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Walapai dressed, and wrapped and buried, extended, in a rock-covered grave in the mountains Bibliography Callaway, Donald, Joel C Janetski, and Omer C Stewart (1986) "Ute." In Handbook of North American Indians Vol 11, Great Basin, edited by Warren L d'Azevedo, 336-367 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Conetah, Fred A (1982) A History of the Northern Ute People Edited by Katheryn L MacKay and Floyd A O'Neil Salt Lake City, Utah: Uintah-Ouray Tribe Jorgensen, Joseph G (1964) The Ethnohistory and Acculturation of the Northern Ute Ph.D diss., Indiana University Smith, Anne M (1974) Ethnography of the Northern Ute Museum of New Mexico Papers in Anthropology, no 17 Santa Fe: University of New Mexico Press JOEL C JANETSKI 363 Wailaki The Wailaki, including the Kato (Cahto, Tlokeang), Lassik, Mattole (Van Duzen Indians), Nongatd, and Sinkyone, lived along the coast and inland in northwestern California, along the Bear, Mattole, and Eel rivers They spoke Athapaskan languages and probably number about one hundred today Bibliography Elsasser, Albert B (1978) "Mattole, Nongatl, Sinkyone, Lassik, and Wailaki." In Handbook of North American Indians Vol 8, California, edited by Robert F Heizer, 190-204 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Myers, James E (1978) "Cahto." In Handbook of North American Indians Vol 8, California, edited by Robert F Heizer, 244-248 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Walapai ETHNONYMS: Hualapai, Jaguallapai, Yampai Orientation Identification The Walapai are an American Indian group located in Arizona "Walapai" is the most common historic and ethnographic label for the group whose official tribal designation is "Hualapai." The term, meaning "Ponderosa Pine People," originally referred to a single band, the first one encountered by explorers and prospectors coming into Walapai territory from the Colorado River Prior to the administrative division into two reservations in the nineteenth century, the Walapai and the Havasupai constituted a single ethnic group Location Historically, the Walapai inhabited an extensive territory in northwestern Arizona, bounded on the north and west by the Colorado River, and on the south and east by hostile groups of Yavapai This arid range is characterized by hot summers and mild winters, with frequent and violent thunderstorms throughout July and August The Walapai now reside on a reservation of approximately million acres within this aboriginal territory, with tribal offices located at Peach Springs, Arizona Demography In the 1980s, the reservation population numbered about 950 Walapais Accurate reconstruction of the historic size of the population is difficult, owing to the fluid nature of hunting and gathering bands, but it is probable that the group never numbered more than 1,000 By 1900, following a series of epidemics and battles with U.S troops, the population had been reduced to less than 600 364 VV ~~AJ- linguistic Affiliation The Walapai language, along with Havasupai and Yavapai, form the Upland Pai group within the Yuman language family Mutually intelligible dialects are also spoken by groups along the Colorado River and in southern California and the northern part of Baja California, Mexico History and Cultural Relations The Upland Pai are descendants of the prehistoric Cerbat tradition, inhabiting the present territory of the Pai as early as A.D 100 The Walapai origin myth places the creation of all the Yuman groups at a place on the west bank of the Colorado River, where the Great Spirit transformed the canes along the river's edge into humans Although Spanish explorers and missionaries established relations with the Yumans living along the river in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was not until 1776 that direct and brief contact with Walapais occurred They remained isolated for another seventy years, until the U.S Army began to sponsor the search through northern Arizona for railroad routes to the West Coast These explorations initiated two decades ofhostilities between the Walapai and Anglos-the soldiers and the settlers who followed closely behind them The intrusions began with the discovery of gold near Prescott in 1863 In 1866, the respected Walapai leader, Wauba Yuma, was killed For the next four years, Walapais engaged the better-armed and better-mounted soldiers in battle Ultimately, the Walapai surrendered and were moved to the inhospitable lowlands ofthe Colorado River Indian Reservation Finding conditions there intolerable, they fled back to their customary territory where, in their brief absence, ranchers and miners had appropriated the habitable areas and taken over many of the springs Conditions did not improve markedly with the establishment of the reservation in 1883, for heavy grazing had already depleted the Walapai range, wiping out several of the food plants upon which the Indians depended Impoverished and threatened by epidemic diseases, Walapais sought work in the towns on the Santa Fe Railroad and in the mines Many, too, turned briefly to the millenarian Ghost Dance in the late 1880s, hoping, to no avail, that the magical power of the dance would expel Anglos from the territory Aboriginally, the Upland Pai (Walapai and Havasupai) were culturally and linguistically similar to the Yavapai along their southern boundary and to the Colorado River Yumans to the west Yet these similarities did not lead to a shared sense of identity Although Walapais intermarried with the Halchidhoma along the river, raiding and warfare characterized their relationships with the powerful Mohaves and the mobile Yavapais Enmity intensified with the arrival of Anglo miners and settlers, as Indians were recruited to fight their traditional foes This process led, in postcontact times, to an increased sense of unity within the beleaguered Walapai bands Settlements Walapai settlement patterns have been and continue to be closely tied to the availability of resources Aboriginally, the 'camp," composed of about 25 related individuals, was the primary settlement and subsistence unit Relying for much of the year on the abundant and varied wild resources of Walapai territory, the camp might join others during some seasons, either to exploit game or farm near springs and washes During the period of conquest, there is evidence that farming took on increased importance, resulting in larger and more stable settlements of as many as 250 Walapais With the establishment ofthe reservation and consequent reduction in the territory available to Walapais for hunting, gathering, and farming, many took jobs and quarters in towns along the railroad By 1960, only half of the enrolled tribal members resided in the reservation town of Peach Springs Archaeological evidence suggests that the primary aboriginal house form was the rough brush wickiup, a circular structure without poles Habitation debris has also been located in caves and rock shelters During the postcontact period, Walapais were observed living in more permanent domed houses, thatched with arrowweed or covered with juniper bark Eight-sided hogans and tar-paper shacks became common during the reservation period During the 1970s, the tribe undertook a substantial effort to develop adequate housing on the reservation Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities Historically, the Walapai economy was based primarily on hunting and gathering seasonally available wild resources Moving frequently, the camps visited locations where resources were known to be abundant This annual round focused on several key plant foods In the spring, agave or mescal was gathered in canyons and foothills When baked for several days in an earth oven, the plant's inner core was eaten immediately while the outer layers were crushed into pulp, dried, and stored for future consumption Following the mescal harvest, the camps or individual families moved down to the valley and basin floors to collect stick-leaf and abundant and protein-rich wild seed By midsummer, fruits of several cactus species ripened, and in late summer, attention shifted to nut gathering in mountain groves Few vegetal resources were available during the winter months, but the Walapai survived on wild game and the stored products of the spring and summer As settlers moved into Walapai territory in the nineteenth century to graze cattle, cut trees for mine timbers, and exploit wild game, this adaptive hunting and gathering economy changed Walapais, of necessity, turned increasingly to farming the land around springs and the few perennial streams in the region Walapais constructed diversion dams to irrigate gardens of squash, maize, beans, watermelons, and wheat But, once again, this response proved to be short-lived Restricted to the high grasslands of the reservation after 1883, Walapais in the twentieth century have come to rely on cattle (four thousand head in the 1980s), wage employment in tribal and federal agencies, a successful doll factory, and recently, the development of recreational facilities along the Grand Canyon, bordering the reservation Nonetheless, over 40 percent of reservation residents remain unemployed The horses and cattle introduced by Europeans were viewed, until the reservation period, as food on the hoof Industrial Arts Walapai basketry came to be highly valued in the trade network and afforded women a major outlet for artistic expression Most baskets were functional containers such as large firewood and burden baskets, conical seedgathering baskets, flat trays for parching and winnowing Walapai 365 seeds, and water bottles sealed with pitch from the pifion tree Walapai pottery, another aboriginal art, did not survive the influx of metal utensils during the postcontact period Trade The Walapai actively traded the products of hunting and gathering pursuits to their agricultural neighbors during aboriginal and postcontact times When at peace with the Mohave, they bartered meat for the beans, maize, and pumpkins cultivated along the river's floodplain Cultivated foods were also obtained from the Havasupai in return for deer and the skins of mountain sheep Trade linkages extended well beyond adjacent groups, however Walapai introduced distinctive products-dried mescal, red hematite pigment, and the prized basketry-into an exchange network which linked Indians of the Pacific Coast to the Pueblos of New Mexico Division of Labor In the traditional hunting and gathering economy, women bore primary responsibility for collecting and processing plant resources, and men hunted Farming activities were carried out by all members of the family Land Tenure Prior to the establishment of a reservation, land tenure took the form of a "customary range," an area of habitat diversity within which the bands gathered and hunted wild resources The boundaries of these ranges were not precisely demarcated, but there was common consent among the Walapai that the various ranges were the primary subsistence grounds of the bands inhabiting them Kinship Kin Groups and Descent Historically, the nuclear family of parents and children was seldom an isolated and selfsufficient unit Rather, camps of about twenty-five individuals, usually several related nuclear families, proved to be necessary for protection against raids, for communal hunts, and for efficient gathering ofwild plant resources While the camp was the primary land-use unit during the historic period, several camps utilizing adjacent territories were grouped into patrilineal bands, headed by the most respected ofthe leaders of the individual camps Eligibility for camp leadership, and thus for the headship of the bands, was transmitted patrilineally, but potential leaders won respect more for their bravery, wisdom, and oratorical abilities than for strict genealogical descent Kinship Terminology Under reservation life, the Yumantype kinship terminology of the Walapai does not appear to have retained its salience Marriage and Family Marriage Traditionally, marriage was not marked by formal ceremony Rather, the process was initiated through repeated gifts by the male suitor to the girl's father If the father found the man to be acceptable, he would urge his daughter to receive the man Upon marriage, a man was expected to live for a time in the camp of his spouse and then return with his wife to his own patrilineal camp In practice, however, young couples typically joined the camp that was most in need of their help in subsistence activities Divorce was reported to be frequent in the postcontact era, for reasons of incompatibility, jealousy, and adultery With settled reservation life, the incidence of divorce has declined substantially Domestic Unit Several related families joined together to form the basic domestic entity, the camp Frequently, these families were polygamous, out ofthe need to ensure sufficient labor for domestic activities Inheritance Under aboriginal conditions, notions of inheritance of private property were weakly developed, since an individual's possessions were burned upon death Access to wild resources within the tribal range was, however, a critical right inherited through the patrilineal band Socialization Historically, the socialization of children and adolescents centered on economic pursuits, training the young in the critical tasks of hunting and gathering In recent years, a noteworthy interest has been shown by Walapais in documenting and preserving Walapai language and culture The Peach Springs School, opened on the reservation in the 1950s, has implemented an extensive program in bilingual and bicultural education for its students Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization Prior to its disruptive encounter with the U.S Cavalry in the 1860s, the Walapai tribe was divided into three named subtribes, each encompassing several adjoining patrilineal bands and their constituent camps These social units tended to be endogamous, since marriage partners were most frequently selected from adjacent camps and bands But strict territoriality does not appear to have been maintained: subtribes shared land and resources with other Walapais when necessary for survival The reservation system has transformed this aboriginal social organization The Havasupai reservation was established for a single band within one subtribe, and the Walapai reservation, drawing its designation from the proper name for another patrilineal band, now houses descendants of twelve other aboriginal bands Political Organization and Conflict War with the United States, as well as the customary practice of governmental agents to seek "chiefs" as signatories to official documents, elevated several of the camp and band headmen to positions of subtribal leadership Wauba Yuma, shortly before his murder, put his mark on the toll-road contract on behalf of the Yavapai Fighters subtribe, as did Hitchi Hitchi for the Plateau People And Cherum, of the Middle Mountain People, took military command in the ensuing war, developing a clever trade network by which he procured arms from Southern Paiutes who had in turn obtained them from Mormons in Utah With the creation of the reservation, bringing agents of the Indian Service to Truxton Canyon, the incipient tribal leadership fell dormant The present tribal government, an elective nine-member council, was established under provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act in the late 1930s Social Control Aboriginally, the wisdom and oratorical skills of the camp and band leaders were marshaled in family disputes Undoubtedly, too, the fluidity of group membership facilitated resolution, as disputants could join the camps of friends and relatives Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs The Walapai, like other Yuman groups, not have an elaborate cosmology or a complex ritual cycle 366 Walapai Spirits to which shamans attach themselves are associated with particular locations within aboriginal Walapai territory In the twentieth century, they have been subjected to repeated missionary activity, but the Baptists, Mormons, and the revivalist Four Square Gospel mission have met with little success on the reservation Much of the traditional religious activity, continuing well into the present century, centers around the shaman N Religious Practitioners and Medicine A deceased relative's spirit alerts a prospective shaman to his specialty through a series of dreams Then, during a solitary visit to a mountain, the individual acquires the necessary power from the spirits through additional dream sequences Thus prepared, the shaman may operate in the realm of curative medicine Treatment of diseases and snakebites consists of singing over the patient and sucking