START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WASHO RELIGION*** Washo Religion By James F. Downs University of California Publications Anthropological Records Vol. 16, No. 9, pp. 365-386 Editors (Berkeley): J. H. Rowe, R. F. Millon, D. M. Schneider Submitted by editors September 16, 1960 Issued June 16, 1961 Price, 75 cents University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles California Cambridge University Press London, England CONTENTS Preface Introduction Mythology Water Babies The Giants The Coyote And Other Figures Curing And Shamanism (2469-2541) Noncurative Use Of Power (2567-2593) Divining And Rainmaking (2553-2556, 2566) Objects Of Power Sorcery And Witchcraft (2562-2564) War Power Summary Of Shamanism Dreams And Dreamers (2566) Ritual Activities Conception And Contraception Birth (2178-2293) Puberty: Girls (2305-2352) Puberty: Boys (2379-2386, 369-374) Marriage (2018-2051) Death (2389-2453) Ritual In Subsistence Hunting Fishing (252a-296) Miscellaneous Concepts About Hunting And Fishing Gathering Miscellaneous Ritual Influence Of Christianity Bibliography Footnotes PREFACE This paper is the result of two and one-half monthsâ 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. 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. I am indebted to Mr. W. L. dâAzevedo, 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 dâAzevedo 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. 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. 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. James F. Downs INTRODUCTION 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. A short ethnography by Barrett dealing in large part with material culture, Lowieâs Ethnographic Notes, and Stewartâs 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, dâAzevedo), and music (Merriam). 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 dâAzevedo(1) 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. 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 âsalvage ethnography.â 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 âold daysâ 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 âReligion.â 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. MYTHOLOGY Washo mythology has been presented in the form of interlinear texts by Dangberg (1927) and in Lowieâs 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. Figures which appear only incidentally in the myths as recounted are elaborated almost infinitely in what might best be termed folk fantasy. Water Babies 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 tribeâs 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, âIf they ever get up a bunch to trap one of them [Water Babies], I donât want to have nothing to do with it.â When I asked why not, he replied: âWhy hell, if you make one of them things mad theyâll flood the world. I just donât want nothing to do with them. I ainât that desperate.â I asked, âdesperate for what?â and he replied âfor power. I like to dream about womens [sic] and things like that, not about Water Babies and that funny stuff.â 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,(2) was a famous shaman. My informant implied that his uncleâs 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. âSome people think the Water Baby will hurt them, but he wonât. If they see him by accident he wonât do nothing. But if he has given you his power and you see himâthen wham, he maybe knock you right down.â 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, general agreement among informants that the Water Baby could, if he gave his power to a person, demand repayment with the lives of his protÃ©gÃ©âs close relatives or entire family.(3) The various powers and activities of the Water Babies are perhaps best described in the following stories recounted by informants: 1. âOne 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 _IÅ¡medel_. 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.â 2. âThere 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 couldnât find nothing but sand with a little water bubbling up in the middle. He wouldnât 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.â 3. âThere 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 husbandâs in the sand.â 4. âIâll 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 âem 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], thatâs toward Walker Lake. Everything was kind of hazy blue.â 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. 5. âMy 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 Wallyâs 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, âcome on,â 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 didnât go there. The Water Baby said âwe got some girls that want to give you something,â 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.â(4) 6. âThere was this white man up here fishing. He caught a Water Baby but he didnât 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.â The Giants 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 aÉ²Â¿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. 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. According to my informant on the subject, the mountains are still the home of a tribe of âwild men.â 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. The following stories were told to me as contemporary or relatively recent occurrences: 1. âThere 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, 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 didnât come back. They went out looking for him and found his tracks leading up the foot of Jobâs 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.â When I asked if the wild men had gotten him my informant said he thought so. The theme of a wild manâs 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. 2. âMy 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 grandfatherâs mouth. My grandfather bit that finger real hard and the wild man yelled and ran away.â I asked if the wild men still existed and my informant replied: âSure. They are up there in the mountains. They are pretty smart and you canât 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 couldnât understand him. Iâll bet a Washo could have understood him.â I asked if he thought it had been a wild man and he nodded in affirmation. The âwild manâ of course was the now-famous Ishi, the last of the Southern Yana who wandered half starved into a slaughterhouse in Oroville in 1911. The Coyote And Other Figures 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. 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 (dâAzevedo and Merriam 1957), and quick asides about Coyoteâs 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 dâAzevedo. 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. âI was staying in this shack with the guy who owned it. One night he didnât 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 meâ (dâAzevedo). The AÉ², a huge man-eating bird described in Lowieâs myth number 13, is no longer alive, but according to several informants the creatureâs 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 donât want to confirm an Indian story. One day on a trip around Lake Tahoe my Indian companion, a sometime leader among the Washo asked: âIf 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 aÉ² birdâs skeleton?â 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. 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. 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. CURING AND SHAMANISM (2469-2541) The Washo word daÂ¿manÂ¿liÂ¿ 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. 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 âdoctor family.