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—or in deference to
white attitudes—give one the impression of “protesting too much” 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.
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 His cult or “way” has since been superseded by a strictly Washo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.
Led by an assimilated Washo, known by other Indians as a “white man’s
Indian,” 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.
Peyote curing differs only in detail from shamanistic curing as these two
stories may illustrate.
“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, ‘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.’ 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.”
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.
“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.”
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—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.
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.
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.
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: “Why aren’t
there so many Indian doctors today?” my informant answered: “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.” 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.