  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 a?¿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, [pg 368] 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. |
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