many have been patients. Even those Indians who
+have rejected shamanism as old fashioned&mdash;or in deference
+to white attitudes&mdash;give one the impression of
+<q>protesting too much</q> in their denial of old beliefs.
+The woman who took her granddaughter to Rupert, the
+curer, is among the most progressive of the Washo.
+She is a nominal Christian, active in an informal way
+as a representative of her people before white authority,
+and is most apt to deny supernatural explanations
+of historic incidents. Nonetheless she has faith in the
+power of this modern shaman and in the cures reported
+for the old-time shamans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One factor in the decline of the shaman as a principal
+in curative activities was the rise of the peyote
+cult in the mid-1930's (Stewart 1944). The cult was
+introduced by a Paiute who gathered a number of
+Washo followers. His cult or <q>way</q> has since been
+superseded by a strictly Washo group, following the
+Teepee Way (d'Azevedo 1957). The Teepee Way is an
+illustration of the effect an ethnographer can have on
+the lives of his subjects. A casual remark by an ethnographer
+that the peyote ceremonies carried out by
+the Paiute leader were not like those he had seen
+elsewhere motivated a Washo to drive to Idaho to find
+out for himself. This trip resulted in the formation of
+the new cult and the near dissolution of the group
+headed by the Paiute. Washo peyotism has incorporated
+much of the curing emphasis of Washo shamanism and
+much of the symbolism as well. The peyote button is
+reminiscent of the poison parsnip taken by old-time
+doctors (d'Azevedo 1957). The powerful eagle feather
+is reserved for the use of road chiefs just as it was
+the special symbol of the shaman or powerful warrior.
+The fans carried by most peyotists are often composed
+of magpie feathers. Curative peyote meetings are often
+conducted by a special chief, reputed to have very potent
+curing powers, who does not conduct the regular
+peyote meeting. Even in regular meetings one of the
+main emphases is on curing ailments of both the body
+and spirit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Led by an assimilated Washo, known by other Indians
+as a <q>white man's Indian,</q> the shamans brought
+suit against the peyotists urging they be arrested and
+their meetings banned. They charged, among other
+things, that peyote meetings were occasions of sexual
+license. Such open accusations and the bringing of
+white men into a strictly Indian matter created a great
+deal of antagonism toward the shamans among the
+Washo, whether or not they were committed to peyote.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peyote curing differs only in detail from shamanistic
+curing as these two stories may illustrate.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>Had these gallstones and them white doctors
+operated and they got a lotta little stones but pretty
+soon it was back. So I decided to pray. You know
+whenever an Indian wants to pray the first thing he
+turns to is water and tobacco. So every night when
+I went to the john [toilet] I'd roll a cigarette and
+pray to that Peyote. I'd say, <q>I don't want to be
+sick so you got to help them white doctors. You
+got to get all those little stones together in one
+place.</q> That Peyote is a good medicine. I used to
+go to meetings and it helped me before. So every
+night I prayed to the Peyote to get them stones in
+one place. Then I went to the hospital and they operated
+and got out the biggest gallstone they ever
+saw. It would hardly go in a fruit jar. I told that
+Peyote that the job was too big for it all alone that
+it should just help them white doctors and get all
+them stones in one place.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+Another informant, mentioned earlier as a peyote
+chief with special curing power, recounts the events
+leading up to the death of his former wife of cancer
+of the kidneys.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='373'/><anchor id='Pg373'/>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>Yeah I had a couple of meetings for Onie. I
+helped her too. Except she would not do the things
+I told her to do. I made that cancer move around
+from her back where it hurt a lot. I got it around
+in front where it didn't hurt her so much. But she
+wouldn't keep doing the things I told her to do.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+These two incidents reveal traditional attitudes transferred
+into a new framework of curing. In the first
+place, illness is a corporeal object which can be manipulated&mdash;moved
+and (if one's power is sufficient) removed.
+Secondly, peyote is viewed as a manifestation
+of a spiritual power. The informant with gallstones did
+not attend meetings to have his ailment cured; rather,
+he used water and tobacco, traditional adjuncts to shamanistic
+curing. Moreover he did not take peyote for
+his illness; he simply prayed to Peyote in a manner
+very similar to praying to a spirit guardian for assistance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Other shadows of the shamanistic past seem to lie
+heavily on the minds of modern Washo peyotists. In
+his discussion of peyotism, d'Azevedo (1957, pp. 624-626)
+describes in some detail the attitudes about the
+assistance or interference that one peyote singer or
+drummer may receive from another. The statements
+of his informants, although couched in different terms,
+are reminiscent of many I heard dealing with competitions
+between shamans.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For several years peyotists were a powerful factor
+in the tribal council, and they were not loath to play
+upon the connection between peyote and poison parsnips
+in the minds of their cotribalists. The peyote button is
+considered to be a powerful agent and as such potentially
+dangerous. Therefore a man who could deal with this
+agent, just like a shaman who could eat the poison parsnip
+with impunity, was a man to be listened to and
+followed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Despite a belief in and a dependence on shamanistic
+curing or its latter-day counterpart, the peyote curing
+session, most Washo are willing patients of white doctors.
+This suggests that perhaps the old views are disappearing
+under the scientific certainty of Western
+medicine. Quite the reverse seems true, however. Every
+failure of white medicine strengthens the Indians' belief
+that the real source of curing power is a gift from
+nature. Every success is attributed to assistance the
+white men have received from Indians' power. When
+asked the direct question: <q>Why aren't there so many
+Indian doctors today?</q> my informant answered: <q>Well,
+Indians just don't need all that power today. The white
+doctors know a lot of things and can cure sickness
+pretty good. In the old days we didn't know them things
+so we had to have them real powers.</q> This attitude,
+that nature provided whatever was necessary for Washo
+survival, crops up in other contexts which I will discuss
+later in this paper. Far from disappearing, the
+old notions seem to be maintaining a strong hold on
+the minds of the Washo. As the number of active peyotists
+dwindle (d'Azevedo and Merriam 1957), one gets
+the impression that the shamanistic forms may again
+become a more important part of Washo life.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<pb n='374'/><anchor id='Pg374'/>
+
+<div rend='page-break-before: always'>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Dreams And Dreamers (2566)</head>
+
+<p>
+Mentioned almost as frequently as doctors are
+dreamers, whom the Washo view as distinct from
+shamans. The so-called antelope shaman and rabbit
+boss fall into this category rather than that of doctor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dreamers were gifted with a power to foretell special
+classes of events in dreams. All Washo believe
+dreams are likely to foretell the future, and they are
+alert to find meanings in any dreams they have. Certain
+persons, those thought of as <q>dreamers,</q> are reported
+to have special gifts of this nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are apparently no dreamers among the Washo
+today, in the sense that the term was used in times
+past. That is, no one is especially singled out as having
+infallible dreams foretelling certain classes of
+events. It may be that the breakdown of the band structure,
+which was related to economic exploitative activity,
+in effect, forced everyone to dream for himself. In
+the past, dreamers were particularly important in setting
+the time and place for activities which were carried
+out by large groups, such as hunting, fishing,
+pine-nut gathering, and war. With the disappearance
+of the last seminomadic bands in the middle 1920's,
+as well as with the reduced importance of hunting and
+fishing as group activities, persons having dreams
+which directed group actions were no longer useful.
+Today, dreams appear to occur to a number of individuals,
+and those felt to be of social significance usually
+deal with catastrophe or other foreboding subjects.
+The following stories were told to me by the widow
+under the shadow of witchcraft. When I asked her if
+she thought any of her friends would tell me their
+dreams, she replied: <q>No I don't think no Washo would
+tell you their dreams. But I'm not superstitious about
+them things and I'll tell you these two dreams I had.</q>
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>One summer I was up at the Lake [Tahoe] with my
+husband and I had a dream that the gambling house at
+Dresslerville [a structure known officially as the community
+center] was on fire. There was kids inside and
+they was screaming but there wasn't no water. I saw
+the men all around with buckets but they couldn't do
+nothing because there wasn't no water. I told my husband
+about the dream the next morning and he said I
+should take a bath and pray. That's what we do to keep
+a bad dream from happening.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+The following winter the community center did in fact
+burn down. A young Indian in a rage after having an argument
+with his father hurled a bottle of kerosene against
+a wood stove. The resulting fire could not be extinguished
+because the Dresslerville pump was not working. Whether
+the dream was really a prophecy after the fact I do not
+know. It is significant in any case that the prophecy appeared
+in the form of a dream. My informant's second
+dream foretold the violent death of a young Indian woman.
