Washo Religion Part 6

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).

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 a.s.sist 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.

_Antelope_ (27a-75).-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 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.

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.

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:

"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: 'We aren't doing this for meanness or for fun but we want you for fine food,' or something like that. I heard the song once but I never learned it all. I wish I had, now."

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.)

_Rabbits_ (92-96).-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.

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 ill.u.s.trates: "Jack Wallace would dream where the rabbits were and when it was time for hunting he would send out a call." 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 "chieftains.h.i.+p."

There appear to have been formalized prayers which were said before the hunt by a man with power over rabbits.

Today, rabbit hunts are invariably held on Sunday. In the words of one informant: "Nowadays anybody can just say 'Let's have a hunt this Sunday.'(9) They have to hunt on Sunday because most of the men have jobs during the week."

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 "just for fun" 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 s.h.i.+ft 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.

_Bear_ (298, 2558-2561).-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.

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.

"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.(10) 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."

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 att.i.tudes about bears.

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: "It's funny that the fella who went inside was _just an ordinary fella_ [emphasis mine]." 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.

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.

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.

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 "rough" men having bearskins, suggests that the killing of a bear represented the ultimate in Was...o...b..avery 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.

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 const.i.tute 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 Was...o...b..havior. 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 "rough men." 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.

Fis.h.i.+ng (252a-296)

Fis.h.i.+ng 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 sp.a.w.ning season. While the numbers may have varied from year to year, the large number of fish plus the intensive fis.h.i.+ng methods employed by the Washo almost guarantee a large catch.

However, d'Azevedo reports that Northern Washo describe some degree of ritualism connected with fis.h.i.+ng (d'Azevedo personal communication).

Dreamers are said to have predicted the day of the sp.a.w.ning run. Dances were held and prayers said, suggesting a rather attenuated first-fish ceremony for some of the Washo (2618). Other Washo report "big times,"

which included dancing and prayer, during the spring gathering on the lake. However, in the actual catching of fish there was much less ritual.

Some fishermen carried a fis.h.i.+ng medicine composed of dried larvae of the _Ephydra hians_ (Say), called _kutsavi_ by the Paiute (Heizer 1950) and _matsi babaa_ 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 fis.h.i.+ng 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 fis.h.i.+ng accounted for a much smaller percentage of the total annual take than did trapping, d.a.m.ning, netting, or other communal methods which entailed no ritual.

Miscellaneous Concepts About Hunting And Fis.h.i.+ng

A number of ritual activities cl.u.s.ter around hunting and fis.h.i.+ng. Perhaps the most important is the requirement that women, particularly menstruating women, avoid the hunting and fis.h.i.+ng equipment. If a woman touched such gear the owner would bathe it and pray "I'm giving you a bath to wash away the bad luck." (2354-2378).

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.

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 fis.h.i.+ng poles, although at least some Washo women own fis.h.i.+ng 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.

Stewart reports dances to bring deer which none of my informants remembered. However, even in his time the dances were said to be "mainly for pleasure," 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.

Gathering

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.

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: "If we have a couple of bad years somebody will say, 'We ought to have a pine-nut dance,' and then we'll have one."

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 relations.h.i.+p 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.

"This prayer(11) 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.

"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.

"The prayer wouldn't eat meat during those four days but he could drink cold water, and some lady would cook him pine nut.

"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.(12)