the wounds The specialist may then produce a small object from the wound, believed to be the locus of the malignant spirit By extracting the offending object, the shaman returns the evil spirit to its mountain It is reported historically that the shaman was liable to be killed by the relatives of a deceased patient or rewarded with buckskins if the patient recovered Ceremonies The individualistic character of the shaman complex gives rise to few groupwide ceremonial occasions among the Walapai Girls pass through a brief puberty ceremonial following their initial menses, but, historically, marriage was not marked by formal rites Arts Facial painting and shell neck pendants were, historically, important modes of personal decoration and expression The shells, obtained in trade from Yumans along the Colorado River, functioned as charms or amulets, guarding the wearer against disease Death and Afterlife Traditionally, Walapai dead were cremated along with their material possessions The souls of the good people departed for the ancestral land on the bank of the Colorado River to the accompaniment of ceremonial crying by living relatives and friends Late in the nineteenth century, U.S soldiers attempted to enforce Christian burial practices, and many Walapai partially acquiesced, interring the dead in rock slides and cairns The mourning ceremony, an elaborate ritual among the Colorado River Yumans, persists in attenuated form among the Walapai Bibliography Dobyns, Henry F., and Robert C Euler (1970) Wauba Yuma's People: The Comparative Socio-Political Structure of the Pai Indians of Aritona Prescott College Studies in Anthropology, no Prescott, Ariz.: Prescott College Press Kroeber, Alfred L., ed (1935) Walapai Ethnography American Anthropological Association, Memoir 42 Menasha, Wis Martin, John F (1985) "The Prehistory and Ethnohistory of Havasupai-Hualapai Relations." Ethnohistory 32:135-153 THOMAS R MCGUIRE Wallawalla The Wallawalla (Walula), including the Palouse (Palus) and Wauyukma, lived along the Wallawalla, Palouse, and Snake rivers in southeastern Washington The Wallawalla now live on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon with the Umatilla and the Cayuse They spoke a Sahaptin language of the Penutian phylum and numbered about five hundred in the 1980s Bibliography Gunkel, Alexander (1979) Culture in Conflict: a Study of Contrasted Interrelations and Reactions between Euroamericans and the Wallawalla Indians of Washington State Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International Wappo The Wappo (Ashochimi) lived along the headwaters of the Napa River and Pope and Putah creeks to the south of Clear Lake in northern California They spoke a language of the Yukian family and probably number less than fifty today Bibliography Driver, Harold (1936) Wappo Ethnography University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 36 Berkeley Sawyer, Jesse (1978) "Wappo." In Handbook of North American Indians Vol 8, California, edited by Robert F Heizer, 256-263 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Washoe ETHNONYMS: Wah-shoes, Wahshoo, Washaws, Washew, Washo, Washoo Orientation Identification The spelling "Washo" became standard in the ethnographic and linguistic literature of the twentieth century, but "Washoe" is the official spelling used by the people and has been firmly established as local usage in Nevada Washoe 367 The people refer to themselves as wi-giw or wasiiswiw which appears to mean "people from here." Location In early historic times the Washoe inhabited a region of about four thousand square miles between Honey Lake to the north and the upper reaches of the West Walker River to the south On the east, the Pinenut and Virginia ranges separated them from the Northern Paiute, and on the west the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains separated them from the Miwok and Maidu peoples The state boundary between Nevada and California roughly bisects their ancient territory, running through Lake Tahoe at an approximate center Their major year-round settlements were in the well-watered valleys along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains at an altitude of about forty-five hundred feet and where there was an abundance of vegetation and game They also made extensive use of alpine areas up to elevations of six thousand or more feet for seasonal hunting, fishing, and gathering except during the severest winters Regular treks were made to the acorn oak groves in the foothills over the crest of the mountains as well as to fishing sites shared with the Northern Paiute at Pyramid, Walker, and Mono lakes Today, the remaining Washoe live in small colonies and scattered settlements at Reno, Carson City, and Dresslerville, Nevada, and around Woodfords, California The headquarters of the modern tribal government is at Gardnerville, Nevada Demography The estimates of an aboriginal population of fifteen hundred or so Washoe people are much lower than what might be expected from the size and resources of the area they inhabited But they did suffer a sharp drop in numbers owing to disease and poverty in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when figures as low as three hundred were reported After the 1950s, with increased federal support for education and improved economic conditions, there has been a rapid population recovery indicated by the registration of well over fifteen hundred persons on the tribal rolls iUnguistic Affiliation Linguists tentatively agree that Washoe (Washo) belongs to the Hokan stock of Amerind languages Evidence is uncertain for earlier conjectures that the Washoe migrated eastward from a prehistoric association with other Hokan-speaking peoples in what is now California to their present location, or that they represent the remnant of an ancient distribution of Hokan-speakers some one thousand or more years ago The isolation ofWashoe from related languages, together with linguistic and archaeological evidence, suggests that it has been in place for many thousands of years The language reveals little dialectic differentiation, but some borrowing has occurred with Numic and other neighboring languages The number offluent speakers of Washoe has declined drastically in recent times History and Cultural Relations The Washoe people and their country were unknown to Americans until the early nineteenth century when explorers such as Joseph Walker, Jedediah Smith, and John Frimont traversed the central Great Basin seeking direct routes to California Although they had some earlier contact with the Spanish to the west, actual intrusion of their territory did not occur until the hordes of immigrants began to appear from the east during the gold rush of the 1840s and 1850s Many Whites were attracted to the verdant valleys occupied by the Washoe, fencing the lands for cattle, restricting access to water sources, and establishing numerous trading posts and settlements By the 1870s the lowland forests, grasslands, and the large game so essential to Washoe subsistence had become depleted The completion of the transcontinental railroad signaled the end of the old life-way and its conquest by a new, alien society For the next one hundred years, the Washoe were forced into the status of servile, unfranchised dependents in an aggressive frontier world Appeals by Washoe spokesmen or by the occasional sympathetic Indian agent for aid and lands went unheeded A reservation was never assigned to them, and the land allotments provided under the Dawes Act of 1887 were largely unfit for habitation or development Many families leased their allotments at extremely low rates to sheep ranchers, which, in turn, led to the rapid deterioration of the pifion groves whose harvesting had provided one of the major staples in aboriginal times The people lived in squalid camps on the outskirts of White towns or on the ranches where many were employed In 1917, a few small parcels of land with inadequate facilities were set aside at Reno, Carson City, and Dresslerville primarily for Washoe use Schools for Indian children were segregated, their language and traditional customs were discouraged, and discriminatory policies restricted social interaction Citizenship was not granted until 1924 Some improvement in conditions began to take place after the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 when the Washoe became a legally constituted tribe with a written constitution and official tribal council Major change, however, did not occur until after 1970 when the Washoe won a compensation of $5 million (of a $43 million claim filed in 1948) before the Indian Claims Commission Through effective investment of 70 percent of the funds and issuing per capita payments only to older members, considerable advancement has been made in tribal organization and services With the emergence of new leadership and planning, state and federal funds were procured for housing, employment opportunities, educational programs, tribal businesses, and additional lands Young people began to remain in the area or to return from relocation with a sense of hope and renewed identity The Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California has become an active participant in intertribal affairs, and many of its members are pursuing successful careers in the larger local and national communities The aboriginal Washoe were a peaceable people who nevertheless staunchly defended their core habitation and subsistence areas from hostile intrusion yet tolerated access by others except in times of extreme scarcity Likewise, neighboring peoples such as the Northern Paiute, Miwok, and Maidu allowed some use of resources in their own domains The few brief skirmishes were between small groups over matters of unnegotiated trespass, perceived insult, or revenge Networks of intermarriage reinforced long-standing friendly relations with families of surrounding peoples, and this practice has continued into historic times The Washoe at first accommodated incoming Whites during the early nineteenth century and resorted to sporadic resistance only when the intruders threatened their resources and autonomy But they were quickly overwhelmed and forced into passive acquiescence during a century of frontier conquest 368 Washoe Settlements Aboriginal Washoe settlements were generally placed on elevated ground near sources of water Domiciles tended to be widely spaced for privacy and reduced visibility from afar Permanent year-round settlements were maintained in traditionally established locations in the six or seven major lowland valleys along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains Housing sites, or even entire settlements, might be moved about within these areas upon the death of family members, changing relations between households, or other conditions During seasonal hunting and gathering activities, small groups set up temporary camps in the mountains or while trekking to distant locations in search of desired resources, returning to their permanent settlements for the winter months This pattern of mobility and option was terminated by White usurpation in the 1850s Today, the Washoe continue to live mainly in the small colonies established in the early twentieth century, though many live and work in local towns or in other areas The traditional winter house was most common in permanent settlements and was a conical construction of bark slabs supported by interlocked poles set over a shallow depression in the ground with an entrance facing eastward Dome-shaped summer houses of willow frame thatched with tule and brush were used as well as the simple lean-to for shade or for temporary shelter on seasonal treks During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, versions of these structures were made of discarded materials from White settlements Standard colony housing up to the 1960s involved rows of dilapidated board shacks surrounded by the accumulated rubble of attempted repair and scavenged materials Owing to the advancements of the past twenty or thirty years, the quality of Washoe housing today exceeds that of most low-income residences in the area Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities Washoe aboriginal economy was based on hunting, fishing, and gathering The environment provided an abundance of large and small game, fish in the lakes and streams, and seeds and other plant products requiring a highly skilled pattern of seasonal exploitation over the year Although the local pinenut and the acorn from over the mountains were much desired foods (and continue to be in modem times when available), other food resources provided a major part of the diet The destruction of the subsistence base in early historic times resulted in a rapid transformation of diet to one of starches, fats, and sweets prevalent among rural western White settlers During the frontier period many Washoe lived and worked on ranches-the men as laborers and cowhands, and the women as laundresses and cooks Other men were employed in- the mines or the construction of roads and dams Some brought wood, fish, and game into the towns for sale until they were restricted by local laws A few women supplemented income by selling baskets and pinenuts or hiring out to domestic service Most, however, were destitute Today, many younger Washoe men and women participate in the general economy and are employed in an expanded tribal government or in a number of tribally operated businesses In precontact times, the dog was the only domesticated animal A few Washoe had acquired ponies from the Spanish in California and, later, from American settlers But conditions did not permit the development of an equestrian mode such as that appearing among their Northern Paiute neighbors in the early nineteenth century Sporadic attempts to raise cattle and sheep on tribal lands have been unsuccessful Industrial Arts The aboriginal Washoe produced a range of manufactures in stone, wood, fiber, bone, or skins, and utilized a repertoire of technologies typical of the hunting and gathering economies of the western Great Basin American implements, utensils, clothing, and ornament quickly replaced the traditional forms The basketry produced by the women was admired by all surrounding peoples and continued to be developed as an art of renown well into the twentieth century Trade Aboriginal trade seems not to have been extensive in the region, though the Washoe did exchange by barter and gift giving some salt, pinenuts, and deer and rabbit skins to westward peoples, such as the Miwok and Maidu, for shells, obsidian, certain medicinal plants, and other items which, in turn, were traded eastward to the Northern Paiute for antelope skins, kutsavi and cui-ui fish In the early postcontact period, they engaged in a small exchange involving firewood, pinenuts, game, and fish to White settlers Division of Labor Traditionally, the gathering of plant products was almost exclusively a woman's activity, as were preparation of food and other household tasks Women might also participate in major fish runs, rabbit drives, and surrounds of large games such as deer or antelope Hunting and combat, however, were men's activities, as well as the making of weapons and stone implements Yet considerable cooperation obtained for major tasks requiring group effort Among the modem Washoe, even when both men and women are wage earners, traditional gender roles tend to be maintained Land Tenure Except for traditional habitation or hunting and gathering sites in regular use, Washoe territory was an open range accessible to any but hostile or uncooperative trespassers Individual families claimed rights to certain plots in the Pinenut Range, but these were generally shared in times of abundance There was no concept of sectional or tribal land ownership but, rather, flexible and traditionally recognized domains of privilege with regard to natural resources Notions of land ownership imposed by Whites during early contact, and in the arbitrary assignment of land allotments in the late nineteenth century, were alien and continue to engender stress in social relations Many Washoe now own land individually, and certain new acquisitions are owned by the tribe in federal trust Kinship Kin Groups and Descent Variant forms of the bilateral extended family constituted the basic Washoe kin groups These composed the small local communities that were essentially family compounds referred to as "bunches." Networks of intermarriage in long-established areas of habitation led to the formation of larger regional communities, or "bands," which people identified as places of relatively permanent residence and close kinship Ties with more distant communities were weaker