Chapter 9: The Washo of the Eastern Sierra

Copyright 1998 by Tad Beckman, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711

The nights were still very cold and they had little shelter so they depended on their warm rabbit-skin capes to keep them from freezing. Now, however, the morning sun was warm and the clear lake water was inviting enough that they had all taken a morning swim, cold as the water was.

Many fish were moving up the small swollen creeks, headed toward gravel spawning areas. The young man watched carefully where they paused and rested before moving out again into the hard current. He checked narrow parts of the creek where he and his father had always placed wicker fish traps and found the same good spots.

Along the lake shore, his eyes scanned the edges of the entire lake. He was on the side where the sun rises, where the canyon entered from the lower lands, in which they spent their winters. His eyes moved across the lake to the snowy mountains and watched the rippled reflections of the peaks in the distant lake shore. To his left, the rocky shoreline gave way to a broad lowland, showing a sandy beach and forest, backed by high mountains. To his right, the mountains were lower and lacked a snow cover. Looking into the water, he could see right to the bottom, as clear as though the water was not there.

The lake shore was dotted with large boulders and many of these served as stations for women's work, as evidenced by grinding holes and larger slicks. On the edge of the forest cover, there were occasional wind shelters, made of branches woven between trees and brush. These were left over from the previous year and they would be re-occupied by the same family units after minimal repair. Even though he had not stood here, by the edge of Da ow a ga, since the preceding autumn, the young man found everything as it had been left and was very happy.

He would soon be joined by other members of his family. By that time, he, his father, and his uncle would have their traditional encampment in full operation. They would be catching fish, cleaning, and drying them on racks. They would have located some good meadow areas when the women would be able to gather fresh green plants. They would probably also have hunted deer for the first time in the season. Perhaps they would have freshly dried deer meat.

By the time all of their people had gotten to the lake, in early summer, it would be a happy time. He would have much companionship with other young men; and there would be games and parties that would include young women from all over. Families would renew bonds; relationships would be sorted out; introductions would be made; and there would be long, serious conversations about the winter, now passed. How had the autumn pine nut harvest gone? How had winter hunting been? How severe was the winter? How many deaths had there been?

In the evenings, the lake shore would be dotted with small campfires and elders would tell long stories that would make everybody laugh and feel happy. As the moonlight reflected off of the vast lake, they would drift off to sleep and dream about the events of the day.

With little doubt, the most extraordinary part of this region is in the Carson-Reno area, including Carson Valley and Truckee Meadows. Looking east from Carson, one sees the semi-arid Pine Nut Mountains and, to the west, the Sierra Nevada. The 1500 foot wall, lying immediately to the west, is scored by numerous small canyons, leading upward and across into the basin of Lake Tahoe. Along the western shoreline of the lake, there are numerous canyons, high-mountain meadows, and lake basins, all the way up to the Sierra Crest, where the snow only rarely melts off completely in the summertime. It is a magnificently varied ecosystem, starting with 30, or more, feet of snowpack at 10,000 feet and dropping, in stages, through meadows and lake basins to the broad grassy valleys of the Great Basin Plateau, at 5000 feet. Within this ecosystem there was an annual ebb and flow of vegetation and animal life, spring coming only slowly to the highest parts and winter rarely becoming too severe in the lowest. Starting in the valleys as early as March and extending through late summer in the highest meadows, there was always a supply of fresh vegetation. The life cycles of animals and fish were also staggered throughout the calendar, depending upon their natural environments, though some animals, like the deer, migrated through elevation bands in order to take advantage of the changing seasons.

This entire ecological complex was Wa She Shu E Deh, the traditional homeland of the Wa She Shu, now simply called the Washo people. The Washo's eastern neighbors were Northern Paiutes; and their western neighbors were Maidu (in the north) and Miwok (in the south). Not only did this territory provide a wide variety of habitats for flora and fauna, but it was also a natural thoroughfare for trade. The Washo are distinguished, in this study, in pursuing the Archaic tradition of seasonal rounds, typical of the Great Basin people. While their "permanent" homes were in the lower valleys like Carson Valley and Truckee Meadows, they removed to higher elevations like Lake Tahoe and other mountainous areas for an extended period, each year. Nor did they develop significant technologies for utilizing the few resources available to them as potential staples. In only one respect, the harvesting and storage of pine nuts, did they exhibit definitive features of the Pacific Period. The ecosystem described above is undoubtedly the causal factor in this refusal to move away from an Archaic pattern of existence, for the natural abundance and variety of the region, organized into a seasonal pattern of life at different elevations and locations, provided generously for the Washo.

The Washo people are not always included in a discussion of California's indigenous people and, instead, may be included among natives of the Great Basin (Nevada, Eastern Oregon, Utah, and portions of neighboring states). Nevertheless, the majority of Washo territory lay within the present boundaries of California, and Washo culture bears strong relationships to both California and Great Basin cultures. Perhaps one of the most convincing reasons to include the Washo in a discussion of California is the fact that the Washo language was a member of the Hokan family of languages. Hokan was found in many other locations in California but not at all in the remainder of the Great Basin where entirely separate language families, from the Numic-Shoshonean sub-group of Uto-Aztecan languages, were found. Hokan, indeed, was an old language family and marks the Washo as very early settlers of California, prior to the influx of Uto-Aztecan speakers. Indeed, the Washo probably originated in the Martis archaeological tradition of around 6000 BP and are directly related to the Kings Beach tradition of 1100 BP. Like most other Hokan speakers of California, the Washo were cut off and isolated by the influx of others; linguistic comparisons between Hokan speakers of California suggest that the Washo became isolated as long ago as 4500 years, just before the beginning of the Pacific Period. When first studied by early linguists, Washo had virtually no dialectical variations, which indicates a long period of broad cultural coherence.