+The prophecy came true two years later.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Her statement that other Washo would be reluctant to
+discuss their dreams was all too true, confirming the
+importance that dreams play in their daily lives. A number
+of tangential remarks suggest that the belief that
+dreams confer advance knowledge of the future and that
+they confer power is still common among the Washo. One
+informant said, in talking about <q>old-time dreamers</q>:
+<q>Today a lot of people will say they had a dream about
+something, and act real big. I just tell them they are
+crazy. They aren't real dreamers. They couldn't have a
+dream about their girl friend.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Until very recent times a dream was justification for
+almost any group activity. The most common motivation
+for such events as a pine-nut dance, a war party, or a
+rabbit or antelope drive was usually that <q>So-and-So had
+a dream.</q> An announcement would be made and others
+would gather for the event.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These dreams are clearly different from the visitations
+of spirits to prospective shamans, which occurred repeatedly
+and were kept secret. Dreamers, on the other hand,
+publicly reported individual dreams. Being a dreamer
+appears to have been one of the important factors in attaining
+positions of leadership, informal as such positions
+were among the Washo. The almost legendary Captain
+Jim,<note place='foot'>Captain Jim is the only Washo whom the Washo generally accept as
+having been a leader of the entire tribe. Other claimants to the title of
+chief of the Washo are contemptuously discounted. There were in the
+past a number of men, usually considered leaders of a <q>bunch</q> who were
+called <q>captains</q> or, less often, <q>chiefs</q> because they dealt with the
+white population. The entire institution of captain may well be a post-white
+development.</note> who was acknowledged as a leader by all the Washo
+in the late nineteenth century, is considered to have been
+a dreamer by many of the Washo. Those informants who
+remember the big times at Double Springs Flat, in which
+a large number of the Washo of the day participated prior
+to the pine-nut harvest, usually begin their accounts with
+the statement that Jim would have a dream and announce
+the date of the meeting. Various parts of the ceremony
+were also validated by dreams. It is equally clear that
+although Jim was an honored leader and had dreaming
+power he was not considered a doctor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Negative testimony also indicates the importance of
+dreaming in Washo life. It is to the advantage of certain
+individuals to deny the <q>chieftainship</q> of Captain Jim;
+they vehemently deny that he was a dreamer but insist
+that he was simply a good man who was trusted by the
+Washo. <q>That Jim was just a good old guy that everybody
+obeyed because they liked him and the whole group selected
+him. He wasn't no more of a dreamer than I am,</q>
+is the way one claimant for the Washo chieftainship put
+it. However, his own claim was based on his relationship
+to a man who was a rabbit boss and who dreamed when
+it was time to hunt rabbits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Clearly the Washo believed and still believe that dreams
+make one privy to the future and provide important insights
+on which one can base decisions. The specific uses to
+which dreams can be put change with the situation. Antelope
+dreaming is no longer important because there are
+no antelope. Rabbit dreamers no longer exist because the
+rabbit drive has lost much of its importance in Washo life.
+Conversely, dreams dealing with modern problems appear
+to be taken seriously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One informant often dreams of snakes and evidences a
+great fear of them. The Washo view this behavior as a
+rational response to a real warning and consider the man's
+caution as good judgment in the face of repeated warnings.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<pb n='375'/><anchor id='Pg375'/>
+
+<div rend='page-break-before: always'>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Ritual Activities</head>
+
+<p>
+Few, if any, Washo activities do not contain an element
+which we can describe as religious, supernatural,
+or magical. This element is most commonly revealed
+by specifically ritualized behavior carried on while a
+regular course of action is being taken by a Washo.
+The following sections will deal with this ritualized
+behavior and the rationale for it offered by the Washo.
+</p>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Conception And Contraception</head>
+
+<p>
+Apparently the Washo have no specific ritual to encourage
+conception. They are extremely fond of children
+and desire as many as possible. No Washo has
+ever heard of, or will admit having heard of, infanticide
+among the Washo, although they have heard of
+the practice among other Indians. The birth of an illegitimate
+child, despite the attitude of whites, is
+greeted with as much joy as that of a legitimate child.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, it is believed that conception can be prevented
+by manipulation of the afterbirth. When the
+afterbirth is expelled it is wrapped in a piece of deer
+hide or cloth and buried. It is always placed right side
+up if a woman desires to continue bearing children. If
+she wishes not to have children it is buried upside
+down. If at a later time she wishes to become pregnant,
+she will turn the earth where the upside-down
+afterbirth was buried. Informants say that not many
+people do this any more, mainly because younger
+women go to the hospital to have their babies, but
+that many people know how and some may still do it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Certain Indians are reported to be able to prevent
+the birth of children without the knowledge of the woman
+concerned. This requires the cooperation of a
+woman who has just had a child and who will give the
+magician the afterbirth. It is then buried or hidden
+upside down and the woman concerned will not become
+pregnant. The method of transferring the influence of
+the afterbirth from the real mother to the victim was
+not explained, and in fact the practice was revealed
+with a good deal of reluctance.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Birth (2178-2293)</head>
+
+<p>
+Informants report that the baby was not touched,
+either by the mother or her attendants, until the afterbirth
+was expelled. The birth and recuperation were
+carried out in a pit filled with warm ashes. A slow
+birth was blamed on the belief that the mother had
+slept too much or been lazy during her pregnancy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The mother was not allowed to eat salt until the
+baby's umbilicus dropped off, usually in two or three
+days. The umbilicus was dried and hung on the right
+side of the cradleboard to insure that the baby would
+be right-handed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The baby's hair was cut about thirty days after its
+birth. Until that time the mother was not permitted to
+eat meat or to leave her bed of ashes. However, one
+of my informants who had borne eight children claimed
+never to have spent more than two weeks in her lying-in
+bed. She did insist that <q>in the old days</q> women
+adhered to the traditional thirty-day period.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A pregnant woman was not permitted to eat eggs
+with double yolks, or double fruit, lest she have twins.
+No special action was taken if twins were born, however.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During her confinement a woman was not supposed
+to rub the sweat from her face. She might dab the
+sweat off, but to rub it would cause her to be wrinkled
+in her old age. One informant assured me that this
+was the truth and pointed to her own relatively unwrinkled
+face as proof.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When a child loses a milk tooth, it is taken up and
+thrown into the brush. At that time an admonition is
+shouted to <q>some little animal with sharp teeth,</q> that
+it should exchange the milk tooth for a good permanent
+one (2295a-2301)
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Puberty: Girls (2305-2352)</head>
+
+<p>
+Aside from the <q>big times</q> which will be described
+later, the girls' puberty dance was the most important
+ceremonial gathering among the Washo. This custom
+has survived with tenacity and it is still considered a
+matter of real concern if for some reason a girl does
+not have <q>her dance.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Although much of the activity at a girls' dance is
+clearly social throughout the occasion, there is a series
+of ritual actions which must be carried out. The following
+account is an idealized version of the <q>old way.</q>
+Other accounts will describe variations which have developed
+in the past years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Certain statements which I make will appear to be
+at variance with Stewart's Culture Element Distribution
+Lists. However, I am inclined to think that the absence
+of traits in the memory of my own informants represents
+a pattern of change rather than inaccuracies on
+the part of earlier investigators. With minor exceptions,
+differences between statements made today and Stewart's
+lists take the form of traits marked present in the
+lists which are unknown to my own informants. Moreover,
+most of these differences are to be found in the
+hair-combing and scratching complex and suggest that
+the taboos on hair combing were abandoned some time
+between the childhood of his informants, who were in
+their seventies in 1936, and that of my own informants,
+who are in their seventies today (1959).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The parents of my informants must not have known
+or not enforced combing taboos, while the parents of
+Stewart's informants must have considered them proper
+and so instructed their children. We can speculate, on
+this basis, that the taboo on hair combing and scratching
+was abandoned by the Washo some time in the first
+half of the century. Whether this can be credited to the
+influence of the white man or to a continuing pattern
+of change is a matter for further investigation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The account of the entire puberty complex which
+follows was given to me by a seventy-five-year-old
+Washo woman who is generally consulted whenever a
+family plans to hold the girls' dance.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>When a girl is about ten she is told what is
+going to happen to her. When her first period comes
+[she is not specially confined] people tell her to be
+<pb n='376'/><anchor id='Pg376'/>
+active and not to be lazy. She drinks only warm
+water. In the old days anything that she gathered
+anyone could come along and take. She couldn't eat
+meat or salt but Washo don't think eggs are the
+same as meat.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+(This last statement was in response to direct
+questions and does not reflect special Washo traits.