and relationships less traceable, but conditions of limited population distribution, mobility, Washoe 369 and common language and culture induced a sense of "tribal" identity among all sections Groups were not corporate, and notions of descent functioned mainly to determine the possible range of kinship obligations and of permissible sexual or marital relations Kinship Terminology All siblings and cousins were referred to by the terms for brother and sister (a "generational" system) and further distinguished only by the relative ages of their parents Terms in the parental generation were bifurcate-collateral; that is, they provided distinct terms for each of the parents and their siblings Some change toward the general American system has been taking place in the twentieth century Marriage and Family Marriage No marriage with known consanguineal relatives was permissible Despite the small population, potentials for marriageability were maintained by the extensive mobility of individuals and groups and shallow genealogical reckoning that limited the tracing of relationships Monogamy was the most common marital arrangement, but polygyny (both sororal and nonsororal) frequently occurred The sororate and levirate also were practiced First marriages were usually arranged by parents During the first years of marriage, residence was bilocal but with a tendency to matrilocality Separation because of incompatibility, infidelity, or improvidence could be initiated by either spouse and was recognized by the community Intermarriage with other Native Americans and with Whites is increasing in recent times, and marriage practices in general follow the American pattern Domestic Unit The members of a localized bilateral extended family together with some affines, distant relatives, and visiting friends formed the minimal domestic unit Individuals shifted residence frequently to live in communities of relatives or friends elsewhere Where feasible, modern Washoe residential arrangements follow earlier patterns Inheritance There is no clear evidence that statuses or property were passed down through any rule of inheritance in aboriginal times Personal possessions were disposed of at death, and headships and other offices were determined by group consensus Today, the American system of descent and inheritance prevails legally, though the traditional orientation often is expressed in practice Socialization Nurturing and permissive guidance were the model for ideal parenting Expression of hostility or violence toward children was strongly discouraged Admonition and punishment were relegated to third persons or to the threat of supernatural intervention This pattern continues to predominate among modern Washoe families where personal autonomy and individualism are respected and asserted Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization Washoe society was egalitarian in orientation with no fixed distinctions of wealth or status groups Leadership and roles of special skill were acquired through demonstrated ability and legitimized by local group recognition Women frequently attained positions of authority and expert specialization Personal attributes of generosity, modesty, and wise counsel were expected if the commu- nity were not to withdraw its support by turning to another Today, differences in education and income obtain, but the traditional social values are effective in minimizing the development of class divisions Political Organization Aboriginal Washoe communities were autonomous, each represented by local headmen or headwomen whose role was essentially that of admired adviser or spokesperson Ties between local communities were voluntary and could be activated for cooperative enterprises such as festivals, game drives, and defense Renowned shamans, hunters, or warriors sometimes were solicited as temporary leaders for these purposes Communication was maintained with distant Washoe sections for periodic communal gatherings and, though rarely, during emergencies where additional warriors might be needed During historic times, the forced concentration of the Washoe in the small areas allocated by Whites disrupted this pattern of organization Certain spokesmen, either familiar with English or amenable to negotiation with Whites, were designated as "Captains" under the erroneous assumption that they represented most of the people A few of these men, such as the renowned "Captain Jim" in the late nineteenth century, emerged as vigorous pleaders for the Washoe cause Attempts at tribal reorganization in the early twentieth century were ineffective because of the strong sense of family autonomy and resistance to centralized representation In more recent times, however, an elected Washoe Tribal Council representing each of the colonies as well as off-reservation persons has developed a successful tribal government under federal supervision It administers collective Washoe affairs and relations with state and federal agencies Social Control Internal cohesion was maintained by intensive socialization for group solidarity Aggressive behavior, except for defense ofthe group, was rigidly proscribed Infractions were dealt with by collective avoidance or the threat of supernatural reprisal Recalcitrant individuals might be driven from the group or even assassinated Modern Washoe communities have the services of a tribal police force and courts Law enforcement agencies of local towns and counties exert a degree of jurisdiction Conflict Warfare among aboriginal Washoe subgroups appears to have been absent, though occasional feuds between individuals or families erupted briefly into open violence These were resolved when a wrong was deemed to have been avenged or through the intervention ofelder negotiators on each side As the first people in the western Great Basin to experience the full brunt of White invasion, the Washoe were quickly reduced to helplessness in defense of their interests A deep sense of hopelessness and betrayal permeated their lives during most of the postcontact period and conditioned Washoe-White relations Homicide, factionalism, gambling, suicide, and accusations of witchcraft increased throughout the small Washoe settlements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Some individuals and families managed to escape the worst effects of these circumstances, but all endured the stigma of oppression and degradation Today, the ravages of the recent past are being obliterated by a remarkable economic and social recovery Internal conflict has greatly diminished and a positive cultural heritage is being reasserted 370 Washoe Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs Prayers and ritual manipulation of spiritual powers believed to be invested in nature were the active instruments of Washoe religion and were deemed essential to any successful human endeavor Nature must be propitiated to ensure its bounty and goodwill All natural phenomena were thought to be imbued with sentient spirit power Animals in particular were personified as autochthons in myths of geologic and human origins Spirits of the dead were feared, and there is little evidence that notions of a supreme being existed prior to the historic period The modem Washoe retain many of these beliefs and the practices associated with them Some have been participants in the Native American church while the Assembly of God and the Baptist church have attracted others Religious Practitioners In former times, the shamans were the principal specialists in the use of magical powers for rites of diagnosis, curing, and divination Their skills also might be exerted to defend against the hostile powers of others or to destroy one's enemies There were many other individuals acknowledged to derive their abilities from tutelary relationships with specific powers of nature, especially those persons exhibiting exceptional skill in subsistence, ceremonial, medicinal, or martial activities, but they did not command the degree of obeisance afforded the shamans In the 1930s and 1940s the shamans had obtained such a powerful hold among the Washoe that they were finally denounced by an irate community for conspiracy to defraud and for their exorbitant fees This movement was led by the new local Native American church which was itself under attack by many White as well as Washoe citizens for its use of peyote as a sacrament Nevertheless, the control of the shamans was weakened and, in recent times, none is acknowledged in the area Christian ministers, itinerant preachers, and a few remaining roadchiefs of the Native American church continue to provide religious guidance, while Western medical practitioners and some native herbalists administer to the ailing Ceremonies Important annual ceremonies involving large numbers of people took place at the first harvest in the Pinenut Range, in the easternmost extension ofthe acorn oak groves near Honey Lake, and at the locations of major fish runs associated with the rivers and lakes ofthe region A more localized, but equally important rite was the celebration of the commencement of menses by a girl's family and friends Other special rites also took place at the birth of a child, boy's puberty, marriage, and death Many of these observances continue today in diminished and variant forms among some families Arts Most expressions of aboriginal artistry disappeared early in the historic period These included ornament in shell, bone, and seed; distinctive styles of body painting and tattooing; feathered headdresses; decorative skin and fur accessories; and dyed and woven fibers There was also an extensive repertoire of songs, tales, and legends, very little ofwhich has been retained The major surviving art has been the exceptionally fine basketry that became internationally renowned in the early twentieth century through the work of the famous Datsolalee and a number of other expert weavers Elaborate woven cradles still are constructed for infants, and fancy beadwork and some baskets are made for sale Medicine Illness was attributed to the intrusion of alien objects, offended supernatural agencies, sorcery, or bad feeling A wide range of herbal and mineral substances was employed in treatment by shamans and various categories of curers endowed with special derived powers Modem Washoe rely mainly on Western medical facilities, but many also utilize traditional knowledge of herbs and customary practices passed down through elder family members Death and Afterlife Except for old age and chronic infirmity, death was seldom attributed to natural causes Thus, the occasion of a death was fraught with concern for the safety of the living: every effort must be made to protect the immediate family from whatever malevolent forces might be at work The spirit of the deceased must be pacified by a period of public mourning and prayers beseeching it to leave the area swiftly and without rancor Burials in a remote place or cremation were the most common The personal belongings of the deceased were interred or burned with the body There was a prohibition against speaking the name of the deceased in the presence of close relatives, for this might call the spirit Ideas of an afterlife were ambiguous: recorded lore suggests variously that the dead live underground, that some are reluctant to leave the area where they died and wander aimlessly about doing inadvertent or purposeful harm, or that there is a land to the south where spirits ofthe dead reside The cosmological beliefs of the modem Washoe are generally similar to those of the American society of which they are now a part but also are influenced by the spread of pan-Indian philosophical concepts among Native American communities Funerals are of major importance, and though they are usually conducted in accordance with the contemporary rites of local Christian churches, traditional prayers and funeral customs are often observed as well Bibliography d'Azevedo, Warren L., ed (1956) The Washo Indians ofCalifornia and Nevada University of Utah Anthropological Papers, no 67 Salt Lake City d'Azevedo, Warren L (1986) "Washoe." In Handbook of North American Indians Vol 11, Great Basin, edited by Warren L d'Azevedo, 466-498 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Downs, James F (1966) Two Worlds of the Washo New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston Nevers, J Ann (1976) Wa-She-Shu: A Washo Tribal History Reno: Intertribal Council of Nevada Price, John A (1980) The Washo Indians: History, Life Cycle, Religion, Technology, Economy, and Modem Life Nevada State Museum Occasional Papers, no Carson City Siskin, Edgar E (1983) Washo Shamans and Peyotists: Religious Conflict in an American Indian Tribe Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press WARREN L D'AZEVEDO Western Apache Western Apache ETHNONYMS: Dzil gha'i, Dilzhe'i, Dzil t'aadfi, Nde6 Orientation Identification The name "Apache" first appears in the historical record in 1598 There is no undisputed etymology, although Zuni is often cited as its source The Western Apache include the subtribes White Mountain, San Carlos, Cibecue, Northern Tonto, and Southern Tonto They were defined as a single cultural unit because dialect variation among them was minor, they were horticultural to a degree, and they were linked through matrilineal clans, although they themselves recognized no such superordinate level of organization All used the word Ndee, or "man, person, Indian," to refer to their specific subtribe, but they did not necessarily include the other "Western Apache" in such a designation Location Since the late seventeenth century the Western Apache have occupied the mountains of the Mogollon Rim, and the high desert transition zone of the Colorado Plateau, including the headwaters of the Verde, Salt, and Little Colorado rivers, and part of the Gila River The area is between 32° and 350 N and 109° and 112° W Today, most Western Apache live on the Fort Apache (White Mountain), San Carlos, Camp Verde, and Payson reservations Demography According to the 1980 census the Indian populations of the three major reservations were Fort Apache, 7,010; San Carlos, 6,013; and Camp Verde, 136 Estimates of the nineteenth-century population total less than 5,000 Linguistic Affiliation Western Apache is one of the Apachean (Southern Athapaskan) languages, classified in the Athapaskan stock of the NaDen6 phylum History and Cultural Relations Linguistic and cultural evidence indicates that the Western Apache migrated from Canada between A.D 1400 and 1500 and arrived in Arizona no earlier than the 1600s where they came into contact with the native Pueblo populations Pueblo influence was particularly strong after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 when numerous Pueblos took up residence among Apacheans Severe pressure from Utes in the early 1700s and again in the mid-1800s along with the U.S campaign led by Kit Carson resulted in groups of Navajo moving south and coming into contact with or even taking up residence among Apaches It is likely that it was during these times that the Navajo introduced horticulture and matrilineal clans Relations with both Western Pueblos and the Navajo alternated between trade and raid up through the nineteenth century Relations with Spain also alternated between war and peace, though relations with Mexico were generally hostile Although some new technical items were added to the Apache inventory along with their Spanish names, Spanish and Mexican cultures had little significant impact The Western Apache were much less affected than other Apacheans by the changes brought about by the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the subsequent Gadsden Purchase of 1853, probably because their lands in north-central 371 Arizona were not astride major routes of travel, nor, except in the Tonto area, were there major mining activities They accepted without resistance the presence of forts within their territory, and the White Mountain and Cibecue groups in particular made peace and cooperated with the new conquerors This quiescent state was marred by two major incidents-the Camp Grant Massacre in 1871, in which at least seventy-five San Carlos women and children were killed by residents of Tucson and their Papago allies, and the Cibecue Fight in 1881, which resulted in the death of a prominent shaman along with a number ofsoldiers and Apache scouts Settlements With the adoption of horticulture Western Apaches became permanently associated with farming sites This association was seasonal with local groups composed of several matrilineal-matrilocal extended families (gotah) moving from place to place in a yearly round of hunting and gathering-returning in the spring and fall to the farm area and