Washoe people have lived in the Great Basin and the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains for at least the last 6,000 years, some say up to 9,000 years. Prior to contact with Europeans, the territory of the Washoe people centered around Lake Tahoe (/ˈtɑːhoʊ/; Washo: dáʔaw / daʔaw / Da ow – “the lake”; or dewʔá:gaʔa /dawʔa:gaʔa / Da ow aga – “edge of the lake”) and was roughly bounded by the southern shore of Honey Lake in the north, the West Walker River, Topaz Lake, and Sonora Pass in the south, the Sierra Nevada crest in the west, and the Pine Nut Mountains and Virginia Range in the east. Beside Lake Tahoe the Washoe utilized the upper ranges of the Carson (dá:bal k’iláʔam), Truckee (dabayóduweʔ), and West Walker rivers to the east as well the Sierra Valley (a site of extensive freshwater marshes filled with cattails, bulrushes and alkaline flats that drain into the Middle Fork Feather River) to the north. The Washoe would generally spend the summer in the Sierra Nevada, especially at Lake Tahoe; the fall in the ranges to the east; and the winter and spring in the valleys between them. Washoe Lake (c’óʔyaʔ dáʔaw) was named after them.
The Washoe/Washo were loosely organized into three (in some sources four) regional groups speaking slightly different dialects, which in turn were divided in groups (cooperating extending families for the seasonal hunt and living together in winter camps) and in nuclear families. The regional group was determined by where people had a winter camp:
- Welmelti (“Northerners” or “Northern Washoe People”)
- Pauwalu / Powalu (“Easterners” or “Central Washoe People”)
- Hungalelti (“Southerners” or “Southern Washoe People”) and,
- Tanalelti (“Westerners” or “Western Washoe People”)
Since the western part of the Washo territory was in the mountains and subject to heavy snows, few people wintered there so very few were organized into the western group
Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California
919 U.S. Hwy 395 N
Gardnerville, NV 89410
Phone: (775) 265-8600
Washoe Tribe
https://www.washoetribe.us/contents/
Wikipedia
Louisa Keyser (Dat So La Lee)
Washoe basketweaver
Tah-hoe (Ta’-ho’) is some Indians’ pronunciation of their name for the beautiful lake that forms twenty-one miles of the boundary between California and Nevada. Mark Twain wrote of it when he was there: ‘We plodded on, and at last the lake burst upon us, a noble sheet of blue water…walled in by a rim of snow-clad peaks that towered aloft full 3,000 feet higher still.” The cave mentioned in the second story is on the shore near present-day Glenbrook, Nevada. Long, long ago, our people used to say, Lake Tahoe was the home of the water babies. If they wanted to cross the lake or fish in the lake, they had to prepare by making a basket sealed well with pitch. In it, they put corn, bread, and pine nuts. After each basket was full, the owners would put the cover on it and sink it in the lake. By doing this, they believed that the water babies helped them to get across safely and to have luck while fishing. But if they didn’t take a basket of food, they believed that the water babies would become very angry. Sometimes people did not return from their trips because they were drowned by the will of the water babies.
In Lake Tahoe stood a tall pine tree with a mass of large branches at its top. In these branches was the nest of an enormous bird that ate human beings. The bird’s winter home was a cave on the east shore of the lake. One day it carried a man into its nest and left him sitting there while it ate. The man covered his head with his blanket made of rabbit skin and peered out through the holes in it. Each time the giant bird took a bite, the man could see into its huge mouth and down into its gullet. He threw an arrowpoint into the bird’s mouth, and the bird swallowed it along with the meat it was chewing The arrowpoint was made from some kind of volcanic rock that is poisonous. Repeatedly, the man threw an arrowpoint into the bird’s mouth. Soon it began to tremble, and in a short time it died from the poison of the arrowpoints. Then the man cut off the bird’s wings and tied them together. He climbed down the tree, placed the huge wings on the water like a boat, and sat on them. The wind soon after carried him to the other shore of Lake Tahoe.
