VII. AN ETHNOGRAPHIC SKETCH OF THE PAVIOTSO IN 1882.

Editor's preface

The following article repeats to some extent information presented by
Sarah Winnemucca in her book Life Among the Piutes (Boston, 1883), but con-
tains enough new material to warrant being made more available as a sketch
of Northern Paiute culture written      n Indian of that tribe.

Sarah Winnemucca was the daughter of Old Winnemucca. Her mother was a

daughter of Chief Truckee. The date of her birth is uncertain - it may have
been 1844 or 1848. Sarah secured some education in a girls' school at San
Jose and became an articulate and well known spokesman for Indian rights.
She died in Montana in 1891. For further details see the publication in
notes 15 and 19 following.

*

THE PAH - UTES

Sarah Winnemucca

Our home is at the sink of Humboldt River, by the Carson Mountains.

My father and I were both born there, about four miles from the railroad.1

My Indian name is Somit-tone, meaning Shell-flower. 2   I was educated at the
St. Marys Convent in San Jose.

On our mountains there are many pine trees.3 We gather nuts for the

winter. This was our principal food, which our women commenced to gather
about the middle of August.4   Our men used to hunt, and after that, our

women go into the valleys to gather different kinds of seeds. The men go

to fish along the Humboldt and Truckee rivers. They dry game of all kinds,

and lay it up for winter. Later in the fall the men hunt rabbits. The furs
are afterwards woven into blankets, called rabbit's-fur blankets. In the

winter they all get together to locate their lodges, and all their supplies
are collected and put into one place. They remain there about six months,
having merry-making, eating, and drinking, and getting married; and they

give themselves up to great enjoyment until the spring opens.     Then they go
to the fishing-grounds; and when the roots begin to grow, the women dig them
up.  The name of this root in Indian is called yah-bah, and tastes like

carrots.  They boil them, like potatoes, and use them in soups, and also dry
them. Another root is called camas root - a little root that looks like

chestnuts; and kouse root, which tastes a little like hard bread.     In early
days, when white people came among us, they used to eat our food, and com-
pare it with theirs. The same toil was gone through with every year, to

*  Reprinted from The Californian, Vol. 6, No. 33, pp. 252-256, Sept., 1882.

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lay up the winter supplies; and in these days they always seemed to have
plenty of food, and plenty of furs to keep them warm in the winter time.

Now you must not suppose that my people are weak or uncourageous. They
are not what you call "slouches". There are the Utes and the Pah-Utes. We

helped the Bannacks and the Umatillas in the war, because we were kindred of
theirs.6 They are our cousins; therefore we helped them. Now you say, why

did they make war? I will tell you: you white men are too greedy. They had
a little prairie, called the Camas Prairie7 about fifty miles long by twenty
wide. They wanted it because it supplied them with roots and prevented them
from starving. The white man wanted it, because the roots were good for his
cattle, and could make milk and beef and hides and tallow; so he tried to
rob them of these lands. They did not like this, and because he dispised

them, and would give them no redress, they killed him. But the cattle alone
were not the cause of this war. The agents were worse than the cattle: what
the cattle left the agents took. The agents buy their places for so much,
and mean to make their money out of the poor Indians.

During my great-grandfather's time there was a tribe of Indians lived in
our country, called Side-okahs, which means man-eaters, or cannibals.8     They
were not very large in numbers. They used to seek to kill us; and when they

caught us they would have a grand feast. In this way they lived for a number
of years, until my people made war with them. Then we had war and they

fought too, but they did not kill many of us. They fought with bows and

arrows, just the same as we did. They seemed to fear nothing; would even
sport with and catch the arrows directed to them, which flew past. They
could jump up and catch the arrows as they would pass over their heads,

showing great agility. We fought them for a long time, until their number
was quite small. They used to trap us, by digging pit-falls in the ground

and wells in the paths. We were so afraid of them that we used to crawl at
night; and sometimes our people would fall into these places after dark.

