The Small Shall Be Strong

A History of Lake Tahoe's Washoe Indians

Matthew S. Makley

• Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781625343475
  9781625343468
• eBook ISBN:
  9781613765876
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

For thousands of years the Washoe people have lived in the shadows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. At the center of their lands sits beautiful Lake Tahoe, a name derived from the Washoe word Da ow a ga.

Perhaps because the Washoe population has always been small or because it has been more peaceful than other tribal communities, its history has never been published. In The Small Shall Be Strong, Matthew S. Makley demonstrates that, in spite of this lack of scholarly attention, Washoe history is replete with broad significance. The Washoes, for example, gained culturally important lands through the 1887 Dawes Act. And during the 1990s, the tribe sought to ban climbing on one of its most sacred sites, Cave Rock, a singular instance of Native sacred concerns leading to restrictions.

The Small Shall Be Strong illustrates a history and raises a broad question: How might greater scholarly attention to the numerous lesser-studied tribes in the United States compel a rethinking of larger historical narratives?

Chapter 1

The People from Here

Washoes believe Lake Tahoe is a part of them. Whatever happens to the lake is going to happen to us.

—Mahlon Machado, Washoe Community Council member

On a summer day in 2008, I joined a small group for a journey into Lagomarsino Canyon, deep in the western Great Basin. Along the eastern slope of the Virginia Range, due west from Lake Tahoe, we approached a slight draw; wild horses dotted nearby hillsides. On a broad, sweeping south-facing cliff, I saw what we had come for: 2,229 petroglyphs. Their strength of imagery makes a distinct impression. They include lines, dots, circles, spirals, and symbols. Human and animal forms—bighorn sheep, lizards, and birds—appear as well. These glyphs provide a window into a distant human past. But the view is clouded.1

Who made the drawings? When and why? What do the patterns and symbols signify? Was this a teaching place, a ritual gathering space for ceremonies of abundance and successful hunts? Was it a border crossing where many distinct travelers felt compelled to leave their mark? Archaeological study indicates some of the carvings might be up to ten thousand years old; others could have been completed just before the arrival of Euro-Americans in the region in the 1800s. Other than that, answers take the form of opinion. Similarly, no one can say exactly when humans first started occupying the western Great Basin.

Washoe tradition tells of their creation in this region. Tribal elder Jean Dexter shared a concise version of the Washoe creation story: “The Maker of All Things was counting out seeds that were to become the different tribes. He counted them out on a big winnowing tray in equal numbers. West Wind, the mischievous wind, watched until the Maker had divided the seeds into equal piles on the basket. Then he blew a gust of wind that scattered the seeds to the east. Most of the seeds that were to have been the Washoe people were blown away. That is why the Washoe are fewer in number than other tribes.”

This brief account is one of a much longer and complicated set of narratives that include encounters between forces of nature, a powerful woman creator named Nentushu, weasel brothers called Pewetseli and Damalali, spiders, giants, coyotes, and humans. One version of the creation story recounts Nentushu creating people by burning the fuzz off cattail seeds. Once the seeds were ready, Nentushu said of the Washoes that though they are small, they shall be strong. The stories are always set against a familiar backdrop that includes Lake Tahoe, along with its surrounding rivers, streams, mountains, and piñon trees. The degree to which the stories have changed over the past two hundred years is impossible to know. Translated into English and collected by anthropologists in the early and middle twentieth century, these narratives contain echoes of a distant past that has always included Washoes living in the region.2

In 1955 Omer Stewart, a distinguished anthropologist, testified in a federal court that Washoes have occupied the Tahoe region “for at least several thousand years.” More recently, Susan Lindstrom, the archaeologist who has done the most work with Washoes in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, indicated that ancestral Washoes took up residence in the Tahoe region eight or nine thousand years ago.3

Washoes did not live the same way all that time; their practices grew and changed over thousands of years, reflecting changes in the environment, weather patterns, and available food sources. They engaged in intensive land-management practices, caring for and harvesting hundreds of edible and medicinal plants. They observed and managed regional deer and antelope herds along with fish and rabbit populations. They studied the night sky and developed stories about constellations, seasons, and the movement of planets.

The chapter that follows does not seek to promote a version of a precolonial “Garden of Eden.” Owing to the great period of time living in the same place, it is certain Washoes faced cycles of hardship and suffering. Climactic shifts, technological advancements, human migrations, and border disputes consistently influenced the nature of their survival, long before Europeans set foot in North America.