The Washoe or Wašišiw (“people from here”, or transliterated in older literature as Wa She Shu) are a Great Basin tribe of Native Americans, living near Lake Tahoe at the border between California and Nevada. The name “Washoe” or “Washo” (as preferred by themselves) is derived from the autonym Waashiw (wa·šiw or wá:šiw) in the Washo language or from Wašišiw (waší:šiw), the plural form of wašiw. Washoe people are the only Great Basin tribe whose language is not Numic, so they are believed to have inhabited the region prior to neighboring tribes. The Kings Beach Complex that emerged about 500 CE around Lake Tahoe and the northern Sierra Nevada are regarded as early Washoe culture. The Martis complex may have overlapped with the Kings Beach culture, and Martis pit houses gave way to conical bark slab houses of historic Washoe culture. The Washoe people and the neighboring Northern Paiute people were culturally and linguistically very different, and these two tribes were sometimes in conflict.
Washoe people may have made contact with Spanish explorers in the early 19th century, but the Washoe did not sustain contact with people of European culture until the 1848 California Gold Rush. Washoe resistance to incursions on their lands proved futile, and the last armed conflict with the Washoes and non-Indians was the Potato War of 1857, when starving Washoes were killed for gathering potatoes from a European-American farm near Honey Lake in California. Loss of the valley hunting grounds to farms and the piñon pine groves to feed Virginia City‘s demand for lumber and charcoal drove most Washoe to dependency on jobs on white ranches and farms and in cities. The areas where they settled became known as Indian colonies. Piñon pine nuts gathered in the fall provided much of the food eaten in the winter. Roots, seeds, berries and game provided much of the food eaten during the rest of the year. The Washoe people were also deeply knowledgeable about their land and where resources were plentiful. This included an understanding of the seasonal cycles of both plants and animals. Wašiw people were also dependent on fishing at Lake Tahoe and the surrounding streams. Fishing was a huge part of Wašiw life; and each family had its own fishing grounds, until contact with Western civilization led to commercial fishing in the area, destroying another important resource for the Wašiw. The Pine Nut Dance and girls’ puberty rites remain very important ceremonies. The Wašiw people once relied on medicine men and their knowledge of medicinal plants and ceremonies. Much of this knowledge and activity has been lost due to contact with the Western world.
Washoe culture was based mostly on the legends that carried the explanation of different areas of life. The legends were handed over from one generation to another by storytelling and were told to younger generations to teach them basic things about Washoe’s way of living. Children could get to know about gathering techniques, medicine preparation, and the legends were meant to teach them how to appreciate the land they were living in and give them a better understanding of Washoe’s lifestyle. Children were raised in the environment which recognized family as the most valued thing. The whole Washoe life was concentrated on cooperation and unity, and older tribe members needed to convey their knowledge to the younger so the tribe culture would survive. Everyone in the family had his own role in everyday activities like fishing, gathering or hunting which helped Washoe people with doing everyday life tasks more efficiently.
The Washoe / Wašiw language or Wá:šiw ʔítlu (today: Wašiw Wagayay) has been regarded as a language isolate, However, it is sometimes tentatively regarded as part of the controversial Hokan language family. The language is written in the Latin script. The Wašiw language is now considered a moribund language as only a handful of fluent elder speakers use the language. There has been a recent revival of the language and culture within the Tribe. “Wašiw Wagayay Maŋal” (the “house where Wašiw is spoken”) was the first attempt by the Wašiw people to renew their language for the future generations. The tribe currently relies on the tribal Cultural Resource Department to provide language classes to the community. However, there has recently been a pedagogical shift within the tribe, and the youth have become the focal point of language and culture programs.
The Washoe people are considered to be the indigenous inhabitants of Lake Tahoe area, occupying the lake and surround lands for thousands of years. As the native inhabitants, they believe that they have the best knowledge of how the land should be maintained, and consider themselves to be the proper caretakers of the Lake Tahoe area, which has been a center Washoe tribes yearly cultural gatherings, where most traditional events took place. In 2002, The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources officially granted custody to the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California over the land around the Lake Tahoe area for cultural purposes.
Indigenous Peoples Literature 