The annual rounds of the Washo are best described by following those who wintered in Carson Valley. At an elevation between 4500 and 5000 feet, the Valley offered plentiful plant and animal species and its winters were not extreme. To the south and the east, were low mountains with abundant pine forests. To the west, was an escarpment of approximately 1500 to 4000 feet with several relatively easy passages into the basin of Lake Tahoe, which they called Da ow a ga, literally meaning "edge of the lake," a name that Americans misunderstood and mispronounced as Tahoe. Being at an elevation just above 6000 feet, Tahoe provided a good area for late spring and early summer habitation. Along the western shoreline of Tahoe, there were various passages leading into higher mountain meadows and lakes where the harvest of plants, fish, and animals could continue into late summer and early autumn. It was even possible to range west of the Sierra's crest into the groves of oak trees, abundant in the numerous south-west lying valleys of the western Sierra slope.

While Carson Valley was the only area where the Washo built permanent houses, they developed campsites around the Lake's edge and returned to these each season. Tahoe was their real home in the sense that their residence there was the best time of the year, they were best provided for, and the Lake possessed a spiritual meaning that affected them and is reflected in their stories.

In the autumn, as the Washo began their seasonal retreat to Carson Valley, some parties ranged more widely in this mountain terrain and even harvested acorns, otherwise not usually available to the Washo. The main body, however, returned to Carson Valley and, very soon, entered into what they called "The Great Time," the annual coming together in the foothills to the south and to the east where piñon pines grew. This was sacred territory since the pine nut harvest would largely provide for their survival through the coming winter, but it was also the place where they would come together as a true community, celebrating, telling stories of the year, and making marriage arrangements and other agreements. Through fall and early winter, they hunted the available small game of the Valley and prepared for the harsh period of winter. Wintering was not always easy, though, and starvation was possible.

Washo territory included many lakes and rivers, and the Washo were primarily fishermen. Lake Tahoe itself would have been able to sustain the entire Washo tribe throughout the year had they perfected technologies for fishing and for preserving the catch. As it was, the Washo did not develop canoes for deep lake access and limited themselves primarily to fishing the rivers and lake shorelines. Perhaps this was all they needed. Rivers flowing into Tahoe experienced regular runs of trout, kokanee, and other fish, beginning in the spring and extending through mid-autumn. Fish could be caught in the rivers using weirs, nets, basketry fish traps, hook-and-line, harpoons, or spears. On some rivers, they built covered platforms from which to fish. Many of these strategies could be applied to the lake shorelines. Fish were cleaned, split, and dried. The driness, followed by lower temperatures, allowed storage and use into the winter months.

In the fall months, the Washo augmented their food supply with rabbits, antelope, and some water foul. All of these were hunted cooperatively, as mentioned above. Rabbits, for example, were caught in large nets posted across the middle of a small box canyon. Men walked inward from a large circle, running rabbits from the entire area into the canyon and nets. Other men, women, and children manned the nets, killing the rabbits and removing them as quickly as possible. Water foul were also caught with nets, where possible, but might have to be hunted with bow and arrow in marshlands. Antelope were hearded into ambusgh situations where as many hunters as possible used bow and arrow.

Aside from food, the game animals found many uses. Of special significance were fine warm blankets made from rabbit pelts. The pelts were cured in standard ways and, then, cut into long strips, approximately one to two inches wide. The cuts were made in spiral fashion from the outside of the pelt to the inside, yielding quite a long strip. These were, then, twisted to produce a thick rabbit-pelt "thread" which was woven on an elementary loom and stitched together. The finished blanket was a fine source of insulation.

The Washo's permanent valley housing was typically a small semi-subterranean lodge built with wooden rafters and covered with layers of small branches, brush, and dirt. These were perhaps 10-15 feet in diameter, large enough for a single extended family. Houses were located near to others out of practical convenience and to facilitate cooperative activities, but these groupings lacked the formality of a typical California village. There were no chiefs, as such, nor any formulists who held "responsibility" for the people's ritual life. Families cooperatively planned celebrations and virtually all Washo celebrations dealt either with harvests or family events, such as birth, puberty, marriage, or death.

Washo political society remained rather undeveloped. The family unit, which was more like a small extended family, informally constructed, was easy to move about and represented the most effective economic structure. There were few advantages, given their seasonal pattern and hand-to-mouth economy, for greater social organization or cooperation. While kinship was monitored and was the main form of social unity, it was not tracked in language as extensively as in some societies and held less bearing on marriages. Marriage itself reflected the Washo's informality since newly married couples lived either away or near to the paternal family or the maternal family depending mostly on convenience and survival potential. The Washo were also ready to accept polygamy or polyandry if it produced a better economic unit. Only in Carson Valley, in late fall and winter, did families tend to live in "bunches" which somewhat approached the idea of a village. Again, this seems to have been motivated by quite practical reasons so that the men could hunt cooperatively with each other --- game being more often of the type that requires cooperative effort. Within the bunches, figures became prominent as leaders or experts; thus, while there were no chiefs, bunches would be refered to by the names of these figures.

>Distinguishing Features of Material and Social Culture

>Narratives, Spiritualism, and Individuality

D'Azevedo, Warren L. "Washoe" in Sturtevant, William C. (ed.) Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 11, Great Basin (Washington: The Smithsonian Institution, 1986)

Downs, James F. The Two Worlds of the Washo: An Indian Tribe of California and Nevada (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966)