is presented that it is a highly
idealized version. It is valuable, however, because it includes a number
of sacred elements of obvious importance.

"This prayer(11) fella [Captain Jim] lived at Double Springs all
year round. He would have a dream telling him when to have a
meeting. He was what you would call a religious man. He would get
someone he could trust and send out a long, tanned string of hide
with knots in it. For every day until the meeting there was a knot
and every day the messenger untied a knot so the people would know
how many days they had until the meeting.

"All the men came and hunted for four days, and the women would
start gathering pine nut. They would hang up the game to let it
dry.

"The prayer wouldn't eat meat during those four days but he could
drink cold water, and some lady would cook him pine nut.

"Every night they would have a dance. On the fourth day everybody
would bring the food they had and put it in front of the prayer,
and then he would pick some man who was fair [just] and the food
was divided a little before sunrise. If you have a small family
you get less, if you have a big family you get more.(12)

"Then the prayer makes a prayer something like this: 'Our father I
dream that we must take a bath and then paint. Even the childrens
... [we must] wash away the bad habits so we won't get sick from
the food we have in front of us!'

"Then everybody go to the river ... no matter if there was a
little ice on the water, and take a bath. If they was not near the
river they bathed the kids from baskets at Double Springs. The
prayer he prayed for pine nut, rabbit, and deer."

Suzie Dick, an ancient Washo woman who claims to have reached the century
mark in 1959, recalls that Captain Jim was her mother's sister's son and
that she called him brother. He was a big man in a figurative if not a
literal sense. He wore eagle feathers on his head and arms. He had red
trousers made out of a blanket with feathers on the sides of the legs. As
she remembers him at these ceremonies: "He would scare you to death." The
assembled Washo brought pine nuts, deer meat, megal [Indian tea], and much
other food. Captain Jim prayed and gave a sermon, urging everyone to drink
water and avoid liquor, and supervised four nights of dancing.

Judging from the age of these two informants, these meetings, wh