The evidence of the earliest human beings in the western Great Basin and eastern Sierra Nevada consists mostly of projectile points and lithic, or stone, remains, along with the petroglyphs. One spectacular archaeological find in 1940, however, turned up some of the oldest human remains ever discovered in North America. Near present-day Fallon, Nevada, employees of the Nevada State Parks Commission uncovered a burial site inside a cave. The location contained a well-preserved man, later named the “Spirit Cave Mummy,” wrapped in intricately woven textiles with leather moccasins. The site also held the remains of a woman covered by a sturdy woven mat. Fifty years later, advances in science enabled biological anthropologists to test the remains. They determined the woman lived about ninety-three hundred years ago, while the man, who was deeper in the cave, lived about ninety-four hundred years ago. There is no clear evidence to suggest who these people were ethnically or who their descendants might be. It is nevertheless stimulating to imagine a time ninety-three hundred years ago when civilizations we know almost nothing about made their homes in the western Great Basin. Did these people leave a mark at Lagomarsino?4

Grinding tools, projectile points, manos, metates, pestles, and petroglyphs are the far more common physical items that prove humans lived in and around the Lake Tahoe basin up to ten thousand years ago. Anthropologists and archaeologists have labeled these early human communities “paleo-Indians,” often categorizing them as part of the “Martis archaeological complex.” While scholars debate whom these first people were, Washoes steadfastly claim them as ancestors.

It is clear that groups of humans were making a living in the Tahoe basin and adjacent valleys as the environment began to shift between the geologic epochs of the Pleistocene to the Holocene, ten to twelve thousand years ago. During the late Pleistocene, all archaeological evidence points to a highly mobile lifestyle for these communities. The environment was markedly wetter and cooler than today; many Great Basin valleys would have been filled with wide wetlands. People lived on the edges of these numerous shallow lakes abutting the foothills. From here they could fish, hunt waterfowl and small game, and harvest plants while maintaining access to reliable water sources.5

Archaeologists and geologists have determined that around the mid-Holocene, eighty-three hundred to forty-five hundred years ago, the Great Basin environment became extremely dry. Ancient tree stumps line the shallows of Lake Tahoe’s south shore beneath the water’s surface, proving that the lake’s level dropped significantly during this period. The abundant resources that had been available when the extensive shallow lakes populated the region were significantly reduced. Washoe ancestors would have had to seek out new food opportunities and become careful observers of growing cycles for edible grasses and nut-bearing trees. The proliferation of grinding sites identified and dated to this period proves that human communities did in fact begin to rely more heavily on small seeds and nuts. At roughly the same time, piñon trees began to spread from the southern Great Basin to the north, and this very well could have been the initial period in which Washoe culture began a heavy dependence on and therefore reverence for the piñon pine nut.6

Most archaeologists agree that by about forty-five hundred years ago, during the late Holocene epoch, human communities lived in ways easily identifiable with tribal communities in the Basin today. For one thing, the archaeological record becomes far more active during this period, suggesting a larger population density. The spreading of the piñon and the fact that many of the water sources had been replenished undoubtedly abetted the increase. By this time, Basin communities, including the Washoes, had begun to rely on a consistent seasonal cycle to take full advantage of the resources becoming available at different times of the year.7

Washoes speak a language called Hokan. It is one of the oldest language groups in America. By the time Euro-Americans arrived in the western Great Basin, the Hokan-speaking Washoes were bordered to the east by Numic speakers, the name given to six groups who speak a form of the umbrella language Uto-Aztecan. The Numic group includes Northern Paiutes and Western Shoshones, who are the Washoes’ closest Great Basin neighbors. California communities to the west spoke a variety of languages.8

The date of the arrival for the Washoes’ neighbors in the Great Basin has been debated by archaeologists and linguists since at least the 1950s. The dates range anywhere from three thousand to one thousand years ago. Regardless of when they came, new neighbors meant new opportunities and new challenges. The oral traditions and the archeological record indicate that over the past one thousand years or so, Washoes, Paiutes, and Shoshones figured out how to live in their respective areas with only periodic, mostly localized incidents of violent confrontation. Far more common would have been diplomatic encounters.