â An informant described the activities of such a curer: âMy mother was a curer. She just smoke and talk. You would meet her on the way to town mebbe and say âI donât feel goodâ and sheâd just sit down and smoke and talk [pray?] a little and then mebbe tell you what was wrong and what you should do. âAlong about the first war I got sick and couldnât 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.â(5) 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. Until the middle 1930âs 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 Lowieâs in the 1920âs, and at that time Lowie described him as a sophisticated young Washo, somewhat mystic and with shamanistic ambitions (Lowie 1939). 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. His equipment, he admitted (but refused to show me), consisted of a butterfly-cocoon rattle, an eagle-bone whistle, and a feather headband. âI donât really do nothing but help nature,â he said. When I replied that only some people know how to help nature he was gratified and smiled. âOh well, itâs all psychological anyway,â he answered, confirming Lowieâs description of him as a sophisticate. 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. âI took my granddaughter to Rupert after the white doctors didnât do nothing for her. He donât 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 donât 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.â Another informant, the man who was cured by his motherâcuriously another graduate of the Stewart School and outwardly a progressive Indianâwas 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. âYoung fellows sometimes have dreams but usually they donât 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 itâs always the same thing as the first time, just taking different shapes. âThese dreams keep coming for four, sometimes eight, years to get you to be a good doctor. But during all this time you donât 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 isnât 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 donât 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 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 donât know what happens in there but some of them doctors, I think, go over to visit the dead for a little while. âAfter you been dreaming for a long time maybe you try to cure somebody but you donât 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 heâd lay out all his stuff and give it a drink by sprinkling water on it. Then heâd shake his rattle and sing and touch the patient with his hands. Heâd talk to the sickness, like he knew it ... like maybe he was friends to it ... heâd say ânow you behave and donât bother this person no more. If you donât behave Iâm gonna take you out and show you to everybody and then youâll be embarrassed!â Then heâd 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 didnât 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 canât 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 itâs real tough they get all stiff and fall over. Sometimes fall right in the fire and their clothes all burn off but it donât burn them none. You canât 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 itâs out he puts it in his hand and rubs it with dirt and throws it away toward the north; that kills it.â 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 protÃ©gÃ©âs 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. 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 âused to shake that rattleâ himself. In short, until his shamanistic education was interrupted by white manâs schooling, he was a shamanâs apprentice. This view is supported by the statements of other informants: âOf course them people that is from a doctor family, they have dreams and get curing power,â said one rather assimilated woman of about seventy-five. Another informant, a man of sixty, who repeatedly indicated his fear of âpowerâ but at the same time was reputed to be an important curer in the peyote church said: âIf you come from a family of dreamers there ainât nothing you can do. Youâre trapped by it.â 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 manâs control over his power. 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 informantâs uncle, who practiced until the first decade of this century, and it includes some items clearly postwhite in origin. âI donât know what all doctors had but Iâll tell you what my old uncle had âcause 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 thatâs what his power told him to do.â Washo doctors often worked together on âtoughâ cases. One such was the treatment of what seems to have been an infected elbow by my informantâs 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 couldnât 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. 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 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. 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 yearsâ 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. 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 ânatureâ for the use of the Washo. Noncurative Use Of Power (2567-2593) Indian doctors often used their power in spectacular displays, apparently to impress patients. Often these displays were competitive. In the words of one informant: âThem old doctors used to see who had the most power. Theyâd stick four or five sticks in the ground, each one farther away than the last one, and see how many they could knock down.â Then, disconcertingly, he added: âYou can read about that in Kroeber. He tells about some other Indians who did that but I guess he didnât know the Washo did it too.â This informant considered Professor Kroeber as an authority second only to himself in matters pertaining to Indians. Divining And Rainmaking (2553-2556, 2566) 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. The ancient matriarch Suzie Dick steadfastly insists that less rain falls in the Carson Valley than in neighboring valleys because ânobody is talking to God anymore around here.â While she talked she pointed to the clouds hanging over Washo and Antelope valleys and to the cloudless sky overhead. 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 ârain dancesâ 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. 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. Objects Of Power Eagle and magpie feathers were considered to be the most powerful items of a shamanâs 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 âa woman or a sack of pine-nut flour or anything worth a lot.â Ideally the eagle was tied up until the shaman removed three tail feathers. The doctor then tied a string of beads to the birdâs 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 chanceâtaken from dead birds on the highway or picked up where they were shed. 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 eldersâ describing eagle feathersâ being suspended individually from the upper arms and thighs of particularly powerful warriors. 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 (dâAzevedo and Merriam 1957). 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 âIndianâ 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 âreal Indian tobacco.â 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. Meeting officials fan it into the atmosphere and ârubâ 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 âbunchâ found anyone else with cedar they would say âyou arenât supposed to have thatâ and would make fun of them. She could offer no further details or explanations. Sorcery And Witchcraft (2562-2564) 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
{'title': 'Washo Religion by James F. Downs', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}