e creatures. He is about seventy, attended
Stewart Indian School for ten years and lived among the Hopi for ten
years. He boasts a stone and cement-block home, the only such dwelling
owned by a Washo. He has learned to bead baskets and during most of the
year earns a reasonable income from this. His seeming adjustment to white
culture is confounded when his philosophic position is examined. He can
only be termed a mystic who interprets the world in Indian terms. Exposure
to such influences as the writings of Kroeber and Huxley has only
confirmed his essentially Indian viewpoint. Both his parents were famous
Indian doctors and his maternal uncle, who was also his mentor,(2) was a
famous shaman. My informant implied that his uncle's spirit (wegeleyo),
from which his power was derived, was the Water Baby, and his own
carefully guarded statement implied that the creature was potentially his
own spirit. His view of the Water Baby was quite the reverse of other
informants. "Some people think the Water Baby will hurt them, but he
won't. If they see him by accident he won't do nothing. But if he has
given you his power and you see him--then wham, he maybe knock you right
down." This appears to have been his way of describing a seizure by the
Water Baby, which although a fearful experience, usually resulted in the
gift of additional power. There was, however, general agreement among
informants that the Water Baby could, if he gave his power to a person,
demand repayment with the lives of his protege's close relatives or entire
family.(3)

The various powers and activities of the Water Babies are perhaps best
described in the following stories recounted by informants:

1. "One time my Dad was sick. He called in two, three doctors and
they said he had to give a basket to the Water Babies at Lake
_Ismedel_. There is an island in this lake and my Dad was supposed
to go out to that island and leave a basket. I was too young then
but he took my brother. They went up there and my Dad just started
walking out to the lake and the water never got any deeper than
there (pointing to his knees). He walked right on that water. He
left that basket and came back and he got well. Them Water Babies
helped him walk on the water. My brother saw it happen."

2. "There is this deep pool up in the mountains. There is a kind
of black sucker live there but no Indians ever caught them because
that was a