When we have fought them some time, they saw that we were getting the best

of them. Then they made canoes out of the tule grasses, and floated out on
the Humboldt Lake; and they lived on the lake for a short time, but had to

leave it again for the land. We kept pushing them out; then they went into
a great cave. They did not remain there long, on account of lack of water.
They then went into the tule marshes, but my people surrounded the tules,

and set them on fire, and when they saw they were getting killed, they ran
back into the cave. There they remained, and my people watched them when
they would come out to get water, and then kill them. Then to make quick

work of it, they went to work packing wood, and piled it up in front of the
mouth of the cave; and as fast as my people filled the mouth of the cave,
they pulled it inside, and of course the cave was very soon filled; and

then they set fire to the outside. In that way my people killed all these

cannibals, smothered in the cave.9 Then we owned all their land, which was
called the Side-okahs' land by other Indians, and it lay along the Humboldt
River in Nevada.10

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After the Side-okahs were exterminated we lived peaceably, now and then
only having a little fight with other tribes - no tribes being allowed to

settle among us. If they came on very important business they could stay a
while; or if they came for a visit, they would be entertained by feasts and
plays and dancing: amusing them all the time they were with us. They always
brought presents to our chiefs, and they gave them presents to take back;

but they were never allowed to settle with us or marry with us, each tribe
maintaining its own individuality very pronounced; every nation speaking a
different language.

Our language is not a written one, but oral; neither have we any signs
to convey information to distant parties - only verbal messages sent by our
warriors traveling on foot; as they could go over rough ground, rocks, and
places that ponies could not, and they could endure more. If our relations

were sick at a distance we would signal to the others by a fire on the high-
est top of the mountain. Three times during the night in the same place is

a signal for sickness. For moving, our signal would be several fires all in
a row, in the same direction we were to move. Fires of that description were
peaceable ones; but we had, also, war-signals of fire.    In olden times the

way we used to make fire was with two sticks, both made of sage brush. One
had a hole in the middle, and was about six inches long by two or three in

diameter.  This was laid down on dried grass, rotten wood, and such materials.
Another stick was sharpened at the end like a top. This was put into the
hole, and rubbed between the hands, causing a friction which ignited the
materials, and we had a fire."1 We never had flint,12 nor knew its uses

until the white man came to us. Signal fires for war are made in the daytime.
A man takes a torch longer than his arm, made of sage brush bark, lighted

at the end. He runs towards our encampment, and warns us that the enemy is
coming, by making quick fires as he comes towards us, lighting the sage

brush as he comes.   Then when he gets in sight of the camp he halloos, gives
a war-whoop, and runs three times around the encampment, and halts in front
of the chiefs lodge. The warriors by this time are all ready to fight the
enemy with their quivers and arrows. He then relates what he saw at a

distance. In those early times we always had scouts and spies out, so that
we would not be surprised by our enemies.

The traditions of our people are handed down from father to son. The

chief is considered to be the most learned, and the leader of the tribe.13
The doctor, however, is thought to have more inspiration.    He is supposed
to be in communion with spirits; and we call him "doctor", as you white

people call your medicine-man; and the word is not taken from the English

language, as may be supposed, but purely Indian. We do not call him a medi-
cine-man, because he does not dose us, as your doctors do, and therefore we

call him "doctor".   He cures the sick by the laying on of hands, and prayers
and incantations and heavenly songs. He infuses new life into the patient
and performs most wonderful feats of skill in his practice. It is one of
the most solemn ceremonies of our tribe. He clothes himself in the skins

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of young, innocent animals, such as the fawn; and decorates himself with the

plumage of harmless birds, such as the dove and humming-bird and little birds

of the forest - no such things as hawks' feathers, eacgles', or birds of prey.'4
His clothing is emblematic of innocence. If he cannot cure the sick person,
he tells him that the spirits of his relations hover around and await his

departure. Then they pray and sing around his death-bed, and wait for the

spirit to take its flight; and then, after the spirit leaves the body, they

make merry, because he is beyond care, and they suppose in heaven. They be-
lieve there is only joy in that place; that sorrow is before and not after

death; that when the soul departs, it goes to peace and happiness, and leaves
all its misery behind.