in the winter moving to lower elevations Local groups varied in size from thirty-five to two hundred individuals and had exclusive rights to certain farm sites and hunting localities Adjacent local groups, loosely linked through marriage, areal proximity, and dialect, formed what have been called bands controlling farming and hunting resources primarily in a single watershed area There were twenty of these bands in 1850, each composed of about four local groups Their ethnographic names, such as Cibecue Creek Band or Carrizo Creek Band, reflect their watershed specificity Contemporary Apache communities are an amalgam of these older, territorially defined units, which during the reservation period concentrated near agency headquarters, trading posts, schools, and roads On the White Mountain Apache Reservation there are two major communities at Cibecue and Whiteriver, and on the San Carlos Reservation there are two at San Carlos and Bylas Traditional housing was the wickiup (gogha); contemporary housing consists of a mixture of older frame homes, modern cinder block or frame tract houses, and mobile homes Some housing is substandard relative to general U.S standards, though vast improvements have been made in the last twenty years The White Mountain Apaches have had a particularly aggressive development program and own a shopping center, motel, theater, sawmill, and ski resort Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities In traditional times, about 40 percent of the diet came from gathered wild plant foods, 35 percent from meat (especially deer), and 25 percent from horticulture Wild food products included sahuaro fruit, mescal (agave), acoms, mesquite beans, juniper berries, and pifion nuts Horticulture was practiced in fields often less than an acre in size, with small dams and channels used for irrigation After the establishment of the reservations a few Apaches took advantage of government allotment programs to develop cattle herds, but those who did often came into conflict with Whites who grazed cattle through a permit system on the reservations By the 1950s most of the non-Indians who were running livestock on In- 372 Western Apache dian land had been forced off, and the tribes themselves started cooperative herding operations with stock owned by individuals but managed by tribal employees Subsistence farming has continued up to the present day only on the Fort Apache Reservation The White Mountain Apache Tribe has started an irrigated farming operation, and both reservations have a variety of tourist facilities to profit from camping, boating, fishing, and hunting by non-Indians along with lumbering The Fort Apache Reservation has been more successful in these enterprises than San Carlos because it has more resources and a better climate San Carlos has developed a jojoba nut industry, and some Apaches mine and sell the semiprecious stone peridot, which is found relatively close to the surface in one area ofthe reservation All these activities provide jobs and income for at least part of the population Other income derives from off-reservation employment, government jobs, small businesses, and public assistance Industrial Arts Traditional activities such as tanning skins, basket making, and the manufacture of cradle boards and pitch-lined water jars are still done on a limited basis Beadwork, painting, and doll making have been added to the repertoire Trade In the past, Apaches traded with some of the surrounding tribes for a variety of items Individual handicrafts are still occasionally traded to local stores or sold to dealers, but for the most part the economic system on the reservations is part of the larger American cash economy Division ofLabor Although hunting, raiding, and warfare were usually men's tasks, and gathering, basket making, child rearing, and cooking, women's, the division of labor was flexible Both sexes worked fields and continue to so Both work at public gatherings Both could function in leadership roles and as shamans, although men did so more often Today both sexes run for and are elected to tribal office There is, however, marked physical separation of men and women in a variety of contexts, and to preserve their reputations a man and a woman must not be alone with each other Land Tenure Aboriginally, the bands controlled resources within their territories, and farmlands were owned by the individuals who were members of the various local groups Individuals could will their land to any of their offspring or to their surviving spouse and could also lend land to any oftheir relatives Only if they wished to lend land to a nonrelative was approval of local leaders needed Today land is held in trust by the U.S government, and individual-use rights are controlled by rules based on a mix of tradition and tribal law Kinship Kin Groups and Descent There are over fifty named exogamous matrilineal clans, which form three unnamed phratries Clans were named after farm sites, and the phratries no doubt formed as a result of population spread and settlement of new farm sites Clans functioned to regulate marriage, sponsor and support the ritual activities of their members, enact revenge, and aid in day-to-day cooperative work groups Since clans tended to be localized within the same band, they operated at a restricted geographic level, but because the phratries were represented in all the subtribes, they provided weak cross-cutting ties among all the Western Apaches Clans continue today to play some role in Western Apache politics, feuds, and ritual; the clan, however, is being supplemented by friendships for mutual economic support in ritual activities, and clan endogamous marriages occur Kinship Terminology Cousin terminology is of the Iroquois type, with bifurcate collateral parental generation terms, emphasis being placed on parental-generation matrilateral kin with parental-generation patrilateral kin being merged into one category regardless of gender Marriage and the Family Marriage Distant patrilateral cross cousins in the father's clan or phratry were considered ideal and some marriage partners reflect such exchange in several successive generations Sororal polygyny, levirate, and sororate marriages all occurred Chastity was highly valued and girls were extremely shy when interacting with boys During the first few days of a marriage the couple did not necessarily sleep together and sometimes were chaperoned by a female relative of the wife Residence was matrilocal with the son-in-law responsible for hunting, protection, and labor on his in-law's farm Rather strict mother-in-law avoidance is still practiced by many Apaches Divorce was easy and could be effected by either party Domestic Unit Gotah were composed of several generations with a core of matrilineally related women Some contemporary residence units still reflect this structure, but with jobs frequently requiring sons-in-law to be elsewhere, many families have other arrangements But, even in families living in tract-style houses it is not unusual for a number of matrilineally related relatives to be close neighbors and for unmarried daughters with small children to compose part of a household This pattern reflects both high rates of illegitimacy and poverty and traditional views of kinship and residence patterns Inheritance Personal property was often destroyed or buried with an individual, but possessions could be given to any close relative or friend prior to death Today some items are buried with the body, but the bulk of the estate is divided among a person's children Socialization Apaches value above all else the autonomy of the individual This applies to children as well as adults, and thus children are often indulged Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization The only groups were those based on kinship, territoriality, and co-residence Individuals who were leaders of these various units were titled nant'an Occasionally the prestige of some of these leaders exceeded the boundaries of their respective units, and they might be recognized outside their own local group Depending on the unit involved, leadership was either inherited matrilineally or achieved Leaders had no power and little formal authority because of the high value placed on individual autonomy, and they were primarily spokespersons and wealthy individuals with the largest farms in their area Being wealthy gave them economic clout, and their charisma and their ability to talk and make good decisions meant that they were listened to and highly respected Relatives often supplied labor for their farms in exchange for being provided for The only other prominent role in the society was that of shaman Western Apache Political Organization Today San Carlos, Fort Apache, and Camp Verde have tribal councils and governments based on constitutions authorized under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 Elections are vigorously contested Social Control The general Athapaskan value of individual autonomy is evidenced here as well Traditional social control focused heavily on the threat of witchcraft accusation, which if supported by community consensus resulted in execution Witchcraft accusation still plays a role in social control, and some murders may be explained as witch executions Positive role models for behavior are provided by stories repeated by elders in reference to events that have taken place at specific locations in the area Apaches refer to this as being "stalked by stories." Gossip and indirect criticism also are traditional means of enforcing conformity to accepted standards of behavior Only when under the influence of alcohol individuals directly confront each other Both federal and tribal laws and ordinances are enforced by tribal police and government agents Conflict Western Apaches for the most part avoided direct conflict with American settlers and the military after the 1850s Minor problems were caused by nativistic movements in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Traditional feuds between territorial or kinship groups sometimes were carried on through shamans trying to counteract the magic believed to be emanating from the adversary groups In some cases feuds resulted in violence Contemporary elections often take on an atmosphere that involves conflict, and accusations of ballot stuffing may be leveled Some contemporary vandalism is rumored to be reflective of old feuds There has recently been some conflict between the leadership of the White Mountain Apache Tribe and business leaders and citizens in neighboring communities over issues relating to reservation boundaries, income from tourists, and leased land within the reservation There has also been some conflict over land and water use with the federal government Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs Apaches believe that a number ofsupernatural powers associated with natural phenomena exist These powers are neutral with respect to good and evil, but they can be used for various individual purposes Control of these powers can be either sought after and developed or thrust upon one Belief is supported by a mythology that explains the creation of the world and includes several deities Most important are Life Giver, sometimes identified with the sun; Changing Woman, a source of eternal youth and life; and her twins, Slayer of Monsters and Child of Water These are sometimes syncretically identified with God, Mary, and Jesus Also important are anthropomorphic mountain spirits called gaan who in form and symbolism were no doubt borrowed from the Pueblos Other important figures in myth are Coyote and Old Man Big Owl For many Apaches traditional religion has been supplemented or replaced by a variety of Christian sects Lutherans and Catholics were the first groups to proselytize, and they have been joined by Mormons, Baptists, Assemblies of God, and the pentecostal Miracle church Wycliffe Bible Translators has provided an Apache translation of the Bible and has an ongoing literacy program to promote it Various nativistic 73 movements have characterized Apache life, the most recent ofwhich is the Holy Ground cult centering on regular gatherings at specified "holy grounds" and led by individuals who learned specific prayers and songs recorded in an original style of picture writing developed by a leader, Silas John Religious Practitioners Agents of powers are called diyin (shaman) Those who have their knowledge secretly and use it for their own ends are witches, 'itkashn Ceremonies In the past there were a large number of curing ceremonies each related to a specific power These were performed as individual treatment seemed warranted The only major ceremony still performed is the girl's puberty ceremony, both a rite of passage and a community ritual It harnesses the power of Changing Woman to ensure individual health and long life and community health In the last twenty years this ceremony has been elaborated, with expensive gift exchanges continuing between relatives of the girl and relatives of her godparents for several years after the initial ceremony Medicine Traditional curing consisted of shamans' singing ceremonies to restore the balance upset by accidental contact with or disrespect shown toward a power to reverse witchcraft attacks Herbal medicines were also used In the recent past both Western medicine and traditional ceremonies were used in various combinations Today contemporary Western medicine is the primary form of medical treatment, although Changing Woman's power is sought after at puberty rites, and some individual Apaches know songs and prayers to powers, which they use primarily within their immediate families Death and Afterlife Everyone is given an allotted life span, which, unless violence or withcraft intervenes, will end because of old age Concepts of an afterlife are vague Special actions are taken to make sure the dead not return and try to lure the living to come with them Bibliography Basso, Keith H (1970) The Cibecue Apache New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston Basso, Keith H (1983) "Western Apache." In Handbook of North American Indians Vol 10, Southwest, edited by Alfonso Ortiz, 462-488 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Goodwin, Grenville (1942) Social Organization of the Western Apache Chicago: University of Chicago Press Kaut, Charles R (1957) The Western Apache Clan System: Its Origins and Development University ofNew Mexico Publications in Anthropology, no Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press PHILIP J GREENFELD 374 Western Shoshone Western Shoshone ETHNONYMS: Diggers, Root-Diggers, Shoshocoes, Walkers United Western Shoshone Legal Defense and Education Association (now the Sacred Lands Association) was established Shoshone title to their lands was finally extinguished with the awarding of $26 million by the Indian Claims Commission in 1979 Orientation Settlements Identification The Western Shoshone, including the Gosiute of northwestern Utah, are a group of closely related peoples who live in the arid regions of the western Great Basin Location Their territory stretched from northern Nevada and northwestern Utah, inhabited by the Gosiute, across the state of Nevada to the Death Valley region of southeastern California, inhabited by the Panamint The area was very lightly inhabited by the Shoshone because ofthe stringent ecological conditions obtaining during historical times Fortythree subgroups were named by Steward in his surveys The names of these subgroups are generally geographical in origin, having been conferred by Europeans, but some are Shoshone names based on notable local food resources The whole region is arid and desert in character, with generally a very low annual rainfall, intermittent streams feeding into ponds and small lakes without outlets, scrub vegetation, and a varied topography Demography Most Western Shoshone not live on rancherias, although there are numerous small reserves, generally governed by local councils, in eastern California and Nevada In the late nineteenth century, the population totaled about 2,400, and in 1980 the population was 2,923 according to the U.S Bureau of Indian Affairs linguistic Affiliation The Shoshone all spoke dialects and varieties of Central Numic, a member of the UtoAztecan language family Central Numic has three basic component languages, Panamint (spoken only by the Panamint in the southwestern part of the area), Comanche (spoken on the southern Great Plains), and Shoshone (spoken by all other Shoshone groups) The settlement pattern was quite variable, depending upon availability of food resources and season of the year Stable social units generally occurred where resources were stable, with