+In fact, all food appears to have been forbidden for
+four days.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The family of the girl immediately prepares as
+much food as possible to feed the guests. One informant
+remembers in his youth that a family of a girl
+eligible for a dance would light a large fire part way
+up on Job's Peak to announce the event.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dance itself is carried out at night. Singing
+and hand-clapping accompany the dancing, which may
+go on all night. During the dance the girl carries a
+wand about six or seven feet long. The wand is made
+of a very light wood, often elderberry, and painted
+red with a native pigment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the past, groups camped about Dresslerville
+staged their dances at the base of a prominent hill
+nearby. During the night the girl was required to run
+to the top of the hill and light four fires; this practice
+has been discontinued for many years, however, apparently
+as a result of white accusations that the Indians
+started range fires and also to avoid attracting
+curious whites.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+About dawn one of the girl's male relatives ran
+forward and snatched the stick from her. He then ran
+with it into the hills and hid it in an upright position
+in some out-of-the-way place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The elderberry wand is a device used to insure
+the girl's continued agility and lightness of foot. As
+long as the hidden stick remains unbroken the girl
+will remain straight and agile.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the stick was taken away, an older female
+relative took a small amount of ash on a whisk of
+sage, and dusted the nude girl on the head, arms,
+and legs. This ritual was accompanied by an informal
+prayer that the girl not suffer pains in her head,
+arms, or legs. She was told: <q>I am doing this early
+in the morning so that you will get up early in the
+morning and work hard.</q> The whisk was then thrown
+into the crowd, along with a gift, which today is usually
+a bit of money. Food or beads were apparently
+used in the past.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the dusting, a basketful of water was brought
+forward and the girl was bathed. The basket was then
+thrown into the crowd. This was considered a high
+point of the celebration. After she was bathed, a few
+dabs of native pigment were placed on her chest and
+face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ceremony above was described as the <q>real
+way to do it ... the way they did it in the old days.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Carson Valley Record Courier reports a puberty
+dance held in the summer of 1919 in which at
+least some of these activities were observed (although
+the reporter thought he was attending a betrothal dance)
+Some two-hundred Indians were in attendance. There
+were no fires, only lanterns and flashlights. The participants
+had taken up a collection and purchased watermelon,
+ice cream, cake, pie, bread, and meat for the
+feast. The food was served (to the surprise of the reporter)
+on a long table with plates. About midnight two
+girls appeared in the center of the dancing circle carrying
+long wands.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In 1926 Lowie witnessed a girls' dance near Minden
+and was obviously unimpressed. The crowd gathered
+slowly and gradually began to dance. He makes no
+mention of either the wand or the ash-dusting ritual,
+nor does he give us details of the feast. The bath was
+given from a tin can, and he does not report a basket's
+being thrown (Lowie 1939, pp. 305-308).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One suspects that dances held today are somewhat
+more elaborate than those of three or four decades
+ago, possibly as a response to increasing awareness
+and pride in the fact of Indianness. Certainly every
+girl expects to have her dance, just as a debutante
+expects to have a coming-out party. When death in the
+family made it inadvisable to hold a dance on a girl's
+first menstrual period, everyone agreed that it was
+indeed a shame. The girl went through her four-day
+fast and a small party was held for her when her
+second period occurred. One informant insisted that
+in the <q>old days</q> a dance was always held on the occasion
+of a girl's second period but that this had long
+since been abandoned (Cartwright, 1952, confirms).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The basket plays an important part in the ceremony
+and it would be considered improper if there were no
+basket to be thrown to the crowd. It is best if the
+basket is well made and can actually hold the ceremonial
+bath water. If such a basket cannot be obtained,
+and they are growing rarer as the older basket makers
+die, the bath is poured from a bucket, but a less fancy
+basket is still thrown to the crowd. The bath and dusting
+are now given to the girl while clad in her slip,
+in deference to white notions of modesty which are
+strictly observed by the Washo. The painting is carried
+out only if native pigment is available. The wand
+is left unpainted unless native pigments are available.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The ritual of seizing and hiding the wand is carried
+out perfunctorily. During a recent dance the girl's
+uncle took the wand but simply carried it to the grandmother's
+house, intending to take it to the mountains
+later. However, the stick remained with the grandmother,
+who was somewhat concerned about it. It was
+kept in an upright position, and she constantly reminded
+the man that he should take it. He regularly promised
+that he would, the next time he came to visit, but just
+as regularly forgot it. It may well be that as an adult
+and an important peyote chief, he was reluctant to
+carry out what he considered an old Indian superstition.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is no indication now that the girls' puberty
+dance is dying out among the Washo. It may well be
+changing in form and developing into more of a party.
+As the number of persons who know white dances increases,
+these may replace Indian dances. There is
+some suggestion of this in other ceremonial activities.
+And of course the fact that future generations of Washo
+girls will attend integrated Nevada public schools and
+associate with white students with different aspirations
+for approaching adulthood may have important effects
+on the future of the girls' dance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Pine-nut flour seems to have taken on an important
+symbolic role in latter-day dances. We see no mention
+of this food in 1919 or 1926. Today it might be considered
+proper to delay holding a dance if it was not
+possible to get enough pine-nut flour to feed the crowd.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Puberty: Boys (2379-2386, 369-374)</head>
+
+<p>
+The approaching maturity of a boy cannot be measured
+in dramatic physiological terms, and puberty is
+considered to occur about when a boy's voice changes.
+<pb n='377'/><anchor id='Pg377'/>
+The ritual for boys is less important than that for
+girls.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The emphasis for a boy is on his developing ability
+as a hunter. Although hunting is far less important
+today than it was even in the recent past, few Washo
+go through the winter without depending on rabbit or
+deer for meat. The pursuit of the squirrel, ground
+squirrel, gopher, and other small game appears to be
+minimal, but certainly this food is not spurned, if
+available. One of the common legal conflicts with the
+white man stems from out-of-season hunting during
+the winter by Washo men filling out the family larder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Young boys were encouraged to hunt with bow and
+arrow as soon as they could. Quite often such training
+was carried out by an older male relative&mdash;a grandfather
+or an old uncle. Expeditions of old men and
+young boys after chipmunk and squirrel appear to have
+been common, freeing able-bodied men for major hunting
+while the experienced, but less able, older men
+instructed the boys.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, all the game taken by a boy was taboo to
+his immediate family. This included young deer and
+does which he might kill. Such game was given to another
+family, usually related. The boy was also forbidden
+to eat his own take. The taboo included any
+fish the boy caught.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When a boy killed a buck deer considered by his
+father or other male relative to be big enough, he
+went through a simple ceremony. One informant said
+that in the old days a boy was required to crawl under
+the antlers of his kill. His father or older male relative
+then gave him a bath, and from that time he was
+considered a man and the taboo on his kill was lifted
+from himself and his family.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+My informant, a mother of four sons now over
+forty, stated that all her sons had gone through the
+taboo period and were bathed by their father when
+they killed their first big buck. Until very recently
+she received meat from some relatives with a young
+son who hunted frequently.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whether or not the young Washo are still observing
+this taboo and ritual I was unable to determine. However,
+in certain conservative families it seems probable
+that at least minimal ritual is observed.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Marriage (2018-2051)</head>
+
+<p>
+Marriage is entirely a social institution, and no
+religious elements appear to have entered into it.
+Traditionally the ceremony, if there was any at all,
+consisted of a <q>chief</q> (respected man) throwing a
+blanket over the shoulders of a couple at a dance.
+Ceremonial gatherings, such as the pine-nut dances
+and the girls' dances were important in the selection
+of marriage partners, inasmuch as boys and girls
+came together at these gatherings to engage in flirtation,
+affairs, and courtship. Dreamers at the <q>big
+times</q> are reported by informants to have exhorted
+married couples to be good to each other and not
+fight (see also Lowie 1939, p. 303).