The warrior is the reverse of the doctor. The warrior wears eagles'

feathers during the battle. He wears the claws of an eagle around his neck
and head. The eagle is our national bird; the Americans taking that emble-

matic notion from the Indians in the early days of their nation. Some braves
that have ridden in the battle front, and have only been engaged once or
twice, wear the claws of a grizzly bear, to show that they have been in

battle; the same as the medal that was fiven to my brother Natchez for saving
three men's lives, showing his bravery.f5

I will now speak about the chief. His rank is inherited from father to
son, the oldest son being the chief by law. If he is dead, the one next to
him becomes chief; or, if there are no sons, the next male relative; but
never a woman.   The custom of havinf more wives than one arose from the

capture of other tribes during war.      If the women were pretty, the chief

claimed them - but only one wife. The first married is claimed as legal and
head of the rest, and is acknowledged in public as the chief's wife.      The

others are not called wives, but merely assistants - pe-nut-to-no-degua      in
Indian.17 The heirs of the first wife, and she herself, take precedence over
the others.   The chief, as also head of every family, is supposed to teach

his children the traditions of the tribe. At times of leisure in the evening,
and at twilight, these traditions are related around the camp-fires to eager
listeners.   No note of time is taken, and no record of ages is known.     Once
in a while, when the spirit moves the chief, he arises and speaks in a loud
voice to his people.   At these times, all work must cease.     If a woman is

cooking a meal, it must be left undone.    All fold their hands, incline their
heads, and listen to what he has to say; and then, when he is through, they
go on again with their work, as left before he commenced to speak. Before
every event, the chief gets up first in the morning, and the people are

warned to get ready. If it is for a fishing excursion, or to hunt deer, or
for any other excursion, he tells them to get ready - all that are to go.

The old women and children stay behind in the lodges, while the young married

women and daughters accompany their relations to carry the game which is caught
by the braves.

These excursions sometimes last ten days, the people remaining wherever

night overtakes them. When through, they return to their lodges, having great

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rejoicing; and divide their game with the poor and aged and sick - no

payment ever being required for such attention. Their belief is to have

what they can enjoy on earth, and share it with each other, as they cannot
carry anything out of this world. When they die possessed of horses and

other goods, their wearing apparel is given to the poor, and some portion

of it is buried with them. Horses are generally killed, for they think the
dead man will not have any further use for them; and this is considered the
last token of honor and respect that can be shown on this earth to the
memory of the dead. The way that my people mourn for their dead is by

cutting their hair close to their heads and laying it on the body of the

dead to decorate it. The hair of his wife and that of his children, braided
and ornamented with beads, is laid upon the dead man's breast; and if the
wife refuses to part with her hair to thus honor her husband, she becomes

the object of pity and scorn, laughed at, spit upon, and abused by the whole
tribe. Thus they seldom refuse to part with their hair. The doctor also
contributes ornaments from his person, and is not allowed to doctor any
other sick person for some time, until he again gets into favor by some

prophecy or inspiration supposed to come from the spirits. These are old
traditions. Nowadays he knows his value. He will not attend a patient

unless he is paid, as white folks pay their doctors. Thus we follow your

customs as our association grows with you. Our doctor now charges a fee of
five dollars, or as the case may be, as white folks do.

Indian girls are not allowed to mingle freely with the braves; never go
out walking or riding with them; nor have anything to say to each other.

Even in courting, the same strictness is observed. A young brave takes a
notion to marry a young girl, but cannot do so until he has been declined.

The woman removes from the rest of the family to a small wickeup, or lodge,
where she remains one month by herself, abstaining from flesh, and living
only on seeds or berries. She must be very industrious during that time,

going out every morning at daybreak to gather wood and logs, which she arrays
in five different piles. This labor is repeated at noon and at sundown.
Every five days she is acknowledged by the other women and men to be a

young lady ready to marry, and at these times the wood is set on fire, she
is jumping over the piles while they are burning. Eating, drinking, and

dancing are indulged in every fifth day. Then at the end of the month she
returns to her father, casting away all her old clothing, and appearing
before her parents in new robes made of buckskin.

