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 relationship 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)
“Then the prayer makes a prayer something like this: ‘Our father I
dream that we must take a bath and then paint. Even the childrens
... [we must] wash away the bad habits so we won’t get sick from
the food we have in front of us!’
“Then everybody go to the river ... no matter if there was a
little ice on the water, and take a bath. If they was not near the
river they bathed the kids from baskets at Double Springs. The
prayer he prayed for pine nut, rabbit, and deer.”
Suzie Dick, an ancient Washo woman who claims to have reached the century
mark in 1959, recalls that Captain Jim was her mother’s sister’s son and
that she called him brother. He was a big man in a figurative if not a
literal sense. He wore eagle feathers on his head and arms. He had red
trousers made out of a blanket with feathers on the sides of the legs. As
she remembers him at these ceremonies: “He would scare you to death.” The
assembled Washo brought pine nuts, deer meat, megal [Indian tea], and much
other food. Captain Jim prayed and gave a sermon, urging everyone to drink
water and avoid liquor, and supervised four nights of dancing.
Judging from the age of these two informants, these meetings, which they
claim were attended by all the Washo, were held between 1880 and 1900.
Most Washo agree that these large meetings were the way “they did it in
the old days.” However, “the old days” appear not to be aboriginal but the
late nineteenth century, when the Washo experienced a brief period of
semi-unity and prosperity.
Rupert, the psychologically oriented shaman comments, “Hell, them northern
Washo didn’t come down to Double Springs very much. They got their pine
nuts southeast of Reno. Captain Jim he was only a big man to them Carson
Valley Washo. He didn’t have nothing to say to the northern bunch.”
Despite this, it seems clear that during the last part of the nineteenth
century large numbers of Washo from the various areas did, in fact, gather
at Double Springs prior to the pine nutting. It seems equally clear that
this was distinctly a postwhite phenomenon and that in aboriginal times
such gatherings were much smaller.
The essential elements of these pine-nut ceremonies are clear. There was a
gathering of a number of bands, usually at the prompting of a dreamer who
knew certain prayers and songs which would insure a successful harvest.
There was a sharing of food among the celebrants, as well as dancing and
ceremonial bathing. Such affairs were held in Sierra Valley and at Double
Springs and probably at a number of other places in the pine-nut hills.
The large celebrations at Double Springs appear to have taken on a
distinctly nativistic or revitalistic cast. Informants remember Captain
Jim’s exhortations to abstain from white man’s whiskey, to treat each
other as brothers and sisters, to eat Indian food, and to apply themselves
to the business of hunting and gathering. He himself refused to wear new
white clothing but accepted only used garments. It was during this period
that Washo received individual pine-nut allotments based on their
traditional picking grounds.
Mooney (1896), whose information on the Washo was filtered through the
Paiute, reports the Washo during this period as a shattered remnant of a
former society eking out an existence in the dump heaps of white
settlements in Nevada. The fact that the Washo did not respond to the
Ghost Dance seems in his mind to support his notions about the condition
of the tribe. However, among older informants this period is invariably
recalled as an almost golden age. Although the implications of movements
such as the Ghost Dance were not clear in Mooney’s time, it seems more
than likely that the Washo failed to join the movement because they were
not suffering the social and cultural dislocation of the Paiute, Plains
tribes, or California Indians and, in fact, may have been undergoing a
process of social unification under Captain Jim. This unification appears
to have had its primary symbolization in the ritual activity which
surrounded earlier ceremonies concerned with pine-nut harvesting. The use
of a hide string to summon people to the meeting appears earlier as a war
signal used by a threatened band to entreat other Washo (often not too
successfully) to come to their aid.
With the death of Captain Jim, the large gatherings at Double Springs
appear to have ceased. In the words of one informant, “When he died all
them things like the knotted string and that stuff died with him.”
After his death the pine-nut dances continued to be held in various places
in Washo country—Sugar Loaf Mountain, Genoa, and Sierra Valley being the
most frequently mentioned. Jim’s daughter (or sister’s daughter) who was
married to the claimant Captain Pete and was the mother of the present
claimant, Hank Pete, staged a number of dances around Genoa until her
death. This action is of interest in view of the fact that she was
considered a dangerous woman and a poisoner. It suggests that there was in
fact no clear distinction between doctors and witches or sorcerers. Her
knowledge of pine-nut prayers and songs made her essential in the ceremony
despite the fear the Washo may have had of her.
Since her death in the early 1940’s, pine-nut dances have been less
frequent. Only one woman among the Washo is reputed to know all the songs,
although I suspect that several others are in possession of this knowledge
but refuse to come forth and serve as leaders, in keeping with Washo
reluctance to assume responsible roles.
After a number of years without a dance, the custom was revived in the
early 1950’s at Dresslerville. The dances were staged because previous
crops had been poor and it was felt a dance would increase the harvest.
These dances, supervised by the woman who knew the songs, were not
considered too successful because both Indian dances and white men’s
dances were conducted. Indian dances were held outside the community house
while younger couples danced in the white manner inside. The prayers,
bathing, and dreams played a very minor role, although food was supplied.
From the accounts these dances sounded extremely secular with an emphasis
on the recreational aspects, particularly dancing. However, the consensus
that the ceremonies were not successful because of the introduction of
white-style dancing suggests that the Indian dances still retain some of
their former sacred character. It was agreed that a dance might be held
today or in the future if the crops were poor. Here again the present
economic situation of the Washo tends to limit these affairs to weekends.
The impossibility of holding four-day dances however, is not considered
serious by most Washo. Several informants stoutly denied that there was
any requirement that the dance last four days. They implied that those who
insisted on this were simply trying to make it sound more important (note
that using the figure four makes something more important). Their accounts
report that the dances might last from one or two days to a week during
which time games were played, dances held, and the ritual described
earlier carried out. However, there is no doubt that the dances were
important to the success of the harvest and the well-being of the
harvesters. One informant recalls that: “Sometimes them pine nuts was ripe
before the dance. If we picked them then [before the dance], we took a
bath every day before we started picking but we didn’t have to do that
after the dance.”
The following incident illustrates the attitude most conservative Washo
have toward the pinyon pine. D’Azevedo (personal communication)
accompanied an elderly woman to her pine-nut allotment where she
discovered that illegal Christmas-tree cutters had topped a number of
trees, which she believed destroyed their ability to bear. Her response
was of sorrow rather than anger. She sat under her trees for a long time
apologizing to her father, from whom she had inherited the plot, and to
the spirits of the trees.
There seems to have been little ritual involved in other gathering
activities, except for the dances to make the seeds grow mentioned in the
element lists (2621). This practice must have been occasional and
relatively old, because it is no longer part of the memories of older
informants.