individual families in other areas moving with their annual seasonal round Families were generally found within a local geographic district, often around a single valley or winter village cluster Temporary dwellings were favored and dwelling types varied according to availability of building materials, length of stay, and use The usual winter house, holding a small family, was a conical, bark-covered hut, while semisubterranean, earth-covered winter dwellings have also been reported Many families sought shelter in caves rather than build huts Sun shades were in use during the summer Circular brush dwellings were built by some groups, and others built domed wickiups Conical or domed sweat houses were in almost universal use, as were huts for secluding menstruating women History and Cultural Relations The Western Shoshone live in one of the last areas in the United States to be settled by Europeans and Americans, although the southern parts had been reached by Spanish explorers Jedediah Smith and Peter Skene Ogden both mention encountering Shoshone in the late 1820s Other explorers in the area in the first halfof the nineteenth century included Zenas Leonard, John C Frimont, James H Simpson, and Howard R Egan A great cultural impact was made by the arrival of the Mormons after 1847, followed by the California and Carson River gold rushes in 1848 and 1849, and the discovery of the Comstock Lode in 1857 Treaties by the U.S government with various groups were signed in 1863 and began the process of gathering them on to reservations, although nothing much was accomplished in this respect until the late 1870s Many small reservations were established shortly after the turn of the century and after the beginning of the "Indian New Deal" in 1935 In the 1930s, two competing councils were organized, one not recognized by the federal government, the other, the Te-Moak Bands Council, being sponsored by the government In 1974, the Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities Subsistence adaptations were extremely complex, varying according to the local subsistence base The collecting of plants was the subsistence mainstay, with edible greens being gathered in the lowlands in early spring; later in the year berries and seeds were collected and cached in various localities for use during the remainder of the year Pifion nuts were the mainstay in certain areas in the low foothills Groves in the Reese River valley were owned by individual families, a unique occurrence among these groups Winter villages were often located near large caches of nuts In the Death Valley area, mesquite pods were relied upon heavily with several cactus species, agave, and gourds also being collected Hunting was important, although not basic to the economy Among large game, bighorn sheep were of primary importance, generally being killed from ambush in particularly advantageous locales, although communal hunts sometimes occurred On the other hand, communal antelope drives were the rule in the Gosiute area, and such drives also occurred elsewhere Antelope were sometimes individually stalked Deer were also hunted, although they were much scarcer than sheep and antelope There were occasional communal hunts, but individual hunts were much more usual The fall rabbit hunt was an important source of food and fur, the jackrabbits and other types being driven into nets ofgrass twine Snares and deadfalls were used for cottontail rabbits Pocket gophers and ground squirrels were flooded or smoked out oftheir burrows or hooked out by means of skewers, with traps and deadfalls also being used Fishing was very restricted, being possible in only a few localities They hunted waterfowl, dove, sage hens and quail, and other birds when they were available Other foods used included black crickets, bee eggs and larvae, and grasshoppers Dogs were kept and were sometimes used in hunting There were usually no other domestic animals, although horses were owned by some families Western Shoshone Industrial Arts Clothing was scarce Most common was a sewn or woven fur robe, usually of rabbit skin, but sometimes of sheep, deer, or antelope hide Hide clothing, skirts, and breechclouts, as well as clothing of grass or bark, were widespread Various types of moccasins were used Basketry was important; coiled and twined baskets, seed beaters, trays, and conical carrying baskets were common, as were the sinewbacked bow of juniper (sometimes of mountain mahogany) and horn glue Quivers were made of wildcat skins Lowquality pottery of local clays were made, sometimes sparsely decorated with surface impressions Division of Labor Hunting was the primary occupation of the men, and women did most of the gathering Women made the pottery Men usually built the dwellings, with women helping in some groups Both men and women could make clothing, and women usually did whatever weaving was possible Land Tenure There is no information, although individual families did own pifion groves in the Reese River valley Kinship Basically, the Shoshone kinship system functioned as a social network, the relatives passing on to each other information on the status of resource availability But there were restrictions on sharing depending upon the predictability of resources-the more predictable, the more sharing They had bilateral descent and used a Hawaiian-type kin terminology for cousins, with kin terms being modified to facilitate crosscousin marriage Marriage and Family Marriage Because men generally hunted and women gathered, marriage was essential to form a viable economic unit Bride-price was common in some groups, but absent in others If the man was a good hunter, he might have more than one wife Such polygyny was usually sororal There was a strong emphasis on the levirate and sororate Polyandry was present among some of the eastern groups Brothers in one family often married sisters in another, with the converse being true as well Postmarital residence varied from group to group, with uxorilocal residence being common Divorce was common, and so were multiple remarriages Domestic Unit The nuclear family was the common domestic unit, although there were some polygynous families Inheritance There seems to have been an absence of inheritance rules governing real and movable property Socialization Old and handicapped persons looked after children while the parents were obtaining food Puberty rites were restricted to females, the rites being an individual rather than a group ritual, with moral precepts and attitudes being instilled by the mother Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization The Western Shoshone had agamous communities without localized clans or any marked tendency toward local exogamy and endogamy There was a general absence of complex social institutions-no men's or women's societies, age grades, or significant ceremonialism As noted above, stable families and other social units tended 375 to occur within areas of stable economic resources; otherwise, social groups and practices were quite variable at a low level Political Organization Political organization was also on a low level of integration Group composition depended on the number of individual families available The most stable group was the winter village, but even these had little cohesion and the headmen had little authority Local bands in some areas were probably a development from mainstream society political and economic pressure Conflict Warfare was not common before contact, although killing of individuals did occur There was some evidence of conflict with the Ute and Northern Paiute White migrants passing through the area were attacked occasionally, and there were some early attacks on White settlers Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs Western Shoshone religion was animistic Supernatural powers were acquired through dream and vision experiences Religious Practitioners Steward noted three types of shamans: general curers, curers of specific sicknesses, and those who used their abilities for their own benefit only Both men and women could become shamans, but only men practiced so far as is known Some groups denied the presence of shamans Shamans were also used for help in the hunt-for example, an antelope shaman capturing the souls of antelope through dreams and charming them into corrals for slaughter Medicine Injuries and sicknesses that were not thought to be caused by supernaturals were treated with a very large variety of herbal remedies (reaching into the hundreds of different plant medicines) Sicknesses caused by supernatural agencies were cured by shamans, often by sucking out offending objects or blood An unsuccessful shaman sometimes returned the fee Shamans were sometimes killed for refusing aid Death and Afterlife Customs at death were variable Sometimes bodies were buried in caves, rock slides, or talus slopes; at other times the bodies were cremated, abandoned, or burned in their dwellings Some groups had an annual mourning ceremony; others cut their hair and abstained from remarriage for a time In times of great food scarcity, the aged and infirm were sometimes abandoned The ghost was believed to leave the body at death and return to the Land of the Coyote, and was feared by some groups Bibliography Eggan, Fred (1980) "Shoshone Kinship Structures and Their Significance for Anthropological Theory." Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society 11:165-193 Knack, Martha Carol (1986) "Indian Economics, 19501980." In Handbook of North American Indians Vol 11, Great Basin, edited by Warren L d'Azevedo,573-591 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Steward, Julian Haynes (1938) Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups U.S Bureau of American Ethnology Bul- 376 Western Shoshone letin no 120 Washington, D.C Reprint Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1970 Steward, Julian Haynes (1938) Culture Element Distributions Vol 13, Nevada Shoshone University of California Anthropological Records, 4(2), 209-360 Berkeley Steward, Julian Haynes (1938) Some Western Shoshone Myths U.S Bureau of American Ethnology, Anthropological Paper no 18 Washington, D.C Stewart, Omer Call (1982) Indians of the Great Basin: a Critical Bibliography Bloomington: Indiana University Press Thomas, David Hurst, Lorann S A Pendleton, and Stephen C Cappannari (1986) "Western Shoshone." In Handbook of North American Indians Vol 11, Great Basin, edited by Warren L d'Azevedo, 262-283 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution West Greenland Inuit ETHNONYM: Kalaallit Orientation Identification The origin of the name "Kalaallit" is not certain, but it has been interpreted as derived from Old Norse skraelling It was recorded in South Greenland in the beginning of the eighteenth century At the close of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, "Kalaallit" came in general use all along the coast spread by Greenlandic catechists educated in Nuuk (Godthab) and through publications in Greenlandic "Inuit" is now being used as the common name for Eskimo Location The West Greenland Eskimo occupy the west coast of Greenland from Melville Bay to the Kap Farvel area Only the coast is habitable, 85 percent of Greenland being covered by an ice sheet Off the coast are numerous islands, and the coast itself is marked by deep fjords Generally speaking, the winters are long and cold and the summers short and cool, with climatic variation from north to south Linguistic Affiliation The West Greenlandic language, Kalaallisut, Greenlandic, or Kitaamiutut, West Greenlandic, belongs to the Inuit-Inupiaq (Eastern Eskimo) group The various dialects of West Greenland are mutually intelligible Presently the great majority of Greenlanders use Kalaallisut as their first language and Danish as their second; English is also taught at schools The Greenland Home Rule Act (1978) states that Greenlandic shall be the principal language Demography According to a census of 1789 the West Greenlanders numbered 5,122, not including small populations in the marginal areas The population was decimated by epidemics, especially by a smallpox epidemic in 1733-1734 From 1900 to 1950, the population nearly doubled from 11,118 to 20,730, and during the next twenty years it doubled again because of better health services combined with a higher standard of living From 1975 to 1980, the population was nearly stable owing to contraception and abortions Since 1980 the population has been slowly increasing Presently about 80 percent of the population of West Greenland are Greenlanders; 20 percent are Danes, most ofwhom reside for only a short period of time in Greenland As of January 1, 1989, 41,633 people, in a population of 49,976, were nativeborn in Greenland The great majority of Greenlanders are West Greenlanders The corresponding figure for the whole of Greenland was 55,171, including the population in East Greenland and the Thule area History and Cultural Relations Groups of Eskimos have at various times migrated via the Canadian Arctic islands into Greenland The Paleo-Eskimo were represented by the Saqqaq culture and the Dorset culture (c 3000 B.C to c A.D 900) The Neo-Eskimo, the Thule Eskimo, arrived in Greenland about A.D 900 They were the first Eskimos encountered by Europeans, Norse settlers from Iceland who lived in Southwest Greenland from about A.D 982 to 1500 During the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries the West Greenlanders occasionally had contact with European explorers and whalers and some trading took place, but it was the Danish-Norwegian colonization efforts in 1721 that resulted in radical changes of West Greenland culture and society In the eighteenth century mission and trading stations were established all along the coast In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the population of southern East Greenland settled in southern West Greenland The colonial administration was paternalistic and the isolationist policy was not abandoned until after World War II, when modernization of the Greenlandic society accelerated as a result of the state-directed development policy Settlements In aboriginal times the population had a differentiated ecological adaptation, but generally speaking people spent the winters in small scattered settlements on the coast, with summers spent in camps in the fjords Over the years, the number of inhabited places has been decreasing, and the towns growing at the expense of the villages The largest town, the capital and administrative center, Nuuk (Godthab) is situated on the section of coast where sea travel is possible all year round In the eighteenth century the winter houses were built of stone and peat Illumination came from small windows of seal intestines sewn together and from soapstone blubber lamps These lamps also heated the room, and meat was boiled in soapstone pots suspended over the lamps Summers were spent in tents of sealskin covering a frame of driftwood, and cooking was done outdoors over an open fire The big winter longhouses were gradually abandoned in the nineteenth century and replaced by small houses lined with imported wood Later on these were made only from wood and were often of poor quality The majority of houses are now of a modem design The larger towns are dominated by apartment houses, and nearly all houses in the villages are single-family houses West Greenland Inuit 377 Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities Traditionally, the West Greenland Eskimos were hunters The principal prey were various kinds of seals hunted from the kayak or from the ice with highly specialized weapons Small whales were also hunted from the kayak, and bigger whales were hunted from the umiaq, which was otherwise used for transportation Catching sea birds and fishing also played a role During the summer, caribou were hunted inland Much ofthe West Greenland population shifted from seal hunting to fishing for cash during the first part ofthe twentieth century The fishing industry, which is mostly based on cod, shrimp, and Greenland halibut, is now modernized It is Greenland's principal industry, but it is highly vulnerable to climatic shifts Subsistence hunting and fishing are still important, and the sale of sealskins plays a role in northern West Greenland Greenlandic hunters have been economically affected by the international actions against the killing of "baby" seals, even if these are not killed by Greenlandic hunters Sheep keeping was introduced in South Greenland at the beginning of the twentieth century, and some families have since had their main income from sheep In addition to wage labor in the fishing industry, many Greenlanders are employees in trade, restaurants, hotels, transport, building, construction, and