A number of ritual activities cluster around hunting and fishing. Perhaps
the most important is the requirement that women, particularly
menstruating women, avoid the hunting and fishing 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 fishing poles, although at
least some Washo women own fishing 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.