Ghosts, however, wander over the land. They are generally malevolent. If they feel they have been badly used in life, or are not properly honored after death, or have not been given the things they wanted when buried, they may wreak vengeance on the living. To prevent this, homes were abandoned, prayers were said, and names of the dead were not used. In discussing a recent murder, one of the most progressive of the Washo was extremely reluctant to give the name of the victim, and, when she finally did, she whispered it. One of the difficulties encountered by government agents when pine-nut lands were allotted to the Washo was a refusal to name the ancestors on whom the allotment claim was based.
Ghosts are often said to come in the form of whirlwinds or dust devils, and most Washo will avoid looking at a whirlwind. At night, a sudden puff of warm air is thought to be a ghost passing nearby.
Ritual In Subsistence
Hunting, far more than gathering, appears to have been the focus of much ritual activity. This suggests that for the Washo the importance of ritual may have increased in proportion to the element of chance inherent in the activity undertaken. Gathering was a surety, assuming of course that there was a harvest to gather. With the wide variety of plants available within the Washo territory during the spring, summer, and fall it seems highly unlikely that the failure of one species of plant created a serious problem. This, of course, was not true of the pine nut. A failure of the pine-nut crop was a harbinger of a starvation winter. The gathering of pine nuts, in contrast to the gathering of other plants, was the subject of a great deal of ritual and, in some degree, of ceremonialism uncommon to most Washo gathering activities. This will be dealt with later in the paper.
Hunting
Deer (1-27).—Deer were hunted in a number of ways. Barrett reports, and old informants confirm, that hunting parties of as many as thirty or forty men were formed in the old days to go to the western slope of the Sierra in pursuit of deer. The large number may have been necessitated by the possibility of meeting hostile Miwok or Maidu. My own informants claimed that these large parties often set fire to the forest to drive the deer into the open, and that the large number of men was needed to cover the escape routes.
More common, apparently, were small groups of five or six men, usually relatives, who went into the deer country together. Their technique was to drive along a single deer run toward one of their number who was considered the best shot. This method was very common after the introduction of firearms, particularly repeating firearms.