public service The public authorities play a dominating role as employers; about two-thirds of all wage earners are employed by the Greenland Home Rule Government, the municipalities, or the Danish government Dogs used for sledging were the only domestic animals in aboriginal times Dog sledges are not found south of Sisimiut (Holsteinsborg) Sheep holders have imported small Icelandic horses Reindeer breeding was introduced in the GodthabIjord in 1952 During the colonial period a number of Greenlandic men were trained as catechists for the church and the schools or as artisans, and some women were trained as midwives The modernization of Greenlandic society after World War 11 increased the variety of jobs A growing number of Greenlanders are now completing some sort of vocational training, half of them women Industrial Arts Aboriginal crafts included making stone blades for knives and harpoonheads, soapstone carving for lamps and pots, preparing needles and other items from bone, and making sledges and so on from driftwood Clothes were primarily made from sealskins, and caribou, dog, and bird skins were also used for winter clothing Bead collars on women's coats were made from colored glass obtained from Europeans Dresses combining Greenlandic and European materials and styles are used by both sexes on festive occasions, thereby stressing their Greenlandic national identity Trade Barter took place on a limited scale between people from different localities when they met at summer camps In South Greenland, West Greenlanders met with East Greenland Eskimos who wanted to obtain European goods Before the colonial period, West Greenlanders had access to items of metal and so on through contact with European whalers For nearly two hundred years the Royal Greenland Trade Company had a monopoly both on buying Greenlandic products like skins, blubber, and fish and selling European goods In the 980s, the various sectors were taken over by the Greenland Home Rule Government Division of Labor Men were responsible for hunting, both sexes did some fishing, and women flensed the seals and prepared the food and clothing Men made both their own implements and those used by the women of their family At present, many women, especially in the towns, have jobs outside the home and at the same time play a central role in the household Land Tenure All inhabitants of a settlement shared the hunting grounds, even if a regular return to a summer camp with limited resources seems to have granted a certain priority right Even today, all land in Greenland is public property Free building land is placed at everyone's disposal The Home Rule Act states that the resident population of Greenland has fundamental rights to the natural resources of Greenland, but prospecting and exploitation of nonliving resources are regulated by an agreement between the Danish government and the Greenlandic government Kinship Kin Groups and Descent Aboriginal West Greenland Eskimo society was organized on the basis of kinship ties, and kinship is still of great importance even if it has been weakened by acculturation The nuclear family was the basic unit, but it rarely lived by itself The Eskimo kinship system is bilateral, and a person's network of relatives comprises both biological and affinal relatives Kinship Terminology The Eskimo terminological system is followed In daily interaction, personal names are often replaced by kinship terms Marriage and Family Marriage Most marriages were monogamous, but polygyny was occasionally practiced No marriage ceremony existed before the advent of Christianity Divorce was not unusual as long as a couple had no children After the introduction of Christianity this pattern changed completely, and divorce was not legalized in Greenland until the passage of a marriage code in 1955 Virilocality was predominant, but in case of a shortage of hunters in the wife's family, the young couple might settle there Today, young couples and many single persons as well move to a home of their own if it is possible to acquire one Domestic Unit Several extended families, who probably often were related, spent the winters together, but during the summer the families who had shared a longhouse lived in separate tents in camps Over the years, the households have become smaller, with an average of 3.3 persons per dwelling in Greenland in 1988 Inheritance When the head of a family died, his personal belongings were usually placed in the grave If the oldest son was already in possession of an umiaq and a tent, or if he was still a child, these items went to someone else, who was then obliged to support the widow and her small children Socialization Children were and still are given much attention They were brought up permissively but disciplined by mockery and ostracism, and occasionally by threats of interference by external non-Eskimo agents They learn from experience to cope with unexpected difficulties Children must learn to control themselves and not show open aggressive- 378 West Greenland Inuit ness At present, some of the responsibility of the upbringing of children has been transferred to kindergartens and schools where different methods and other values may prevail Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization In aboriginal times, no class distinction existed, but great hunters who were generous were afforded much prestige Various kinds of dyadic relationships were known: there were men who occasionally borrowed each other's wife, and persons who had a joking relationship as regular opponents in song duels or exchanged rare food Sharing of food was essential for survival Hunters taking part in the same hunt had the right to certain parts of an animal killed by any of them, and gifts of meat were presented to all families of the settlements Intermarriage with Danish men between the middle of the eighteenth century and the middle of the nineteenth century resulted in the formation of a specific socioeconomic category with Greenlandic ethnic identity and Greenlandic as its first language Many members of these families were employed by the mission and the trading company Since the 1950s, a considerable number of marriages between Greenlanders and Danes, including Greenlandic men and Danish women have taken place Political Organization Prior to contact with Europeans, centralized political authority did not exist DanishNorwegian colonization, which began in 1721, resulted over time in the population scattered along the immense coast being considered as one people In the early 1860s, a limited kind of municipal self-government was introduced In 1908, a law secured the establishment of two provincial councils, and in 1950 they were merged into one According to the Danish constitution of 1953, Greenland became an integrated part of Denmark, and it has since then sent two representatives to the Danish parliament In 1979, home rule was established within the unity of the Danish realm, and the provincial council was replaced by a home rule parliament and a government Greenland is a member of the Nordic Council and of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference Conflict and Social Control Direct confrontation was avoided and still is In aboriginal times, song duels held in a festive atmosphere were a major mechanism of social control Opponents from different settlements took turns singing, insulting each other, and praising themselves-behaviors that would be unthinkable in any other social context The spectators showed their approbation and displeasure of the performance and tension was released Conflicts might also be resolved simply by withdrawal The most extreme form was a person leaving for the wilderness as a qivittoq, who, it was assumed, received supernatural powers Leaving human society in this way was a revenge against those who had treated the person badly A murder was expected to be followed by blood revenge by a near relative, even if many years might pass before it was carried out It was also considered a duty to kill a sorcerer who was suspected of having caused another person's death Although incidents of violence occurred between West Greenland Eskimos and European whalers and explorers in the early contact period, the history of colonization is nearly free of incidents of physical violence between Greenlanders and Europeans Some resistance did take place-for example, as protest movements among converts In the twen- tieth century, disagreement both with Danes and among Greenlanders themselves has been expressed within a political framework A modern criminal code based on resocialization was introduced in 1954 Since then, alcohol abuse has resulted in many social tragedies and violent deaths At present, nonnatural deaths (accidents, suicides, homicides) constitute about one-third of all deaths in Greenland The high suicide rate is thought to result from rapid cultural change Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs According to aboriginal belief, every animal had both a soul like a human being and an inua, that is, a man, owner, or lord The sea, the sun, the moon, a cliff, even sleep and laughter, also had a human quality expressed by an inua Numerous taboos were attached to birth, death, and hunting Violation of taboos caused harm not only to the violator but also to other persons, even the entire settlement Revealing the taboo violation had a neutralizing effect The inua of the sea, or Sea Woman (Sedna), the inua of the air (Sila) and the inua of the moon, or Moon-Man, were very sensitive to transgressions of taboos and rituals concerning the animals and life crises The first missionary arrived in 1721 At present, the Greenlandic Evangelic Lutheran church is nearly universal Religious Practitioners Most shamans (angakkut)-the religious experts-were men, but women might also become shamans Qilallit were persons, mostly old women, with an ability to get an answer from a spirit by lifting the head of a person lying on the ground Ilisiitsut, sorcerers or witches, mostly old women, were people who secretly, through magical means, tried to destroy the health or hunting luck ofothers Ceremonies Given that the people's whole existence depended upon hunting and fishing, a good relationship with animals was of vital importance Technical skills in hunting, as well as observations of taboos and use of amulets and secret songs, were considered necessary to ensure a good hunt A ritual distribution of the meat of the first seal killed by a boy would ensure his success as a future hunter The first kill of the season of certain animals was also distributed During seances, the shaman's spirit-helpers served as informers and as an entertaining element According to myths, the shaman might undertake a journey to the Sea Woman to make her release the sea animals she was holding back because of people's violation of taboos Arts Singing was integrated into many aspects of social life Most songs were performed by soloists, sometimes accompanied by the audience The tambourine drum disappeared in most places in the eighteenth century, and music became strongly influenced by European-American music Storytelling was another important part of aboriginal life The transition from oral to written culture was encouraged by a journal in Greenlandic, Atuagagdliutit, founded in Nuuk in 1861 A considerable number of novels, songs, psalms, and the like have been published in Greenlandic Medicine In the aboriginal culture, illness was thought to be the result of taboo violations or to be caused by a sorcerer It was the shaman's task to make diagnoses and bring back the sick person's missing soul The cause of illness might also be discovered by a qilalik All this was long ago replaced by a Western understanding of sickness Winnebago Death and Afterlife When a death occurred, the inhabitants ofthe settlement, primarily the close relatives, fell under various taboos The soul would live on in the afterworld either in the sky, which resembled the inland with possibilities for caribou hunting, or in the underworld where the dead hunted marine animals The last place was the preferred one It was the way of dying that decided where one would go Women who died giving birth and those who died at sea went to the lower world The name of the dead was tabooed until a newborn child was named after him or her Such renaming is still common in Greenland Bibliography Birker-Smith, Kaj (1924) Ethnography of the Egedesminde District with Aspects of the General Culture of West Greenland Meddelelser om Gronland, vol 66 Copenhagen, Denmark Damas, David, ed (1984) Handbook ofNorth American Indians Vol 5, Arctic Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Kleivan, Inge, and Birgitte Sonne (1985) Eskimos, Greenland, and Canada Iconography of Religions (2) Institute of Religious Iconography, State University Groningen Leiden: E J Brill Kleivan, Inge (1984) "West Greenland before 1950." In Handbook of North American Indians Vol 5, Arctic, edited by David Damas 595-621 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution INGE KLEIVAN Wichita ETHNONYMS: Pawnee Piques, Pawnee Picts The Wichita are a Southern Plains American Indian group located aboriginally in present-day Kansas and Oklahoma in an area encompassing the Arkansas, Cimarron, and Canadian rivers "Wichita" is evidently derived from the Choctaw word Wia chitch, meaning "big arbor" in reference to the Wichita's large grass lodges, which resembled haystacks The Wichita name for themselves was "Kitikiti'sh" or "Kirikirish," meaning "Paramount Men." The name "Pawnee Piques" was given by the French in reference to the Wichita practice of heavily tatooing their faces and upper bodies The Wichita today number about one thousand and are affiliated with the Caddo and Delaware in Caddo County, Oklahoma, where many live on allotted land They are largely assimilated into European-American society First contact was with Coronado in 1541 who was pushing east from New Mexico in search of the "Land of Quivira." By the end of the seventeenth century the Wichita had acquired the horse and shortly thereafter began a hundred-year 379 pattern of migrations south under pressure from the Osage, Comanche, and the French By 1800 these conflicts plus additional ones with the Apache and disease had decimated the Wichita In 1820 sustained contact with Whites began, leading to further relocations and eventual settlement in southern Oklahoma The traditional economy was based on horticulture (maize, squash, beans, tobacco) in the spring and summer and nomadic bison hunting in the fall and winter In the spring and summer the Wichita lived in villages composed of large, grass-covered longhouses In the winter months, when they hunted bison on the plains, they lived in tipis At the time of contact in 1541 the Wichita may have numbered as many as fifty thousand and were composed of at least six subtribes, all of whom spoke dialects of Wichita, a Caddoan language The traditional religion centered on Kinnikasus, the creator of the universe, lesser male and female deities, and animistic beliefs in the supernatural forces present in many objects In 1891 the Wichita adopted the Ghost Dance, though it essentially lost importance within a year, and in 1902 they adopted Peyotism, leading to a split between those who were aligned with Christianity and those who chose the Native American church The Wichita are not legally incorporated as a tribe, though they have a system of tribal governance based on a tribal chairman, other officers, and a council Bibliography Dorsey, George A (1904) The Mythology of the Wichita Carnegie Institution of Washington, Publication no 21 Washington, D.C Newcomb, William W., Jr (1976) The People Called Wichita Phoenix, Ariz.: Indian Tribal Series Winnebago ETHNONYMS: Gens des Puants, Hocangra Orientation Identification Located on Green Bay at the time of contact, the Winnebago later expanded across southwestern Wisconsin and northwestern Illinois They are now two separately organized groups: one on tribal and individual trust lands scattered over a dozen counties in central Wisconsin and the other on a reservation in Nebraska Linguistically, they are closely related to the Chiwere Siouan-speaking Iowa, Missouri, and Oto Location This historic territory is characterized by numerous lakes and marshes, generally well drained, with part deciduous and part coniferous forests and patches of prairie It lies within the line of 120 consecutive frost-free days necessary for maize cultivation 380 Winnebago Demography Estimates place the aboriginal population at thirty-five hundred to four thousand Large population decreases occurred after contact, but the group's numbers have now risen to more than