3. “There is this women called Frances. She was up at Blue Lake with her husband following him along the edge of the lake. It was kind of dark. She saw them little footprints right on top of her husband's in the sand.”
4. “I'll tell you what happened to me right in this house about two years ago. I was in bed in that room there and I felt these little hands creeping under the covers. I brushed 'em away but they just come back. They tried to feel me down here [indicating his genitalia]. I yelled for my mother and she come in and said something and something went zip (waving arm violently to indicate direction) right out of that window. We looked out that way [to the south], that's toward Walker Lake. Everything was kind of hazy blue.”
In light of Washo views about receiving shamanistic power, it would appear that my informant was suggesting that this visitation was a Water Baby making its patronage known.
5. “My old uncle had been doctoring up by Genoa. He had a tough one and fallen in the fire and burned all his pants off and was walking wearing his coat like a skirt. He got by Wally's Hot Springs when he felt like he wanted a bath. Them Water Babies must have been working on him. He went over by the creek and started to lean over and then he passed out and fell into the water and there was a Water Baby. That Water Baby said, ‘come on,’ and he took him down to Water Baby country. The chief of the Water Babies lived in a big house made out of that black shining rock [obsidian]. But they didn't go there. The Water Baby said ‘we got some girls that want to give you something,’ and he took my uncle to a place and there was five girls there. They all sat around my uncle and sang him a song and told him that it was his song from now on. Then the Water Baby took my uncle back and then he said it was like waking up from a dream and there he was laying in the creek down under a bunch of cattails.”[4]
6. “There was this white man up here fishing. He caught a Water Baby but he didn't know what it was. He thought it was some kind of fish and took it to San Francisco and they put it that place where they have a lotta fish [aquarium]. Captain Jim went all the way down there to tell the mayor that they had better let that Water Baby loose, but nobody would pay no attention to him. Well you know they had a big earthquake down there and the water came up around everything. When it was all over that tank where they had the Water Baby was empty.”
The Giants
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 aɲ¿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.