Influence Of Christianity
The Washo have been exposed to Christianity from two main sources. Missionary groups have maintained representatives from time to time at one or another of the Washo colonies. A church dominates the appallingly dreary landscape of Dresslerville. Weather and neglect have caused the building to deteriorate. Permanent missionizing efforts apparently have been abandoned. One church group carries on a summer Bible class for children and sewing classes for women. Funerals are generally conducted by a Christian minister, but this appears to be a sop to white opinion rather than the result of any real desire on the part of the Washo to become Christians. At best they seem to have simply incorporated Christian services as another source of power. It is less than surprising that a people whose main religious emphasis seems to have been on curing or subsistence ritual should have found white doctors useful but white ministers a rather mysterious and superfluous bit of white culture.
The other main source of Christian ideas has been the peyote cult, which includes a roughly Christian version of God and Christ visualized as the father and the brother. The cross, pictures of Christ, and references to Jesus play a role in peyote ceremonialism. Other investigators (d'Azevedo and Merriam 1951; Stewart 1944) have noted a shift toward Indian tradition in the Washo peyote cult, with an attending reduction of Christian ideas. The attitude of one Washo woman sums the question up quite well: “I think them peyote people [she was not a peyotist but had encouraged her son to attend a meeting to cure a back injury] believe more what they doing than the white preacher.” Her own religion is summed up in her actions. In addition to sending her son to peyote meetings, she had taken her granddaughter to the shaman and is a regular attendant at the church sewing school. She was also the person who waited until the minister left the church to repeat ancient funeral prayers.
Bibliography
Abbreviations
AA: American Anthropologist
BAE: Bureau of American Ethnology