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Death (2389-2453)</head>
+
+<p>
+No amount of social dislocation or cultural impact
+alters the constant fact of death. Each generation faces
+this inevitability. It is less than surprising then that
+changes in attitudes and rituals surrounding death
+among the Washo have changed very slowly. The only
+changes which appear to have developed in Washo death
+customs are those imposed by direct intervention of
+the whites or as unavoidable consequences of changes
+in other aspects of the culture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the past, when a person died the house in which
+he expired was abandoned by his family. Of course, if
+the death occurred in the spring or summer such abandonment
+was simple; during these seasons the Washo
+usually lived in simple brush shelters. A winter death
+was a more serious matter; it was during this season
+that the Washo lived in the gal'sdaɲl&mdash;a structure
+made to last through the winter and until the next
+winter, when it was reoccupied. Valley Washo often
+made these winter homes of brush or tules. In the
+foothills and mountains, bark slabs and tree limbs
+were utilized. If an occupant died, this home must be
+abandoned and was often burned down, and the immediate
+family moved to another campsite. Thus a family
+which suffered no deaths during the winters might
+spend several years in a single campground, whereas
+a less fortunate family might have to move every
+winter, or even oftener than that.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few Washo began building simple rectangular
+board and batten houses in the 1890's. Most of the
+others continued to live in gal'sdaɲ¿l made of boards
+and scrap, begged, stolen, or purchased from the lumber
+mills which were quite numerous in the area at
+the beginning of the century. In the 1920's, when most
+of the Washo moved into the <q>colonies</q> established for
+them by the government, the native-style houses were
+abandoned in favor of the wooden homes built by the
+government. No longer permitted to move about the
+country at will, and frankly unwilling to abandon the
+more comfortable white-style houses, the Washo adjusted
+their death customs. The most common adjustment
+was to prepare for an impending death by shifting
+seriously ill persons into an adjoining structure,
+often a shack built in the native manner or a shed or
+lean-to. This structure could be burned down without
+loss when its inhabitant died.<note place='foot'>The willingness
+of the Washo to send gravely ill persons to the hospital
+seems in part motivated by the wish to avoid a death in the house.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Washo viewed this destruction of a house occupied
+by a dead person as simply preventing his spirit
+from bothering the living.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Most Washo death customs display a conscious attempt
+to avoid association with the dead. Barrett reports
+that cremation was practiced, and the bones
+placed in a stream to prevent their desecration. However,
+this appears to have been only one of the disposal
+customs and is not well remembered by Washo
+living today. The burning or burying of the personal
+possessions of the dead was common. Certain prized
+possessions were interred with the body, which was
+usually wrapped in a shroud of matting, deerskin, or
+bearhide and placed in a fissure or cave in the mountains.
+Although there are a number of locations known
+by both Indians and local whites as old burying grounds,
+all my informants agreed that in the <q>real old days</q>
+there was no special cemetery and that these burial
+spots have developed since the coming of the white
+man. This may well have been as a result of direct
+white interference with native funeral customs and an
+insistence that Indians concentrate their burials. Some
+of these sites have become traditional among the Washo.
+</p>
+
+<pb n='378'/><anchor id='Pg378'/>
+
+<p>
+The dispute between the widow and the sister mentioned
+earlier was an argument as to whether the deceased
+would be buried in one of these sites or in the cemetery
+at Stewart, Nevada.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A white man who has lived in the area for ninety
+years, reported that as a boy he often came across
+caches of belongings of dead Indians in the mountains.
+Today, prized possessions are either crowded into the
+casket with the body or burned or secreted in some
+remote area of the Sierra.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Funeral ceremonies were apparently simple. The
+body was wrapped and carried into the hills to be interred.
+Prayers in the form of a short speech were
+directed toward the dead. <q>We are burying you because
+you are dead. It's not because we are mad at you or
+don't like you. But you are dead. Please don't come
+back and bother us.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Widows traditionally cut their hair in mourning, a
+custom which is still practiced. Stewart reports that
+mourners painted their faces black. My informants
+denied this, but one elaborated: <q>I remember when I
+was a little girl old Indians who had lost someone
+would cry a lot and let the tears run down their faces
+and not wash their faces until they were real dirty
+and black with fire smoke.</q> Crying at a funeral was
+expected and in fact positively sanctioned. At a funeral
+conducted while I was present the sheriff arrested a
+drunken Washo who was wailing quite loudly. The Indians
+were all bitter about this because: <q>All of us
+cry at a funeral whether we are drunk or not. That's
+the way the Washo do it.</q> (This funeral was that of a
+murder victim and the sheriff was present because he
+feared there might be a reprisal attempt.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A newspaper report of a funeral in Genoa, Nevada,
+in the late 1880's records that the Indians had borrowed
+a wagon from a white man to transport the
+corpse (that of a well-known Indian woman) to the
+burying ground. The wagon was followed by a large
+crowd of weeping mourners.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Modern funerals usually take place under the auspices
+of a funeral director, and generally services are
+performed by a Christian minister from the Stewart
+Indian agency. After the white minister has left, it is
+usual for an older Indian to approach the casket and
+repeat the old funeral prayers. The reason for waiting
+until the minister leaves is to avoid hurting his
+feelings. My informants said the prayers made the
+older Indians feel more comfortable. It is usually not
+necessary to burn the deceased's home, but his belongings
+are disposed of. There is an increasing tendency
+to tend graves and put flowers on them. The
+cemetery at Stewart appears to be well decorated with
+flowers. Two old Indian graves near Lake Tahoe are
+regularly visited and jars of flowers placed on them.<note place='foot'>The
+concern for these particular graves may be in part motivated by
+the fact that they are a focal point in a Washo land claim. Because of California
+law concerning cemeteries, the Indians contend that the tourist
+camp presently on the site is there illegally and that the land is theirs.
+Thus far the camp operator has been enjoined from removing or desecrating
+the graves, but the Indians' claim has not been considered.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the husband of one of my informants died,
+following a twelve-year illness spent in a secondary
+house, she went to visit a daughter living near Lake
+Tahoe. When she returned to Dresslerville her two
+sons had torn down the shed and disposed of all their
+father's possessions. In deference to their mother's
+rather modern views about funerals, nothing had been
+placed in the casket.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+While I was in Dresslerville an Indian of about
+forty put the torch to the house in which his mother
+and father had lived. The house had been unoccupied
+since their deaths. While the house burned no effort
+was made to extinguish the fire or to call the fire
+department. A nearby rancher saw the fire and summoned
+the fire department, but the Indians refused to
+tell the firemen how the fire had started. The local
+newspaper reported it had been burned to drive away
+evil spirits. This upset my informants, one of whom
+said that the sight of the house simply made the man
+sad. She elaborated that the Washo felt they were helping
+God wipe out the tracks of a dead person. The
+Washo claim that after a death there is always a rain
+or sand storm which wipes out the tracks of the deceased.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After the Washo return home from a funeral, they
+immediately wash their faces and hands. They would
+not feel safe in handling food or children until this
+ritual had been carried out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The behavior of the dead is a matter of concern
+for most Washo (2606-2609a). Ideally, the spirit is
+supposed to go up and to the south where dead Indians
+are. This land of the dead is guarded by a number of
+men with bows. Some shamans were able to make the
+trip to the land of the dead (2541-2544). If they could
+elude these guards, they were sometimes able to recover
+the spirit of a recently dead person and return
+it. If, however, the spirit has partaken of the water
+of a spring immediately behind the guards, it can never
+be recovered. The by-now-familiar uncle of my informant
+once visited the land of the dead and reported that
+there were lots of Indians there playing games and
+having a good time. If murder victims were present
+they were with the celebrants, but the spirits of the
+killers were segregated and were not having a good
+time.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ghosts, however, wander over the land. They are
+generally malevolent. If they feel they have been badly
+used in life, or are not properly honored after death,
+or have not been given the things they wanted when
+buried, they may wreak vengeance on the living. To prevent
+this, homes were abandoned, prayers were said, and
+names of the dead were not used. In discussing a recent
+murder, one of the most progressive of the Washo was
+extremely reluctant to give the name of the victim, and,
+when she finally did, she whispered it. One of the difficulties
+encountered by government agents when pine-nut
+lands were allotted to the Washo was a refusal to name
+the ancestors on whom the allotment claim was based.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ghosts are often said to come in the form of whirlwinds
+or dust devils, and most Washo will avoid looking
+at a whirlwind. At night, a sudden puff of warm
+air is thought to be a ghost passing nearby.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<pb n='379'/><anchor id='Pg379'/>
+
+<div rend='page-break-before: always'>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Ritual In Subsistence</head>
+
+<p>
+Hunting, far more than gathering, appears to have
+been the focus of much ritual activity. This suggests
+that for the Washo the importance of ritual may have
+increased in proportion to the element of chance inherent
+in the activity undertaken. Gathering was a
+surety, assuming of course that there was a harvest
+to gather. With the wide variety of plants available
+within the Washo territory during the spring, summer,
+and fall it seems highly unlikely that the failure of
+one species of plant created a serious problem. This,
+of course, was not true of the pine nut. A failure of
+the pine-nut crop was a harbinger of a starvation
+winter. The gathering of pine nuts, in contrast to the
+gathering of other plants, was the subject of a great
+deal of ritual and, in some degree, of ceremonialism
+uncommon to most Washo gathering activities. This
+will be dealt with later in the paper.