thirty-five hundred people each in the Nebraska and Wisconsin enclaves, with perhaps another two thousand in urban areas, primarily in the northern Midwest History and Cultural Relations Various clues point to Winnebago intrusion into Wisconsin from the Southeast At the time of contact, most of the people congregated in a large village, Red Banks, on the south side of Green Bay The French learned of the Winnebago from the Ottawa in the early 1620s, though it was not until 1665 that documentation of Winnebago history began At that time they had recently experienced a period of intertribal wars, epidemics, and famine and were reduced to some 450 to 600 people in all They made peace and intermarried with neighboring tribes, eventually recouping their population loss Borrowing extensively from other Algonkian-speaking tribes, they reorganized their socioeconomic patterns to engage in the fur trade By the eighteenth century, the tribe had withdrawn from Green Bay, and the village groups began separating They eventually gained firm control of an area bounded on the east and south by Lake Winnebago and the Rock River, on the north and east by the Fox-Wisconsin portage route and the Black River, and on the west by the eastern watershed of the Mississippi River, their territory extending to the river north of Prairie du Chien They occupied more than thirty villages of one hundred to three hundred people each, trading at major fur company posts in Portage and Prairie du Chien and with independent traders The Winnebago signed boundary treaties with the United States in 1825, 1827, and 1828, and treaties ceding their southern lands between the Rock and lower Wisconsin rivers in 1829 and 1832 The Winnebagos' remaining Wisconsin land between the Mississippi and upper Wisconsin rivers was not adequate to support all the people and the 1832 treaty provided a reservation along the Mississippi in Iowa When the government wanted their last Wisconsin land, the Winnebago sent a delegation to Washington to oppose the sale Pressured to sign a treaty if they hoped to return home, the group agreed to a treaty that gave them only eight months to move, which created a permanent split in the tribe The southern villagers, whose land had been overrun by lead miners and already ceded had little recourse but to accept removal, but the northern villagers repudiated the treaty and led a fugitive existence in Wisconsin for nearly three decades The removed group signed treaties in 1846 and 1855 for new reservations, ending up at Blue Earth, Minnesota The 1862 Sioux uprising in Minnesota prompted an executive order to remove them along with the dissident Sioux By the summer of 1863, all had fled the barren land assigned to them in South Dakota, with about twelve hundred arriving among the Omaha in Nebraska In 1865, they ceded their South Dakota land by treaty for a reservation on what had been the northern strip of the Omaha reservation The government initiated allotment in 1871 which was completed under the General Indian Allotment Act of 1887 Generally, the people settled in the unallotted timber land along the Missouri River They leased and later sold their farmland to Whites By World War I, most of the western two-thirds of the reservation had passed out of Winnebago ownership The Indian Bureau repressed traditional leadership and social organization When the Indian Reorganization Act was passed in 1934, the Nebraska Winnebago established a constitutional government under its provisions After 1837, the defiant Winnebago hiding out in central Wisconsin were periodically rounded up by the government and moved to whatever reservation the rest of the tribe currently occupied But they always returned to Wisconsin When the Homestead Act of 1862 was extended to Indians, some Wisconsin Winnebago took up homesteads after 1874, but many were afraid to appear before White authorities In 1881, all the Wisconsin Winnebago were assigned homesteads under special legislation They retained many of their governing and religious structures Settlements sprang up with a western focus in the Black River Falls area, where the Evangelical and Reform church established a mission and day school in 1878 and later a boarding school at Neillsville, and an eastern focus near Wittenberg, where a Norwegian Lutheran mission and boarding school opened at Tomah in the 1890s As the twentieth century wore on, traditional religion and with it traditional social organization came under increasing threat from inroads of mission Christianity and the Peyote or Native American Church A new sense of tribal unity was set in motion in Wisconsin when the people elected a claims committee in 1947 to work with the Nebraska tribal council on a common claim before the U.S Indian Claims Commission The claim of about $4.5 million was not settled until the late 1970s, when both the Nebraska and Wisconsin groups opted for per-capita payments that were soon spent The Wisconsin group's economic condition had steadily worsened after World War 11 and led to organization under the Indian Reorganization Act in 1962 They acquired land under tribal trust status at their major settlements to qualify for housing and other federal benefits Political power struggles occurred over programmed federal funding, but the late 1980s brought increasing stability under new federal policies of self-determination and the generation of unencumbered income from bingo and smoke shops Settlements The villages throughout the Wisconsin-Illinois domain may have been divided into northeastern and southwestern halves Permanent dwellings were long wigwams covered with bark in summer and cattail mats in winter Villages also contained long wigwams for councils and religious rites, small menstrual lodges for women, and sweat lodges for men Barkcovered tipis were built at temporary hunting camps Winnebago in Nebraska and Wisconsin today live in wooden frame houses often built under government auspices Some Wisconsin families have roofing paper wigwams for family rituals and to house guests Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities The Winnebago originally had a mixed economy heavily dependent on women's gardens of maize, beans, and squash New fields were cleared every few years with men's help and when unproductive were left to revert to forest and brush Tobacco, a ceremonial plant, was raised by men Parties of families gathered wild Winnebago plants in season and dried them for winter use, particularly blueberries, roots and seeds of the American lotus that grew along the Mississippi, and 'Indian potatoes" (Apios americana) There are old traditions of parties setting out in dugouts in the late summer for communal deer hunting and also mentions of crossing the Mississippi to hunt bison Fishing with spears and bows and arrows was important, particularly for sturgeon Horses were introduced during the eighteenth century and became a necessity for transport In the early fall, many families moved with ponies and wagons to campsites along waterways to trap for the fur trade; in later times this was largely confined to the area around La Crosse The Wisconsin Winnebago moved from a trading to a money economy, selling wild blueberries in the summer and cranberries in the fall to Whites Income from the sale ofblueberries was replaced by wage work harvesting cranberries, cherries, corn, potatoes, peas, and other crops for Whites after 1917 After World War II severe financial deprivation set in as crop work became mechanized and required a much smaller labor force Few people were prepared for other employment Aboriginally, the dog was the only domestic animal By the end of the nineteenth century, a few families used horses for plowing as well as transport and kept cows, hogs, and chickens, but for the most part the Wisconsin Winnebago preferred the independence and immediate returns of an itinerant economy Industrial Arts Women tanned hides and made moccasins, but clothing was largely made oftrade textiles with beads and later ribbonwork replacing old embellishments of porcupine quillwork Aboriginal pottery quickly gave way to metal trade kettles The arts of splint basketry and silver and nickelsilver jewelry were adopted from the Oneida and Stockbridge Trade The Winnebagos' territory was rich in beaver, muskrat, and other fur-bearing animals The tribe became dependent on the fur trade for traps, guns, textiles, and a variety of metal utensils, but their continued emphasis on gardening saved them from periodic starvation suffered by tribes that sometimes trapped for the fur trade at the expense of subsistence Division of Labor The basic division was between women's gardening and men's hunting and fishing, but both sexes assisted each other as needed on occasion and engaged in gathering wild foods Women were specialists in tracking the heavens for astronomical information to guide their gardening and other seasonal activities Land Tenure As far as can be determined, land was held tribally, and as tribal hegemony was extended, local villages were spaced to ensure adequate natural resources and land for gardens Kinship Kin Groups and Descent The twelve Winnebago clans were grouped into the exogamous Sky Clans and Earth Clans moieties When the tribe resided in Minnesota there was a four-part division of clans, which suggests a Southeastern origin, as four-part organization was common among Southeastern groups In historical times the Winnebago were patrilineal If the father was not Winnebago, children could be adopted into the mother's clan with descent in the following generations reckoned patrilineally Ideally, in adulthood a warm bond exists whereby an uncle gives nieces and nephews 381 whatever they ask for and, in turn, can exact work from them They also may tease each other A parallel gift and work reciprocity and teasing occurs between father's sisters and their nieces and nephews There was avoidance of parents-in-law of the opposite sex, respectful deference between brothers and sisters, and sexual joking between people who stood in a terminological relationship as brother-in-law to sister-in-law Prescribed kinship reciprocity and joking relationships are still observed in both Nebraska and Wisconsin Kinship Terminology Winnebago kin terms follow the Omaha system A marked avuncular emphasis reinforces the speculation of an older matrilineal system, as a man is considered more closely related to his sister's children than to his own Marriage and Family Marriage Moiety, and thus patrician, exogamy was a defined ideal, but exceptions are not a recent phenomenon Marriage also was discouraged among people considered close matrilineal relatives Duolateral cross-cousin marriage was permitted, but parallel-cousin marriage was proscribed Uxorilocal residence was normal during the beginning of a marriage, when the groom worked for the bride's family, but as children were born residence usually became patrilocal There was occasional polygyny, usually with the first wife's younger sisters On the death of either spouse, the ideal replacement was the spouse's same-sex sibling There appear to have been no strong interdictions regarding divorce for incompatibility Domestic Unit Permanent villages were made up of extended families representing several to all of the clans, each occupying a long multifamily dwelling with the nuclear units having their individual dwelling areas and fireplaces The Wisconsinites' fugitive years discouraged large settlements Later, homesteads also contributed to smaller but usually not strictly nuclear family wigwams, with a continuing preference for units of extended families to live near each other Inheritance A deceased person's belongings were and often still are distributed to mourners beyond immediate descendants Socialization Parents and grandparents instructed children with stories told at night, sacred stories in the winter and secular history at any time of the year Children learned adult tasks through imitative play and close association with adults of the appropriate sex At puberty, signified by voice change, boys sought visions through fasting in isolation Young men whose vision came from the moon, which like the earth is a female deity, became berdaches Menstrual seclusion was the rule for girls and women, with the onset of menstruation marked by special instructions and isolation when a girl might also receive spirit guidance and prophetic dreams Compulsory schooling contributed to the end of fasting and other puberty rites in both Nebraska and Wisconsin Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization A disparity in the number of clans in the upper and lower moieties probably reflects an effort to maintain an approximate population balance between the moieties as new clans evolved in the course of the Win- 382 Winnebago nebagos' incorporation of members of alien tribes The Thunder and Bear Clans were and are regarded as the leading clans of their respective moieties and also provided the dual tribal chieftainship In the 1830s, the tribal Thunder Clan chief still was nominally recognized Each clan had its own origin myth, ceremonies, and a large number of customs relating to birth, naming feasts, death and wakes, lists of personal names, obligations, prerogatives, taboos, reciprocal relationships with other clans, and duties to the tribe as a whole Political Organization Tribal chieftainship was an old organizational principle rather than a function of White influences The scattered, increasingly autonomous villages generally maintained a localized dual Thunder and Bear leadership It is not known how people attained the role of chief except that eligibility by clan also required personal exemplariness By the treaty period, a few non-Thunder clan men were recognized as civil leaders because of their ability Like Thunder and Bear Clan chiefs, they were "real," unlike the "bread chiefs" that Whites appointed to deal out rations Social Control The Thunder Clan chief presided over civil functions, and his was a peace lodge where disputes were adjudicated and prisoners or culprits could seek sanctuary If agreement could not be reached-for example, on indemnities to survivors in the case of murder-the Thunder Chief turned the offender over to the Bear Chief to be killed Bear Clan men were called manape (soldier) probably in analogy to organized, standing army units at forts, but the Bear Clan really carried out internal police and penal functions Generally, men were expected to be warriors, but the Hawk or Warrior Clan had the special prerogative of initiating and leading war parties Old informal techniques of social control are still operative to encourage proper behavior of sharing, generosity, modest demeanor, and respect for other people These include ridicule, gossip, withdrawal from troublemakers, and witchcraft Evidently, fear of evoking a witch's envy or being suspected of witchcraft became increasingly important to enforce desired norms as formal, clan-based controls eroded Conflict Early records portray the Winnebago as exceedingly warlike Men welcomed opportunities to go to war, and the Winnebago fought with the French against the English, with the English against the Americans, in the Union army in the Civil War, as scouts and fighters in federal conflicts with the Dakota Sioux, and in both world wars, Korea, and Vietnam Veterans who experienced combat are accorded special respect as speakers at wakes and are recipients of kettles of food at feasts Medicine Lodge Society derived from Algonkian sources, but it differs in many particulars from the Ojibwa Mid6 ceremonies and emphasizes reincarnation rather than curing The pervasive focus on warfare is evident throughout Winnebago religion War bundles were the tribe's most sacred objects and remain so among traditionalists The ceremonies differ in particulars among the bundles, but all take special cognizance of certain groups of spirits in songs and orations Missions established late in the nineteenth century in Wisconsin were slow in making converts The Nebraska Winnebago were accessible to missionaries and many embraced Christianity, but after a period of prosperity from land leases and sales, they felt a sense of powerlessness and lack of direction Visionproducing peyote, introduced around 1900, attracted increasing numbers of converts who incorporated the Bible and belief in Christ with pan-Indian symbols as a bridge between Indian and White ways In 1908, Nebraska people introduced peyote to Wisconsin In the Wittenberg area, virtually the entire community is now affiliated with the Native American Church, and there are members in other communities as well Religious Practitioners Radin recognized what he termed a religious elite, almost priestly leaders