In border regions it became common for Washoes, Paiutes, and Shoshones to intermarry, thereby cementing alliances. Thus began what we might term the recent “historic” period when Washoe lands would have included pine forests, rivers, streams, and lakes along with rich fertile river valleys that would look familiar to people in the area today. Members of distinct Washoe communities met annually, in the snowless seasons, on Lake Tahoe’s shores, where they renewed kinship ties, cemented political relations, celebrated births, mourned deaths, and feasted on fresh trout and forest game, along with seasonal fruits and vegetables. Washoe elders remember summers on the shore as a “big time,” the return to a sacred place.9

Washoe settlements dotted the eastern Sierra landscape. Their territory stretched from what is today Susanville, California, to the north to Sonora Pass, California, to the south. The Sierra Nevada provided something of a fluid western boundary, depending on relations with neighboring California tribes, while the Pine Nut Range delineated a similarly mutable eastern border. Families maintained permanent homes in valleys near water and areas of plentiful game. They also kept specific summer home sites on the shores of Tahoe.

Across this immense landscape, Washoe people moved in coordination with a seasonal cycle, a connection to the first Basin peoples who cycled from wetland valleys to higher-elevation pine forests. Washoes lived in the valleys during the winter, at Tahoe during the snowless months, and in the Pine Nut Range during fall harvests. Loosely affiliated familial units created distinct regional communities. The Welmelti occupied the northernmost quadrant, while the Hangalelti populated the South. The P’a∙walu occupied the lands in between.10

Kinship groups were matrilocal (mother centered), patrilocal (father centered), or both. Washoe families, the backbone of their society, included extended relations and sometimes friends. Kinship groups provided a foundation that ensured cooperation for group hunts, martial action, and religious practices. A complex web of relations bound people together. Children learned quite young that they were a small part of a larger group that demanded respect for time-honored protocols. These proprieties had been defined over thousands of years, based on survival needs. At the center of the web was the value placed on cooperation. One family might survive on its own for a time, but families had to band together for defense, hunting, fishing, and harvesting.

Political structures tended to be local. Washoes did not have an overarching government or one presiding leader, although esteemed elders from each community would be recognized by the larger groups. And it is likely that councils of elders helped govern the day-to-day life of a local community. However, each group also featured multiple leaders serving in diverse capacities. Individuals called animal “bosses” monitored herds, led hunting rites, and set hunting limits. Warriors, curers, and medicine people, or Domomali, also held varying degrees of authority. So too did women who had mastered the massive encyclopedia of edible and medicinal plants in the eastern Sierra.11

Families maintained specific hereditary resource areas called MaɁaš. These could include lands for plant procurement, fishing, hunting, pine nut collecting, and spiritual practices. One Washoe man described MaɁaš lands as a “body of tools—resources.” Tribal members or families could move across the land on their own, as long as they respected established territorial and familial boundaries. Permission had to be granted in order to cross or use another family’s lands.12

Spiritually significant lands and sacred spaces existed throughout the eastern Sierra. Washoes believed (and many continue to believe) that a power or energy they called wegéleyú animated the universe. This neutral force permeated all things, including people, animals, plants, the land, and its features. Washoes feared, respected, and honored power, which could be channeled in higher concentrations through a select few individuals and places. Some sites, like DeɁek Wadapuš, “Cave Rock,” on Tahoe’s eastern shore, required special ministrations by a shaman. If ever a sacred place was misused or desecrated, the offenders could suffer injury or death and might condemn their kinship group to dire fates as well.

Shamans occupied an exclusive role among the Washoes. They were often mysterious individuals who cultivated specialized and private knowledge. There existed a clear distinction between curers and shamans. Curers, usually older females, prepared and prescribed cures for diverse sicknesses. Shamans, because of their acquisition of power, were different. Their healing involved elements beyond the knowledge of curers.

Power chose the person who would become a shaman usually in their childhood. Unlike other Native communities where an individual could actively seek out power through ceremonies, fasts, or rituals, Washoes claimed no control over the acquisition of power. Power first visited a person in the form of a dream. Power dreams could take many forms, but typically visitations from animals and water beings of the eastern Sierra world brought power to the dreamer. Out of respect for the taboo associated with using the name for these water beings publicly, this book refers to them simply as “water beings.” Washoes believed (and many still do) that these small beings lived in the lakes, rivers, streams, and springs of the western Great Basin. Washoes are not alone in this belief; many Great Basin groups, including Paiutes and Utes, shared a common view that mysterious and powerful supernatural creatures inhabited Great Basin waters. In the Washoe world, underground passageways linked surface waters to a central hub near DeɁek Wadapuš, “Rock Standing Gray,” today known as Cave Rock.13

The guidance and training of an experienced shaman were critical to a young novice, for power came with a great risk. Developed improperly, it could sicken and kill an individual. Power could also be wielded maliciously. Washoes consider...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• A Note on the Washoe Language
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Afterword
• Notes
• Index
• Illustrations