+</p>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Hunting</head>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='italic'>Deer</hi> (1-27).&mdash;Deer were hunted in a number of
+ways. Barrett reports, and old informants confirm,
+that hunting parties of as many as thirty or forty
+men were formed in the old days to go to the western
+slope of the Sierra in pursuit of deer. The large number
+may have been necessitated by the possibility of
+meeting hostile Miwok or Maidu. My own informants
+claimed that these large parties often set fire to the
+forest to drive the deer into the open, and that the
+large number of men was needed to cover the escape
+routes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+More common, apparently, were small groups of
+five or six men, usually relatives, who went into the
+deer country together. Their technique was to drive
+along a single deer run toward one of their number
+who was considered the best shot. This method was
+very common after the introduction of firearms, particularly
+repeating firearms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Finally, any Washo man might hunt singly. Often
+groups of five or six men went hunting together but
+each did his own stalking.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Whatever the technique, hunting magic was an individual
+affair which did not require any ceremonial activities.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A single hunter, before the days of firearms, often
+stalked in the antlers and hide of a deer. Washo were
+often superstitious about using the real antlers and
+made artificial sets from manzanita branches. This
+fear of using real antlers appears related to the treatment
+which was accorded to the bones of deer. These,
+once the meat had been completely stripped off, were
+submerged in a stream to prevent their being eaten
+by dogs or wild animals. Perhaps the best account of
+the magic involved in stalking is the following by an
+aged informant, reputed to have <q>hunting medicine.</q>
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>We never had no poison arrow for bear or
+deer but had something just as good. We took red
+paint and mixed it with marrow from a deer leg
+and rubbed it on the shaft and point of the arrow.
+Arrowheads for war were little but those for big
+game like deer or bear were pretty big.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+When I asked my informant the Washo word for
+this mixture he evaded the question.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<p>
+<q rend='pre'>I don't think they had a word for it. They didn't
+talk about it, just used it. If you used it you had to
+carry some medicine to work against it, 'cause if
+you got a scratch of that mixture and didn't have
+this other stuff [the counter agent], you was a goner.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>A long time ago one man would hunt. Some of
+them fellas was superstitious about using real deer
+horns, so they would make horns of manzanita and
+then cover up with a deer hide. They'd move along
+... taking a long time, just like a deer. That old
+buck would try to get to the side away from the
+wind to smell you, but you kept circling around so
+he wouldn't smell you. Finally you could get real
+close, maybe only three, four feet ... going around
+making sounds just like a deer. Sometimes them
+bucks would really believe you and want to fight
+and then it was dangerous. When you was close you
+shot that arrow into the deer right behind the shoulder
+blade. That way when he jumped, the shoulder
+blade comes back and breaks off the shaft. The man
+would grab the shaft and suck off the blood. Then
+he'd make a little fire on a flat stone and when it
+was hot he'd sweep off the fire and spit that on
+the stone and it would bubble up and disappear.
+Then you'd go after the deer and you'd find him
+laying there with blood bubbling out of his nose
+just like that blood bubbled on the stone.</q>
+</p>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+Other rituals related to hunting dealt with the loss
+of hunting luck. To regain one's luck in hunting, a
+sweat lodge was built, consisting of a temporary brush
+shelter (688-759).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To insure luck it was common in the old days to
+bathe and rub the leaves of a certain mountain plant
+over one's body. Other Washo carried a plant on their
+persons while hunting, to insure luck. I was unable to
+get my informant to give me the Washo name of this
+plant. Certain other special medicines are reported.
+One man, it is hinted, has a medicine which he rubs
+on his gun to insure good aim. Old hunters are said
+to have obtained medicine from the Miwok which would
+put deer to sleep. Today this medicine is a subject of
+esoteric humor between my informant and his son-in-law.
+The latter insists that the bear has a medicine
+which will put his father-in-law to sleep because he
+came upon the old man asleep under a tree one day
+when he should have been hunting. Although the Washo
+depended on ritual to assist them in hunting, it is
+clear that they considered a successful hunter the possessor
+of power beyond simple magic. Like curers or
+dreamers, certain hunters obviously had been blessed
+by spirits and were able to outthink and outsmart animals
+and therefore were particularly good hunters.
+At least some of the Washo who hunt today attempt
+to give the impression that their success is based on
+something more than luck or skill.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='italic'>Antelope</hi> (27a-75).&mdash;There are no Washo alive today
+who can remember antelope surrounds. It appears
+that most of the Washo territory was not inhabited
+by antelope, lying as it does between the northern and
+<pb n='380'/><anchor id='Pg380'/>
+southern ranges of the Nevada herds. However, small
+herds did range in the eastern portion of Washo country,
+but the appearance of firearms and livestock eliminated
+the antelope completely in this area. One informant,
+himself seventy-five, remembers stories
+about the hunts, told to him by a very old brother-in-law
+who remembered the antelope songs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another informant, generally a good source of hunting
+information, admitted that he did not know anything
+about the subject. He had never hunted antelope, nor
+had his father or uncles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The signal to hunt was a dream announcing the
+presence of antelope to a dreamer, who acted as
+leader of the hunt. The entire process was considered
+to be magical by this informant who said:
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>There was really no corral. Mebbe just a few
+piles of brush. The people just danced around and
+sang, and that kept them antelope there like they
+was hypnotized. They could keep them right there
+all night that way. After they held them all night
+they'd start to slaughter at sunrise. They'd sing:
+<q>We aren't doing this for meanness or for fun but
+we want you for fine food,</q> or something like that.
+I heard the song once but I never learned it all.
+I wish I had, now.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+This informant was certain that the Washo did not
+expect a person to die as a result of the exercise of
+antelope charming. He had heard of other tribes which
+believed this, and he thought it peculiar (Steward 1941:
+218-220). This explanation compares favorably with
+the culture element distribution lists presented by
+Stewart, which reported none of the traits usually considered
+as part of the shaman complex in antelope
+hunting common among Basin Shoshone and Paiute.
+(Stewart 1941; Steward 1941.)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='italic'>Rabbits</hi> (92-96).&mdash;The pursuit of the jack rabbit
+appears to have been changing in its importance during
+the past century. Several informants recall being
+told in their youth by old men that often only the hides
+were stripped from rabbits to make blankets, but that
+most of the meat was discarded because other game
+was plentiful. However, firearms and agriculture soon
+put an end to antelope hunting, and the trans-Sierran
+region, like most of the nation, suffered a steady decline
+in the number of deer. All informants agree that
+in their own youth trips to California after deer were
+necessary because there were almost no deer east of
+the Sierra. All Indians agree that the deer population
+in Nevada today is far greater than it was in the early
+years of this century. The decrease in antelope and
+deer forced a greater dependence on the jack rabbit
+as a source of food as well as fur. The communal
+nature of the rabbit hunt may have made possible a
+gradual transference of ritual traits from the antelope
+complex to the rabbit hunt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Traditionally the Washo drove rabbits into nets, a
+method common in the Basin. Stewart's notes, taken
+from informants in their seventies in 1936, make no
+mention of any supernatural aspect of the rabbit drive.
+Evening dancing during the rabbit drive was denied.
+There was, however, a special leader who directed
+the hunt. In later times these men were credited with
+dreaming power, as this quotation illustrates: <q>Jack
+Wallace would dream where the rabbits were and when
+it was time for hunting he would send out a call.</q> The
+man mentioned was described as the last of the real
+dreamers. This power made him extremely influential
+among the Washo, and his descendants are considered
+among the claimants for the <q>chieftainship.</q> There appear
+to have been formalized prayers which were said
+before the hunt by a man with power over rabbits.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Today, rabbit hunts are invariably held on Sunday.
+In the words of one informant: <q>Nowadays anybody can
+just say <q>Let's have a hunt this Sunday.</q><note place='foot'>This
+statement was made to point out to me that in other times only
+special people, inspired by dreams, would have suggested a rabbit hunt.</note>
+They have to
+hunt on Sunday because most of the men have jobs during
+the week.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The disintegration of the ritualized aspects of rabbit
+driving is not complete, however, and many Washo prefer
+to hunt with a certain man who lives in the Indian
+colony at Carson City. While no one will openly claim
+that he has supernatural power, it seems clear that
+his presence is important to other Indians. His role
+is that of leader or captain who superintends the order
+and discipline of the line of hunters who today sweep
+a wide area, armed with shotguns. D'Azevedo, who was
+fortunate enough to take part in a hunt in 1955, states
+that prior to the hunt this man withdrew from the
+group. When he asked what the leader was doing he
+met evasion, and he concluded that perhaps the man
+was praying. In the period covered by the memory of
+my oldest informants, dances were often staged nightly
+during the rabbit drives. The dancing is invariably described
+as <q>just for fun</q> and probably was more social
+than religious, but such dancing appears to have been
+part of other ceremonial or semiceremonial occasions
+such as the girls' dances, first-fish ceremonies and
+the pine-nut dances. It seems clear that whatever tendency
+there was to shift the ritualized aspects of antelope
+hunting to rabbit drives has been stemmed by a
+growing dependence of the Washo on wage labor which
+precludes their response to dream-inspired hunts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='italic'>Bear</hi> (298, 2558-2561).&mdash;Bear hunting appears never
+to have been a subsistence activity among the Washo.