The ceremony of courtship is as follows: the brave seeks the place

where the Indian maiden is at rest. If she discovers him, she gets up and

goes away. He never follows here, but comes again the following night, and
so on indefinitely. Then when her parents give consent to their marriage,
she is given a feast, at which he is invited to partake. At no other time
is he allowed to eat with the family. The ceremony of marriage is very

simple. The lady passes the brave some food in a dish. He takes it and

sets it down; then they are considered man and wife. They remove to a lodge

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by themselvers if able; if not, they remain in their father's lodge. When
the first child is born, they go by themselves and work for others, remain-

ing that way one month. They do not eat meat of any kind during this period,
and bathe every five days. After that they return to their old home again.
Deformed children among this people are almost unknown.

Cooking is performed in willow baskets woven so tight as to hold water.

Seeds are ground between two stones.18 A fire is built, and small stones are
thrown into it. When hot, these are dropped into the basket that contains
the water, causing it to boil, when the meal is stirred in, and hot rocks

continually thrown in until the mush is cooked. Meat for stews and soup is

cooked in the same manner. In early times meat was generally eaten this way,
and the use of salt was not known until after the advent of the white man.

Virtue was a quality whose absence was punished by death - either by
burning alive or stoning to death. My people are not so severe in these

later days. 9 The ceremony of marriage is not so strictly carried out as in
olden times.  They take a woman now without much ado, as white people do, and
leave them oftener than of old. One of the latest evidences of civilization
is divorce - an indulgence taken advantage of to abandon an old wife and

secure a young one. They argue that it is better for them to do so than to
leave their young women for the temptation of the white man.

In 1867 I was interpreter for my people; but even they had nothing.

The game has been all killed, except a few rabbits. The pine trees have all
been destroyed, so that we can get no more nuts. The cattle have trampled
out the grass in our little valleys, and we can dig no more roots. If the
white people leave us, to go over the mountains to California, as some

people tell us, we must go over the mountains with them too, or else starve.
If we cannot get wild game, we must take tame game, like cows or steers;
the same as the white people would do if they had nothing to eat, and
nothing to feed their wives and little ones with.

When we were shivering and starving, the soldiers were our best friends.
They gave us their cast-off clothing, and they gave us rations. When I

left the convent and went back among my people, it was funny to see the men
and women dressed in soldiers' overcoats and pants. They thought it was the
grandest kind of dress. Then the agent promised us provisions and clothes

for the winter; but he lied. He knew he lied when he said it. That winter
our children were shivering, while he was amassing money by selling the

things which the government voted for us. Are we to be blamed for thinking
that you care for us like the snake in the grass? When I carried the dis-
patches for the soldiers, they promised Sarah money. Did she ever get it?

or did she get any thanks for doing this? None: nobody said "thank you" to
poor Sarah. I was greatly deceived when I came to San Francisco to get

money and help for my starving people. I thought my own people would help.
I call the Methodists my own people. They preached and they prayed, but

they did nothing else for my poor, hungry, shivering people. I know some-

thing about sermons myself, and can preach a better sermon than any of

their ministers. The soldiers are much better than the ministers. The-
Indian is like my white brother, Emperor Norton: he likes epaulets.

Once the Indians possessed all this beautiful country; now they have
none. Then they lived happily and prayed to the Great Spirit. But the

white man came, with his cursed whisky and selfishness and greed, and drove
out the poor Indian, because he was more numerous and better armed and knew
more knowledge. I see very well that all my race will die out. In a few
short years there will be none left - no, not one Indian in the whole of

America. I dare say the white man is better in some respects; but he is a
bigger rascal, too. He steals and lies more than an Indian does. I hope
some other race will come and drive him out, and kill him, like he has

done to us. Then I will say the Great Spirit is just, and that it is all
right.

