James F. Downs

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 His cult or “way” has since been superseded by a strictly Washo group, following the Teepee Way (d'Azevedo 1957).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.

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“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.

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Mentioned almost as frequently as doctors are dreamers, whom the Washo view as distinct from shamans. The so-called antelope shaman and rabbit boss fall into this category rather than that of doctor.

Dreamers were gifted with a power to foretell special classes of events in dreams. All Washo believe dreams are likely to foretell the future, and they are alert to find meanings in any dreams they have. Certain persons, those thought of as “dreamers,” are reported to have special gifts of this nature.

There are apparently no dreamers among the Washo today, in the sense that the term was used in times past. That is, no one is especially singled out as having infallible dreams foretelling certain classes of events. It may be that the breakdown of the band structure, which was related to economic exploitative activity, in effect, forced everyone to dream for himself. In the past, dreamers were particularly important in setting the time and place for activities which were carried out by large groups, such as hunting, fishing, pine-nut gathering, and war. With the disappearance of the last seminomadic bands in the middle 1920's, as well as with the reduced importance of hunting and fishing as group activities, persons having dreams which directed group actions were no longer useful. Today, dreams appear to occur to a number of individuals, and those felt to be of social significance usually deal with catastrophe or other foreboding subjects. The following stories were told to me by the widow under the shadow of witchcraft. When I asked her if she thought any of her friends would tell me their dreams, she replied: “No I don't think no Washo would tell you their dreams. But I'm not superstitious about them things and I'll tell you these two dreams I had.”

The following winter the community center did in fact burn down. A young Indian in a rage after having an argument with his father hurled a bottle of kerosene against a wood stove. The resulting fire could not be extinguished because the Dresslerville pump was not working. Whether the dream was really a prophecy after the fact I do not know. It is significant in any case that the prophecy appeared in the form of a dream. My informant's second dream foretold the violent death of a young Indian woman. The prophecy came true two years later.

Her statement that other Washo would be reluctant to discuss their dreams was all too true, confirming the importance that dreams play in their daily lives. A number of tangential remarks suggest that the belief that dreams confer advance knowledge of the future and that they confer power is still common among the Washo. One informant said, in talking about “old-time dreamers”: “Today a lot of people will say they had a dream about something, and act real big. I just tell them they are crazy. They aren't real dreamers. They couldn't have a dream about their girl friend.”

Until very recent times a dream was justification for almost any group activity. The most common motivation for such events as a pine-nut dance, a war party, or a rabbit or antelope drive was usually that “So-and-So had a dream.” An announcement would be made and others would gather for the event.

These dreams are clearly different from the visitations of spirits to prospective shamans, which occurred repeatedly and were kept secret. Dreamers, on the other hand, publicly reported individual dreams. Being a dreamer appears to have been one of the important factors in attaining positions of leadership, informal as such positions were among the Washo. The almost legendary Captain Jim,6 who was acknowledged as a leader by all the Washo in the late nineteenth century, is considered to have been a dreamer by many of the Washo. Those informants who remember the big times at Double Springs Flat, in which a large number of the Washo of the day participated prior to the pine-nut harvest, usually begin their accounts with the statement that Jim would have a dream and announce the date of the meeting. Various parts of the ceremony were also validated by dreams. It is equally clear that although Jim was an honored leader and had dreaming power he was not considered a doctor.

Negative testimony also indicates the importance of dreaming in Washo life. It is to the advantage of certain individuals to deny the “chieftainship” of Captain Jim; they vehemently deny that he was a dreamer but insist that he was simply a good man who was trusted by the Washo. “That Jim was just a good old guy that everybody obeyed because they liked him and the whole group selected him. He wasn't no more of a dreamer than I am,” is the way one claimant for the Washo chieftainship put it. However, his own claim was based on his relationship to a man who was a rabbit boss and who dreamed when it was time to hunt rabbits.

Clearly the Washo believed and still believe that dreams make one privy to the future and provide important insights on which one can base decisions. The specific uses to which dreams can be put change with the situation. Antelope dreaming is no longer important because there are no antelope. Rabbit dreamers no longer exist because the rabbit drive has lost much of its importance in Washo life. Conversely, dreams dealing with modern problems appear to be taken seriously.

One informant often dreams of snakes and evidences a great fear of them. The Washo view this behavior as a rational response to a real warning and consider the man's caution as good judgment in the face of repeated warnings.