+Many informants stoutly deny that bear meat was ever
+eaten, although bear were hunted. No Washo ever gave
+a direct answer to the question of why they hunted
+bear if they didn't eat the meat. Others stated that
+the bear might be eaten in extreme starvation conditions
+but was never eaten regularly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the other hand, almost all Washo men were able
+to describe in detail the method of hunting and they
+obviously enjoyed telling bear-hunting stories. The following
+story told to me by one of the eldest men in
+Dresslerville, who claims it was told to him by a
+very old man, is consistent with the stories told by
+other informants.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<q>There was hardly any Washo who kill bear.
+But I know this much ... the man who went in
+there and did it tells me ... bears have their
+own home in the rocks ... a hole going in the
+rocks. Go in there naked with a knife or arrow
+in one hand and burning pitch in other ... light
+scares him out [the bear], then other men shoot
+the bear in the mouth with poison arrow [see deer
+hunting for reference to poison] ... get sick for
+four or five days, maybe a week. Then the man
+goes back in. Hardly any Indians could do this.<note place='foot'>This
+kind of a statement was common and whenever it was made suggestions
+of special power were made explicit later in the conversation,
+or were implied by the attitude of the informant.</note>
+<pb n='381'/><anchor id='Pg381'/>
+I've heard that they cook it and eat it ... not
+only here but up north. After they get the rifle
+they get to killing bears around here but hardly
+ever hear of dividing up the bear meat.</q>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+This last remark appears to be significant as all
+informants emphasized that Indians shared food equally.
+Thus a statement made voluntarily that bear meat
+was not shared suggests different attitudes about bears.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Another informant adds the detail that when the
+bear left his lair, the companions of the man who
+entered the den would block the entrance so the bear
+could not return. The first man to place an arrow in
+the animal could claim it and get the hide. This informant
+also added at this point: <q>It's funny that the
+fella who went inside was <emph>just an ordinary fella</emph> [emphasis
+mine].</q> He also insisted that after a bear was
+killed the hunting party painted their faces black.
+Other informants claimed not to know of this or said
+such painting was done when a mink was killed but
+they did not know why.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One traditional story (Dangberg) sheds a bit more
+light on the bear. In this tale a group of Washo were
+camped near a band of Paiute who challenged the
+Washo to fight. Instead of fighting, the Washo drove a
+bear from its den and killed it and thus defeated the
+Paiute.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had all but given up the pursuit of information on
+the bear, being convinced that my informants either
+honestly did not know any more (the bear having been
+relatively rare in this area for a good many years)
+or were unwilling to discuss something of an extremely
+sacred nature, when a chance remark suggested at
+least part of the explanation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A pioneer white resident who had lived in Alpine
+County, California, for ninety years casually mentioned
+that every Indian man who was buried during his boyhood
+was wrapped in a bearskin shroud. This, coupled
+with an earlier mention of <q>rough</q> men having bearskins,
+suggests that the killing of a bear represented
+the ultimate in Washo bravery and the possession of
+the skin conferred extra powers on the owner. The
+rifle made such acquisitions much less hazardous and
+in the late nineteenth century it had become common
+for Indians to own a bearskin cloak, which became
+their most prized possession and was buried with them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stewart's element lists show no evidence of any
+formalized bear cult among the Washo. However,
+Smith's notes, which Stewart used, report a bear shaman
+who impersonated a bear (2558). Certainly the
+bear was one of the spirits who could give power to
+a man destined to become a shaman. Bear shamanism
+is reported only for the Fish Spring Valley Paiute by
+Steward and for the Tago and Wada Northern Paiute
+by Stewart. These three groups constitute the only
+ones having formalized bear ceremonialism of any
+sort in the Basin. The bear dance and a note about
+impersonating bears (Steward 1941, pp. 266, 322) suggest
+that formalized bear ceremonialism came into the
+Basin from the Rocky Mountains via the Ute and Bannock.
+However, Kroeber reports awe of the bear,
+special euphemisms for them, and ritualized secrecy
+about hunting them among the Miwok which seem more
+closely related to Washo behavior. Bear impersonators
+among the Battle Mountain Paiute were credited with
+invulnerability in war, which is reminiscent of the use
+of a bear-hide cloak by Washo <q>rough men.</q> Although
+it is not possible to make any conclusive statement
+about the role of the bear in the supernatural life of
+the Washo, it seems clear that the animal is held in
+special awe and esteem by modern Indians.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Fishing (252a-296)</head>
+
+<p>
+Fishing appears to be far less subject to ritualization
+among the Washo than was hunting. Here again
+there may be a correspondence between the amount of
+ritual and the degree of certainty involved in obtaining
+the desired food. The Washo area is rated by Rostlund
+as being one of the higher fish-producing areas in
+North America. Certainly the many lakes, streams,
+and rivers were the source of great amounts of fish
+every year. Indians who could at most be described
+as only middle-aged, recount the tremendous numbers
+of fish which swept up the streams from Lake Tahoe
+during the spawning season. While the numbers may
+have varied from year to year, the large number of
+fish plus the intensive fishing methods employed by
+the Washo almost guarantee a large catch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, d'Azevedo reports that Northern Washo
+describe some degree of ritualism connected with fishing
+(d'Azevedo personal communication). Dreamers are
+said to have predicted the day of the spawning run.
+Dances were held and prayers said, suggesting a rather
+attenuated first-fish ceremony for some of the Washo
+(2618). Other Washo report <q>big times,</q> which included
+dancing and prayer, during the spring gathering on the
+lake. However, in the actual catching of fish there was
+much less ritual.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some fishermen carried a fishing medicine composed
+of dried larvae of the <hi rend='italic'>Ephydra hians</hi> (Say), called
+<foreign rend='italic'>kutsavi</foreign> by the Paiute
+(Heizer 1950) and <foreign rend='italic'>matsi babaša</foreign>
+by the Washo. These larvae were obtained from the
+Mono Lake Paiute in trade or as gifts. They were considered
+good food and are still eaten by some Washo.
+However, in addition they were credited with having
+great powers to lure fish and were rubbed on harpoons,
+hooks, and lines. Perhaps this material was considered
+a fish medicine because these larvae are said to be
+generated from the scales of a giant fish. This leviathan
+is reported to have traveled through all the lakes
+in the Sierran area looking for a lake large enough in
+which to live. At Mono Lake it scraped some scales
+into the water before it left to find a permanent home
+in Lake Tahoe (Steward 1936). Whether the Washo share
+this story with the Owens Valley Paiute, I do not know,
+but Mono Lake, because of its saline water and its
+lack of any fish life, is thought of with some fear and
+awe. Today I get the impression that some Washo still
+keep a bit of this material with their fishing gear, although
+they are apt to rationalize it as a lure rather
+than real medicine. It should be remembered that hook-and-line
+or spear fishing accounted for a much smaller
+percentage of the total annual take than did trapping,
+damning, netting, or other communal methods which
+entailed no ritual.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Miscellaneous Concepts About
+Hunting And Fishing</head>
+
+<p>
+A number of ritual activities cluster around hunting
+and fishing. Perhaps the most important is the requirement
+that women, particularly menstruating women,
+avoid the hunting and fishing equipment. If a woman
+touched such gear the owner would bathe it and pray
+<pb n='382'/><anchor id='Pg382'/>
+<q>I'm giving you a bath to wash away the bad luck.</q>
+(2354-2378).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A further restriction placed on menstruating women
+was that they must not eat meat during their periods.
+To do so meant bad hunting for the man who killed
+the game.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The meat from the neck of a deer and the intestinal
+organs were forbidden to vigorous young people.
+If a man ate neck meat his aim would be bad (360-368).
+Neck meat was reserved for children and the
+old. In actuality it would seem that only the children
+and the almost decrepit ate such meat. One of my informants
+who is seventy-five, thus certainly qualifying
+for old age, has never tasted either neck meat or internal
+organs. To do so apparently would be an admission
+of loss of vigour which no Washo oldster wishes
+to make. Menstruating women today will eat meat purchased
+from a butcher but refrain from eating venison
+or other game taken by someone they know, for fear
+of spoiling his luck. Menstrual taboos also hold today
+in regard to touching firearms or fishing poles, although
+at least some Washo women own fishing poles,
+and in the early part of this century a woman who
+lives at Carson City was reputed to be a great hunter.