Notes

1. The exact location is not certain, but it is very probable that Sarah
is referring to the archaeological site known as NV-Ch-15 which lies at
the spot where the Humboldt River empties into the Sink. The site is

4.5 miles east of Miriam siding on the railroad. By Carson Mountains she
means the Humboldt Range.

2. From tsome (shell or shell bead) + tone (flower).

3. The pinon (Pinus monophylla) does not grow in the Humboldt Range; it is
abundant in the Stillwater Range about 25 miles to the south, and it is
here where the Humboldt Sink Indians went to secure them.

4. There is no evidence that the pinenut was a "principal food" in pre-
historic times.   This conclusion derives from the analysis of several

hundred human coprolites from Lovelock Cave which is located 2.0 miles

south of NV-Ch-15.   See L. K. Napton, "The Lacustrine Subsistence Pattern

in the Desert West." Kroeber Anthropological Society, Special Publ. No. 2,
pp. 28-97, 1969).

5. The winter camp pattern is reported for other groups in Nevada by

J. H. Steward, Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups. Bur. Amer.
Ethnol., Bull. 120, 1938.   There is no evidence for or against a special
winter camp pattern for the Humboldt Sink grup which numbered about 900.

We believe that in pre-contact times the Humboldt Sink village was permanent]
occupied except at times of high water due to heavy runoff in the spring.

6. An apparent reference to the Pyramid Lake War reported by Sarah Winne-
mucca, Life Among the Piutes, 1883.

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7. Camas Prairie in southwestern Idaho. After the Paiute got horses they
extended their range of travel and contact to Oregon and Idaho, hence the

references to Camas Prairie, and camas and kouse roots which occur in Idaho
and Oregon.

8.  Side-okah (=Saidukah) is said here to mean "man-eaters".    Sarah in her
Life Among the Piutes states that this word (given there as saydocarah)
means "conqueror" or "enemy". Loud, basing his identification on later

Indian testimony, says sai-duka'a means "tule-eaters" and this version we
believe is probably correct. It is, however, possible that the name comes
from mudhen (saiya') or even bulrush (siavo).

9. Another, and similar, account of Lovelock Cave as the place where the
sai-duka'a were killed off is in Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins' Life Among the
Piutes (pp. 73-75).

10. Taken literally, this seems to indicate that the sai-duka'a lived up
the Humboldt Valley from the Sink. I have already discussed the problem

of the identification and original location of the sai-duka'a in a general
commentary on papers presented at the Great Basin Autthropological Confer-
ence in 1964 (Desert Research Institute, University of Nevada, Technical
Report Series S-H, Publ. No. 1, 1966-p.245).

11. This description is of fire-making with a palm drill. Archaeological
specimens of drills and hearths confirm this as the ancient method.

12. The author means that the percussion method using flint to strike a
spark was not used.

13. For a discussion of Paiute Chieftainship see R. F. Heizer, Notes on
Some Paviotso Personalities and Material Culture. Nevada State Museum
Anthropological Papers No. 2, 1960.

14. Northern Paiute shamanism is treated in detail by W. Park, "Paviotso
Shamanism". American Anthropologist 36:98-113, 1934 and W. Park,

Shamanism in Western North America. Northwestern Univ. Press, 1935 (Chap. II).
15. The medal, awarded for bravery in 1878, is shown in a photograph of

Natches which appears in J. D. Forbes, Nevada Indians Speak. University
of Nevada Press, 1967.

16. Polyandry among the Shoshoni and Northern Paiute is discussed by J. H.
Stewart (22. cit. in note 5, pp. 242-243).

17. I have not found this term recorded by ethnographers for the secondary
wives.   The word for wife is nodu-gwa.

18. The metate.

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19.  Chief Winnemucca's widow was killed by stoning in 1882.    See R. F.

Heizer, "Executions by Stoning Among the Sierra Miwok and Northern Paiute."
Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers No 12, pp. 45-51, 1955.

Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, photo taken ca. 1883

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