Fig. 101—Paiute wikiup.
As a people the Paiute are peaceable, moral, and industrious, and are highly commended for their good qualities by those who have had the best opportunities for judging. While apparently not as bright in intellect as the prairie tribes, they appear to possess more solidity of character. By their willingness and efficiency as workers, they have made themselves necessary to the white farmers and have been enabled to supply themselves with good clothing and many of the comforts of life, while on the other hand they have steadily resisted the vices of civilization, so that they are spoken of by one agent as presenting the “singular anomaly” of improvement by contact with the whites. Another authority says: “To these habits and excellence of character may be attributed the fact that they are annually increasing in numbers, and that they are strong, healthy, active people. Many of them are employed as laborers on the farms of white men in all seasons, but they are especially serviceable during the time of harvesting and hay-making.” ([Comr.], 46.) They would be the last Indians in the world to preach a crusade of extermination against the whites, such as the messiah religion has been represented to be. Aside from their earnings among the whites, they derive their subsistence from the fish of the lakes, jack rabbits and small game of the sage plains and mountains, and from piñon nuts and other seeds which they grind into flour for bread. Their ordinary dwelling is the wikiup or small rounded hut of tulé rushes over a framework of poles, with the ground for a floor and the fire in the center and almost entirely open at the top. Strangely enough, although appreciating the advantages of civilization so far as relates to good clothing and such food as they can buy at the stores, they manifest no desire to live in permanent houses or to procure the furniture of civilization, and their wikiups are almost bare of everything excepting a few wicker or grass baskets of their own weaving.
The Paiute ghost songs have a monotonous, halting movement that renders them displeasing to the ear of a white man, and are inferior in expression to those of the Arapaho and the Sioux. A number of words consisting only of unmeaning syllables are inserted merely to fill in the meter. Like the cognate Shoshoni and Comanche, the language has a strong rolling r.
GENESIS MYTH
At first the world was all water, and remained so a long time. Then the water began to go down and at last Kura′ngwa (Mount Grant) emerged from the water, near the southwest end of Walker lake. There was fire on its top (it may have been a volcano), and when the wind blew hard the water dashed over the fire and would have extinguished it, but that the sage-hen (hutsi—Centrocercus urophasianus) nestled down over it and fanned away the water with her wings. The heat scorched the feathers on the breast of the sage-hen and they remain black to this day. Afterward the Paiute got their first fire from the mountain through the help of the rabbit, who is a great wonder-worker, “same as a god.” As the water subsided other mountains appeared, until at last the earth was left as it is now.
Then the great ancestor of the Paiute, whom they call Nümi′naă′, “Our Father,” came from the south in the direction of Mount Grant, upon which his footprints can still be seen, and journeyed across to the mountains east of Carson sink and made his home there. A woman, Ibidsíi, “Our Mother,” followed him from the same direction, and they met and she became his wife. They dressed themselves in skins, and lived on the meat of deer and mountain sheep, for there was plenty of game in those days. They had children—two boys and two girls. Their father made bows and arrows for the boys, and the mother fashioned sticks for the girls with which to dig roots. When the children grew up, each boy married his sister, but the two families quarreled until their father told them to separate. So one family went to Walker lake and became Aga′ih-tĭka′ra, “fish eaters” (the Paiute of Walker lake), while the other family went farther north into Idaho and became Kotso′-tĭkăra, “buffalo eaters” (the Bannock), but both are one people and have the same language. After their children had left them, the parents went on to the mountains farther east, and there Nüminaă′ went up into the sky and his wife followed him.
THE WASHO
Associated with the Paiute are the Washo, or Wâ′siu, as they call themselves, a small tribe of about 400 souls, and having no affinity, so far as known, with any other Indians. They occupy the mountain region in the extreme western portion of Nevada, about Washo and Tahoe lakes and the towns of Carson and Virginia City. They formerly extended farther east and south, but have been driven back by the Paiute, who conquered them, reducing them to complete subjection and forbidding them the use of horses, a prohibition which was rigidly enforced until within a few years. Thus broken in spirit, they became mere hangers-on of the white settlements on the opening up of the mines, and are now terribly demoralized. They have been utterly neglected by the government, have never been included in any treaty, and have now no home that they can call their own. They are devoted adherents of the messiah, but usually join in the dance with the nearest camp of Paiute, whose songs they sing, and have probably no Ghost songs in their own language. We quote a gloomy account of their condition in 1866. The description will apply equally well today, excepting that their numbers have diminished:
This is a small tribe of about 500 Indians, living in the extreme western part of the state. They are usually a harmless people, with much less physical and mental development than the Paiutes, and more degraded morally. They are indolent, improvident, and much addicted to the vices and evil practices common in savage life. They manifest an almost uncontrollable appetite for intoxicating drinks. They are sensual and filthy, and are annually diminishing in numbers from the diseases contracted through their indulgences. A few have learned the English language and will do light work for a reasonable compensation. They spend the winter months about the villages and habitations of white men, from whom they obtain tolerable supplies of food and clothing. The spring, summer, and autumn months are spent in fishing about Washo and Tahoe lakes and the streams which flow through their country. They also gather grass seed and pine nuts, hunt rabbits, hares, and ducks. There is no suitable place for a reservation in the bounds of their territory, and, in view of their rapidly diminishing numbers and the diseases to which they are subjected, none is required. ([Comr.], 47.)