+In times past, certain women are reported to have
+made excellent bows but not to have used them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Stewart reports dances to bring deer which none of
+my informants remembered. However, even in his time
+the dances were said to be <q>mainly for pleasure,</q> which
+suggests the sacred nature of such dances has gradually
+faded out of the consciousness of most modern Washo,
+particularly as deer hunting has become entirely an individual
+enterprise and is no longer central to Washo
+subsistence.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Gathering</head>
+
+<p>
+As stated earlier, there appears to have been much
+less ritual involved in gathering activities, perhaps because
+there was much less chance of failure than in
+hunting. However, Stewart reports that sometimes
+dances were held to make seeds grow (2619-2621).
+Such gatherings appear to be remembered, if at all,
+by living Washo only as social occasions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fall pine-nut dance was clearly part of the ritual
+of the pine-nut harvest (2617, 2622). The pine nut
+was central to Washo winter survival, and its production
+was a matter of extreme concern. Even today the
+pine-nut harvest becomes a paramount interest among
+all the Washo during the last part of the summer.
+Speculations as to its size, wishes for rain, and survey
+trips into the pine-nut hills become common, and
+according to one informant: <q>If we have a couple of
+bad years somebody will say, <q>We ought to have a
+pine-nut dance,</q> and then we'll have one.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following account of the pine-nut dances of the
+past was given to me by a man, now almost blind, of
+between seventy-five and eighty. His father claimed to
+be chief of the Washo through an affinal relationship
+to the famous Captain Jim, and my informant maintains
+the claim, stoutly denied by all other Washo except
+his relatives and admitted by them only when
+they are forced to depend on his hospitality. The account
+is one of a well-regulated four-day ceremony
+of the first fruit. However, it will become apparent
+as other information is presented that it is a highly
+idealized version. It is valuable, however, because it
+includes a number of sacred elements of obvious importance.
+</p>
+
+<quote rend='display'>
+<p>
+<q rend='pre'>This prayer<note place='foot'>Used in an
+adjectival sense. In the reference below prayer is used
+nominally.</note> fella [Captain Jim] lived at Double
+Springs all year round. He would have a dream telling
+him when to have a meeting. He was what you
+would call a religious man. He would get someone
+he could trust and send out a long, tanned string of
+hide with knots in it. For every day until the meeting
+there was a knot and every day the messenger
+untied a knot so the people would know how many
+days they had until the meeting.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q rend='pre'>All the men came and hunted for four days, and
+the women would start gathering pine nut. They would
+hang up the game to let it dry.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q rend='pre'>The prayer wouldn't eat meat during those four
+days but he could drink cold water, and some lady
+would cook him pine nut.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q rend='pre'>Every night they would have a dance. On the
+fourth day everybody would bring the food they had
+and put it in front of the prayer, and then he would
+pick some man who was fair [just] and the food was
+divided a little before sunrise. If you have a small
+family you get less, if you have a big family you
+get more.</q><note place='foot'>No matter how reluctant
+aged Washo may have been to discuss other
+aspects of the past, they became eloquent about any occasion on which
+food was plentiful. They describe in minute detail the kinds and amount
+of food at a feast although they cannot remember the time, place, or
+those present.</note>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q rend='pre'>Then the prayer makes a prayer something like
+this: <q>Our father I dream that we must take a bath
+and then paint. Even the childrens ... [we must]
+wash away the bad habits so we won't get sick from
+the food we have in front of us!</q></q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<q>Then everybody go to the river ... no matter
+if there was a little ice on the water, and take a
+bath. If they was not near the river they bathed the
+kids from baskets at Double Springs. The prayer he
+prayed for pine nut, rabbit, and deer.</q>
+</p>
+</quote>
+
+<p>
+Suzie Dick, an ancient Washo woman who claims to
+have reached the century mark in 1959, recalls that
+Captain Jim was her mother's sister's son and that
+she called him brother. He was a big man in a figurative
+if not a literal sense. He wore eagle feathers on
+his head and arms. He had red trousers made out of
+a blanket with feathers on the sides of the legs. As
+she remembers him at these ceremonies: <q>He would
+scare you to death.</q> The assembled Washo brought
+pine nuts, deer meat, megal [Indian tea], and much
+other food. Captain Jim prayed and gave a sermon,
+urging everyone to drink water and avoid liquor, and
+supervised four nights of dancing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Judging from the age of these two informants, these
+meetings, which they claim were attended by all the
+Washo, were held between 1880 and 1900. Most Washo
+agree that these large meetings were the way <q>they
+did it in the old days.</q> However, <q>the old days</q> appear
+not to be aboriginal but the late nineteenth century,
+when the Washo experienced a brief period of
+semi-unity and prosperity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Rupert, the psychologically oriented shaman comments,
+<q>Hell, them northern Washo didn't come down
+to Double Springs very much. They got their pine nuts
+southeast of Reno. Captain Jim he was only a big man
+to them Carson Valley Washo. He didn't have nothing
+to say to the northern bunch.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Despite this, it seems clear that during the last
+part of the nineteenth century large numbers of Washo
+from the various areas did, in fact, gather at Double
+<pb n='383'/><anchor id='Pg383'/>
+Springs prior to the pine nutting. It seems equally
+clear that this was distinctly a postwhite phenomenon
+and that in aboriginal times such gatherings were
+much smaller.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The essential elements of these pine-nut ceremonies
+are clear. There was a gathering of a number of bands,
+usually at the prompting of a dreamer who knew certain
+prayers and songs which would insure a successful
+harvest. There was a sharing of food among the
+celebrants, as well as dancing and ceremonial bathing.
+Such affairs were held in Sierra Valley and at Double
+Springs and probably at a number of other places in
+the pine-nut hills.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The large celebrations at Double Springs appear to
+have taken on a distinctly nativistic or revitalistic
+cast. Informants remember Captain Jim's exhortations
+to abstain from white man's whiskey, to treat each
+other as brothers and sisters, to eat Indian food, and
+to apply themselves to the business of hunting and
+gathering. He himself refused to wear new white clothing
+but accepted only used garments. It was during
+this period that Washo received individual pine-nut
+allotments based on their traditional picking grounds.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mooney (1896), whose information on the Washo was
+filtered through the Paiute, reports the Washo during
+this period as a shattered remnant of a former society
+eking out an existence in the dump heaps of white settlements
+in Nevada. The fact that the Washo did not
+respond to the Ghost Dance seems in his mind to support
+his notions about the condition of the tribe. However,
+among older informants this period is invariably
+recalled as an almost golden age. Although the implications
+of movements such as the Ghost Dance were
+not clear in Mooney's time, it seems more than likely
+that the Washo failed to join the movement because
+they were not suffering the social and cultural dislocation
+of the Paiute, Plains tribes, or California Indians
+and, in fact, may have been undergoing a process of
+social unification under Captain Jim. This unification
+appears to have had its primary symbolization in the
+ritual activity which surrounded earlier ceremonies
+concerned with pine-nut harvesting. The use of a hide
+string to summon people to the meeting appears earlier
+as a war signal used by a threatened band to entreat
+other Washo (often not too successfully) to come
+to their aid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With the death of Captain Jim, the large gatherings
+at Double Springs appear to have ceased. In the words
+of one informant, <q>When he died all them things like
+the knotted string and that stuff died with him.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After his death the pine-nut dances continued to be
+held in various places in Washo country&mdash;Sugar Loaf
+Mountain, Genoa, and Sierra Valley being the most
+frequently mentioned. Jim's daughter (or sister's daughter)
+who was married to the claimant Captain Pete
+and was the mother of the present claimant, Hank Pete,
+staged a number of dances around Genoa until her death.
+This action is of interest in view of the fact that she
+was considered a dangerous woman and a poisoner. It
+suggests that there was in fact no clear distinction between
+doctors and witches or sorcerers. Her knowledge
+of pine-nut prayers and songs made her essential in the
+ceremony despite the fear the Washo may have had of her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Since her death in the early 1940's, pine-nut dances
+have been less frequent. Only one woman among the
+Washo is reputed to know all the songs, although I
+suspect that several others are in possession of this
+knowledge but refuse to come forth and serve as
+leaders, in keeping with Washo reluctance to assume
+responsible roles.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After a number of years without a dance, the custom
+was revived in the early 1950's at Dresslerville. The
+dances were staged because previous crops had been
+poor and it was felt a dance would increase the harvest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These dances, supervised by the woman who knew
+the songs, were not considered too successful because
+both Indian dances and white men's dances were conducted.