in hereditary and other religious societies, versed in the deeper meanings and philosophical significance of myth and ritual In contrast, shamanism, which Radin attributed to Algonkian influences, was based on sleight of hand and the mechanistic formulae of imitative and contagious magic that could be used for good or evil purposes Witches, literally poisonerss," could be men or women and usually were old Healers were primarily learned herbalists, a role reserved to the aged to ensure their support since doctoring worked only if recompensed Death and Afterlife The ideal deaths were either those incurred in warfare or the only kind the Winnebago recognized as natural, which fits the clinical description of extreme osteoporosis when the bones crumble This was believed to occur at the age of one hundred Other deaths were believed to be due to witchcraft or breaking taboos, even inadvertently Old stories indicate scaffolding of the dead, but interment has long been practiced The decedent is believed to remain in spirit during the course of a four-night wake, when he or she is instructed in the arduous journey to the next world In traditional cosmology, the next world is an idealized version of life on earth People whose religious observances, such as Medicine Lodge membership qualify them for reincamation can live four times on earth, choosing to be reborn much as they were or as an animal, the opposite sex, or even a White person Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs Traditional beliefs include a concept of a layered universe, multiple souls, reincarnation, a remote creator called Earth Maker, and a host of more approachable supernaturals representing spiritual expressions of animals, birds, trees, and other natural objects and phenomena The Morning Star, like the Sun, was a male war deity A special deity, Disease Giver, meted out life from one side of his body and death from the other Other spiritual personages were sent to free the world of man-eating giants and other evil spirits and figure in long myth cycles The benevolent Hare is in charge ofthe earth in the layered universe, which led early Peyote people to equate him with Jesus Christ The Winnebago Bibliography Lurie, Nancy Oestreich (1961) Mountain Wolf Woman: The Autobiography of a Winnebago Indian Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press Lurie, Nancy Oestreich (1978) "Winnebago." In Handbook ofNorth American Indians Vol 15, Northeast, edited by Bruce G Trigger, 690-707 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Radin, Paul (1926) Crashing Thunder: The Autobiography of an American Indian New York and London: D Appleton Wiyot Radin, Paul (1949) The Culture of the Winnebago: As Described by Themselves Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics, Memoir no Bloomington Radin, Paul (1970) The Winnebago Tribe Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press Originally published, 1923 NANCY OESTREICH LURIE Wintun ETHNONYM: Wintu The Wintun are an American Indian group numbering about one thousand who live on several rancherias and reservations in California The Wintun language belongs to the Penutian language family In the early nineteenth century the tribe was located in northwestern California and numbered about fourteen thousand The Wintun had a varied subsistence economy including collecting and drying acorns, communal deer and rabbit hunts, and communal fish drives to catch salmon and trout The tribe was divided into nine major geographical regions, but the largest political units were villages, each of which was headed by a chief whose position was usually inherited The Wintun worshiped a supreme deity and prayed to the sun each morning Religious leaders were shamans who acquired their power in an initiation period of fasting, dancing, and instruction and who cured the sick by means of massage, soul capture, and sucking disease-causing objects out of the patient Between 1830 and 1870 75 percent of the tribe was wiped out by epidemics Subsequently, the Wintun were harassed and massacred by the hundreds at the hands of White ranchers and miners and finally forced onto reservations Bibliography DuBois, Cora (1935) Wintu Ethnography University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 36, 1-148 Berkeley Goldschmidt, Walter (1951) Nomlaki Ethnography University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 42, 303-443 383 Wishram The Wishram (Echeloots, Haxluit, Tlakluit), who with the Wasco (Galasqo) constitute the Upper Chinook, lived around The Dalles on the Columbia River in north-central Oregon and south-central Washington Today, the Wishram live in their traditional territory and on the Yakima Indian Reservation The Wasco live with the Northern Paiute and other groups on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon They speak Chinook languages of the Penutian phylum Bibliography French, David H (1961) "Wasco-Wishram." In Perspectives in American Indian Culture Change, edited by Edward H Spicer, 357-430 Chicago: University of Chicago Press French, David H (1985) "Zebras along the Columbia River: Imaginary Wasco-Wishram Names for Real Animals." International Journal of American Linguistics 51:410-412 Spier, Leslie, and Edward Sapir (1930) "Wishram Ethnography." University of Wisconsin Publications in Anthropology 3:151-300 Madison Wiyot ETHNONYMS: Batawat, Du-Sulatelu, Patawit, So-lot-luk, Soo-lah-te-luk, Suliteluk, Viard, Wiki, Wishosk, Wiyat Orientation Identification The Wiyot are an American Indian group located in northern California "Wiyat" is the name for Eel River delta, south of Humboldt Bay Other synonyms listed above are variants of 'Wiyot," of the name of the language itself, or of one ofthe three main tribal regional subdivisions Location Centered around Humboldt Bay, the Wiyot occupied a strip of northern California coast about fifty-one miles long by fifteen miles wide between 400 and 410 N and 1240 and 1250 W Wiyot territory was almost entirely in the moist redwood forest belt extending from the coast ranges to the coast itself Fog and clouds are common throughout the year with the annual rainfall varying from thirty to one hundred inches Demography The most reliable estimate for the aboriginal population is about 3,300 The population decreased markedly in the nineteenth century largely because they held land deemed highly valuable by White settlers The process is exemplified by the well-documented massacre of Indians concentrated on Gunther Island in Humboldt Bay in 1860 The 384 Wiyot most recent population estimate (ca 1968) shows about 190 persons of certainly mixed Wiyot ancestry living on small reservations reported to have been terminated by the federal government in 1958 linguistic Affiliation Along with its northern neighbor, Yurok, Wiyot is classified in the Algonkian language family The two languages are only distantly related, suggesting a long presence in the region with a degree of isolation from each other History and Cultural Relations Although the linguistic relationship between Wiyot or Yurok suggests a time of initial occupation oftheir territories around two thousand years ago, radiometric dating of an important Wiyot site shows an early date of A.D 900 Cultural materials at the site suggest a continuity into historic times Wiyot territory is located at the southern end of what is called the Northwest Coast culture area, although the absence of certain characteristic elements of the area requires that the Wiyot be classified as "marginal" to the classic culture Despite the geographical proximity and linguistic affiliation, there are marked differences between the Wiyot and Yurok, with the Wiyot less like the Northwest Coast groups and more like the cultures of central California Settlements Archaeological and historical evidence points to more intensive settlement in tidewater regions such as the lower courses of streams like the Eel and Mad rivers and along the shores of Humboldt Bay The open Pacific shore was evidently not used to any great extent Villages were spaced a mile or so apart along the watercourses, with inhabitants numbering 50 to 150 persons Permanent dwellings, occupied by two or more families, were rectangular and made from split redwood planks with two- or three-pitch roofs, a smoke hole at the top, and side entrances with sliding doors Each village also usually had a sweat house, shaped like the dwellings but smaller and with only a two-pitch roof Conical plank huts were used only for camping Economy Subsistence and Commercial Activities Humboldt Bay and its associated rivers and creeks made for a predominantly maritime subsistence economy with mollusks, sea mammals, and fish (especially anadromous salmon) all heavily exploited The fishing technology utilized boats, harpoons, traps, nets, weirs, and platforms The surrounding forests, with clearings here and there, provided deer and elk as well as acorns, which were gathered, processed, and prepared in the classic central California manner Dogs were the only domesticated animals and were used in hunting as well as for companions Industrial Arts Woodworking (canoe carving and the production of split and dressed planks for dwellings), stone working (well-shaped adz handles and bell-shaped mauls), obsidian chipping (large ceremonial blades and projectile points), bone and shell carving (fishing and mammalhunting equipment, ceremonial beads and pendants), and twined basket weaving (for acorn collection and processing and decorated women's hats) were the principal industrial arts Trade The Wiyot supplied their southern neighbors like the Mattole with dugout canoes, dentalium beads, and local foods and received in return tobacco, haliotis shells, and local foods They supplied groups to the north and west such as the Yurok with white deerskins and olivella shells and received iris-fiber rope Division of Labor The typical dichotomy for much of California obtained, with men hunting large animals and women weaving baskets and processing and preparing plant foods Both sexes gathered acorns and pinenuts and made rabbit-skin blankets and buckskin moccasins Curers, sucking or herb-doctors or shamans could be of either sex, although the little-known "soul-loss" doctors were all men, as were the priests or ceremonial officials Land Tenure Dwellings, occupied by two or more families, were privately owned, and there was a specific term for a rich man who owned one Fishing places, hunting and seedgathering lands, and tobacco plots were also privately held, although particular trees, fishing weirs, and pens on weirs were not Sweat houses were probably owned by the village, and beaches by the local group Kinship There was no formal tribal organization or clans, nor were there any standards of kin avoidances, especially those pertaining to in-laws Descent was patrilineal, and there was no development of elaborate kinship terminology Marriage and Family Marriage Monogamy was most common, though nonsororal polygyny was often practiced by most prominent men Bride-price was negotiated, and sororate and levirate were known Marriage between blood relatives was prohibited, and fathers could not marry stepdaughters Both first and permanent residences were patrilocal, except that "half-marriages" (those involving a man lacking some usual qualification for marriage such as the requisite bride-price) led to matrilocal residence Adultery was a grounds for divorce for both husbands and wives, though it was less common for a man to be divorced for this reason Children could go to either spouse's family, depending on payment to the husband Socialization Absence of rigorous puberty rites suggests a general permissive attitude in child rearing Boys' puberty ceremonies were unimportant, with girls' more important than one might expect Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization There was no formal or rigid organization at the tribal level The chief or headman's main function was apparently to receive the largest share of food and property during ceremonies There were no war chiefs Social rank was based on wealth and birth, although "common," or poor men were related to "nobles." Political Organization The Wiyot were divided into three separate subgroups occupying the Humboldt Bay (Wiki), Mad River (Batawat), and Eel River (Wiyot) regions The groups evidently did not unite for common purposes such as Wiyot war or conflicts with neighboring groups Within each group, patrilineally related households and communities could form alliances against others when required Social Control Physical and social self-restraint were encouraged as the qualities by which a man could obtain and retain his wealth and become wealthier A system of fines for violations of the moral code (for example, adultery or seduction) and the low social status ofthe poor were the principal controls at work for individuals Conflict Murder, insults, and poaching were causes of both internal and external conflicts Both surprise attacks and staged battles were fought with neighboring groups such as the Whilkut Warriors used bows and arrows, elkhide body armor, and rawhide shields Women and children were not killed, and both sides were compensated for destroyed property Religion and Expressive Culture Religious Beliefs The Wiyot shared with other northern California groups beliefs about creation and culture heroes, although they lacked the latter's belief in a pre-human race In addition, they had a conception of a supreme deity, "The Above Old Man," and a Noah myth, both without parallel in the Northwest, although the supreme creator belief is found in central California Powers or guardian spirits allegedly could be heard-that is, sucking healers could be told by the spirit what caused the illness or where the poison objects were located in the body Ghosts, souls of the dead, were thought to be audible and visible Religious Practitioners Shamans or curers (probably mostly women) were distinguished from priests (men) who directed ceremonies Ceremonies World renewal rites, of much importance elsewhere in northwestern California, were practiced only irregularly by the Wiyot They did not hold the associated White Deer Dance at all, although the Jumping Dance was performed Arts Apart from the aesthetic expressions described above under Industrial Arts, singing and dancing, especially ceremonial dancing, along with storytelling, were the only other notable art forms Ceremonial activities were not as flamboyant as those of the neighboring Yurok Medicine Although detailed ethnobotanical information is lacking, it is likely that the Wiyot, like their neighbors, used a wide range of medicinal herbs in the treatment of common maladies As disease was believed to be caused by the intrusion of poison objects, soul loss, or violation of a taboo, serious illnesses required treatment by sucking with or without herbs Death and Afterlife The corpse was carried on a plank or pole stretcher out through the door of the house to a cemetery outside the village It was buried in a plank-lined grave along with money and valuables Houses ofthe deceased were purified with tobacco or other burning vegetation, and taboos were observed by undertakers, spouses, and blood relatives for five days Ghosts were believed "to go East, five days after burial and good and bad had different destinations." Ghosts of some "bad" were thought to stay on earth 385 Bibliography Driver, Harold E (1939) Culture Element Distributions X: Northwest California University of California Anthropological Records, 1(6) Berkeley Elsasser, Albert B (1978) "Wiyot." In Handbook of North American Indians Vol 8, California, edited by Robert F Heizer, 155-163 Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Kroeber, Alfred L (1925) "Wiyot." In Handbook of the Indians of California U.S Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin no 78, pp 112-120 Washington, D.C Loud, Llewellyn L (1918) Ethnogeography and Archaeology of the Wiyot Territory University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology, 14(3) Berkeley ALBERT B ELSASSER ... Soo-lah-te-luk, Suliteluk, Viard, Wiki, Wishosk, Wiyat Orientation Identification The Wiyot are an American Indian group located in northern California "Wiyat" is the name for Eel River delta, south of. .. relationship as brother-in-law to sister-in-law Prescribed kinship reciprocity and joking relationships are still observed in both Nebraska and Wisconsin Kinship Terminology Winnebago kin terms... asserted Sociopolitical Organization Social Organization Washoe society was egalitarian in orientation with no fixed distinctions of wealth or status groups Leadership and roles of special skill were
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