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.
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 “wild men.” 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. “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, 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.”
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.
2. “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.”
I asked if the wild men still existed and my informant replied: “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.” I asked if he thought it had
been a wild man and he nodded in affirmation.
The “wild man” of course was the now-famous Ishi, the last of the Southern
Yana who wandered half starved into a slaughterhouse in Oroville in 1911.