+Indian dances were held outside the community
+house while younger couples danced in the white manner
+inside. The prayers, bathing, and dreams played
+a very minor role, although food was supplied. From
+the accounts these dances sounded extremely secular
+with an emphasis on the recreational aspects, particularly
+dancing. However, the consensus that the ceremonies
+were not successful because of the introduction
+of white-style dancing suggests that the Indian dances
+still retain some of their former sacred character. It
+was agreed that a dance might be held today or in the
+future if the crops were poor. Here again the present
+economic situation of the Washo tends to limit these
+affairs to weekends. The impossibility of holding four-day
+dances however, is not considered serious by most
+Washo. Several informants stoutly denied that there
+was any requirement that the dance last four days.
+They implied that those who insisted on this were
+simply trying to make it sound more important (note
+that using the figure four makes something more important).
+Their accounts report that the dances might
+last from one or two days to a week during which
+time games were played, dances held, and the ritual
+described earlier carried out. However, there is no
+doubt that the dances were important to the success
+of the harvest and the well-being of the harvesters.
+One informant recalls that: <q>Sometimes them pine nuts
+was ripe before the dance. If we picked them then
+[before the dance], we took a bath every day before
+we started picking but we didn't have to do that after
+the dance.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following incident illustrates the attitude most
+conservative Washo have toward the pinyon pine.
+D'Azevedo (personal communication) accompanied an
+elderly woman to her pine-nut allotment where she
+discovered that illegal Christmas-tree cutters had
+topped a number of trees, which she believed destroyed
+their ability to bear. Her response was of
+sorrow rather than anger. She sat under her trees for
+a long time apologizing to her father, from whom she
+had inherited the plot, and to the spirits of the trees.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There seems to have been little ritual involved in
+other gathering activities, except for the dances to
+make the seeds grow mentioned in the element lists
+(2621). This practice must have been occasional and
+relatively old, because it is no longer part of the
+memories of older informants.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<pb n='384'/><anchor id='Pg384'/>
+
+<div rend='page-break-before: always'>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Miscellaneous Ritual</head>
+
+<p>
+Although modern informants do not remember taboos
+dealing with hair combing and scratching during menstruation,
+they do recall being warned against combing
+their hair at night. <q>My father used to say that if we
+did it we'd marry out of the tribe. Mike (her husband)
+used to tell the same thing to our girls but they didn't
+listen and every one of them married out of the tribe.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dried body of a bat, described as having several
+different kinds of hair (Lowie 1939, p. 332) was a
+powerful gambling charm. Professional Indian gamblers,
+who traveled about the country participating in the hand
+game, often carried one. Bat power was considered extremely
+dangerous if one did not know how to use it.
+<q>My daughter found a bat in a field one day, but an
+old Indian said that if she didn't know how to treat it,
+it would eat up her children.</q> Women especially were
+afraid of bat-talismans and of living bats. The Washo
+believe that a bat charm is also a powerful love medicine
+and that a woman once touched by such a charm
+is powerless in the hands of its owner. <q>You touch a
+woman with that thing and it hypnotizes her. She follow
+the guy and die if she don't go with him. I don't believe
+I ever heard of a Washo use one. We'd be too afraid.
+But them Paiutes and Shoshones use it.</q>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Except for the painting of a girl during her puberty
+dance, painting of the face and body had little part in
+Washo ritualism, although its social significance may
+have been important (Lowie 1939, p. 304). However,
+certain other customs of dress and adornment appear
+to have had religious significance. Eagle feathers and
+magpie feathers, as well as a bearskin robe, conferred
+power. A similar notion may explain the use of the
+skin of the agile and wise long-tailed weasel as a
+binding for hair braids.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The hooting of an owl or singing of birds at night was
+considered as a warning of danger or an omen of death.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div rend='page-break-before: always'>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Influence Of Christianity</head>
+
+<p>
+The Washo have been exposed to Christianity from
+two main sources. Missionary groups have maintained
+representatives from time to time at one or another
+of the Washo colonies. A church dominates the appallingly
+dreary landscape of Dresslerville. Weather and
+neglect have caused the building to deteriorate. Permanent
+missionizing efforts apparently have been
+abandoned. One church group carries on a summer
+Bible class for children and sewing classes for women.
+Funerals are generally conducted by a Christian minister,
+but this appears to be a sop to white opinion rather
+than the result of any real desire on the part of
+the Washo to become Christians. At best they seem
+to have simply incorporated Christian services as another
+source of power. It is less than surprising that
+a people whose main religious emphasis seems to
+have been on curing or subsistence ritual should have
+found white doctors useful but white ministers a rather
+mysterious and superfluous bit of white culture.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The other main source of Christian ideas has been
+the peyote cult, which includes a roughly Christian
+version of God and Christ visualized as the father and
+the brother. The cross, pictures of Christ, and references
+to Jesus play a role in peyote ceremonialism.
+Other investigators (d'Azevedo and Merriam 1951; Stewart
+1944) have noted a shift toward Indian tradition in
+the Washo peyote cult, with an attending reduction of
+Christian ideas. The attitude of one Washo woman
+sums the question up quite well: <q>I think them peyote
+people [she was not a peyotist but had encouraged her
+son to attend a meeting to cure a back injury] believe
+more what they doing than the white preacher.</q> Her
+own religion is summed up in her actions. In addition
+to sending her son to peyote meetings, she had taken
+her granddaughter to the shaman and is a regular attendant
+at the church sewing school. She was also the
+person who waited until the minister left the church
+to repeat ancient funeral prayers.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<pb n='385'/><anchor id='Pg385'/>
+
+<div>
+<index index='toc'/>
+<index index='pdf'/>
+<head>Bibliography</head>
+
+<p>
+<hi rend='italic'>Abbreviations</hi>
+</p>
+
+<lg>
+<l>AA: American Anthropologist</l>
+<l>BAE:  Bureau of American Ethnology</l>
+<l>SI-MC: Smithsonian Institution, Miscellaneous Collections</l>
+<l>UC: University of California Publications</l>
+<l>UC-AR: Anthropological Records</l>
+<l>UC-PAAE: American Archaeology and Ethnology</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Barrett, Samuel A.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1917.
+The Washo Indians. Bull. Milwaukee Pub. Mus., Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 1-52.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Cartwright, W. D.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1952. A Washo Girls' Puberty Ceremony. Pro. 30th
+Int. Cong. of Americanists, pp. 136-142. London.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Dangberg, Grace</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1927. Washo Texts. UC-PAAE 22:391-443.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>d'Azevedo, Warren L., and A. P. Merriam</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1957. Washo Peyote Songs. AA 59:615-641.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Freed, Stanley A.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1960. Changing Washo Kinship. UC-AR 14:349-418.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Heizer, Robert F.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1950. Kutsavi, A Great Basin Indian Food. Kroeber
+Anthro. Papers, No. 2 (Fall), pp. 35-41.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Kroeber, Alfred L.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1907. Religion of the Indians of California. UC-PAA 4:319-356.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Kluckhohn, Clyde, and Dorothea Leighton</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1947. The Navaho. Cambridge; London.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Lowie, Robert H.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1939. Ethnographic Notes on the Washo. UC-PAAE 36:301-352.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Mooney, James</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1896. The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890.
+BAE 14th Ann. Report, Part 2, pp. 641-1136.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1928. Aboriginal population of America North of Mexico.
+SI-MC 80, No. 7, Washington, D. C.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Siskin, E. E.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>MS The Impact of the Peyote Cult Upon Shamanism Among the Washo Indians.
+Ph.D. Diss. 1941. Yale Univ.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Steward, Julian H.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1936. Myths of the Owens Valley Paiute. UC-PAAE 34:355-440.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1941. Culture Element Distribution, XIII: Nevada Shoshone. UC-AR 4:209-360.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Stewart, Omer C.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1941. Culture Element Distribution, XIV: Northern Paiute. UC-AR 4:361-446.</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1944.  Washo-Northern Paiute Peyotism. UC-PAAE 40:63-142.</l>
+</lg>
+
+<lg>
+<l>Whiting, Beatrice Blyth</l>
+<l rend='margin-left: 2'>1950.  Paiute Sorcery, New York.</l>
+</lg>
+
+</div>
+</body>
+
+<back rend="page-break-before: right">
+  <div id="footnotes">
+    <index index="toc" />
+    <index index="pdf" />
+    <head>Footnotes</head>
+    <divGen type="footnotes"/>
+  </div>
+  <div rend="page-break-before: right">
+    <divGen type="pgfooter" />
+  </div>
+</back>
+</text>
+</TEI.2>