However, d'Azevedo reports that Northern Washo describe some degree of ritualism connected with fishing (d'Azevedo personal communication). Dreamers are said to have predicted the day of the spawning run. Dances were held and prayers said, suggesting a rather attenuated first-fish ceremony for some of the Washo (2618). Other Washo report “big times,” which included dancing and prayer, during the spring gathering on the lake. However, in the actual catching of fish there was much less ritual.
Some fishermen carried a fishing medicine composed of dried larvae of the Ephydra hians (Say), called kutsavi by the Paiute (Heizer 1950) and matsi babaša by the Washo. These larvae were obtained from the Mono Lake Paiute in trade or as gifts. They were considered good food and are still eaten by some Washo. However, in addition they were credited with having great powers to lure fish and were rubbed on harpoons, hooks, and lines. Perhaps this material was considered a fish medicine because these larvae are said to be generated from the scales of a giant fish. This leviathan is reported to have traveled through all the lakes in the Sierran area looking for a lake large enough in which to live. At Mono Lake it scraped some scales into the water before it left to find a permanent home in Lake Tahoe (Steward 1936). Whether the Washo share this story with the Owens Valley Paiute, I do not know, but Mono Lake, because of its saline water and its lack of any fish life, is thought of with some fear and awe. Today I get the impression that some Washo still keep a bit of this material with their fishing gear, although they are apt to rationalize it as a lure rather than real medicine. It should be remembered that hook-and-line or spear fishing accounted for a much smaller percentage of the total annual take than did trapping, damning, netting, or other communal methods which entailed no ritual.
Miscellaneous Concepts About Hunting And Fishing
A number of ritual activities cluster around hunting and fishing. Perhaps the most important is the requirement that women, particularly menstruating women, avoid the hunting and fishing equipment. If a woman touched such gear the owner would bathe it and pray [pg 382] “I'm giving you a bath to wash away the bad luck.” (2354-2378).
A further restriction placed on menstruating women was that they must not eat meat during their periods. To do so meant bad hunting for the man who killed the game.
The meat from the neck of a deer and the intestinal organs were forbidden to vigorous young people. If a man ate neck meat his aim would be bad (360-368). Neck meat was reserved for children and the old. In actuality it would seem that only the children and the almost decrepit ate such meat. One of my informants who is seventy-five, thus certainly qualifying for old age, has never tasted either neck meat or internal organs. To do so apparently would be an admission of loss of vigour which no Washo oldster wishes to make. Menstruating women today will eat meat purchased from a butcher but refrain from eating venison or other game taken by someone they know, for fear of spoiling his luck. Menstrual taboos also hold today in regard to touching firearms or fishing poles, although at least some Washo women own fishing poles, and in the early part of this century a woman who lives at Carson City was reputed to be a great hunter. In times past, certain women are reported to have made excellent bows but not to have used them.
Stewart reports dances to bring deer which none of my informants remembered. However, even in his time the dances were said to be “mainly for pleasure,” which suggests the sacred nature of such dances has gradually faded out of the consciousness of most modern Washo, particularly as deer hunting has become entirely an individual enterprise and is no longer central to Washo subsistence.