(5)

Far more important than the curers, however, were the Indian doctors. Such
men were never exclusive specialists and were apparently expected to share
in the work of hunting and fishing with less gifted men. With the
introduction of money by the whites, shamans appear to have approached
something like specialization, charging fees of up to twenty dollars a
session for their services.

Until the middle 1930's there were a number of shamans among the Washo
(Stewart 1944). However, with the introduction of the peyote cult, which
among the Washo is concerned with curing, the shaman was superseded. Today
only a single Washo practices shamanistic curing. Interestingly enough
this man, now seventy-five, was an informant of Lowie's in the 1920's, and
at that time Lowie described him as a sophisticated young Washo, somewhat
mystic and with shamanistic ambitions (Lowie 1939).

This man, Henry Rupert, spent ten years in the Indian school at the
Stewart Agency and after graduation worked for a number of years in a
printing plant in Reno. When questioned about the old days he was a fair
informant, seldom offering more information than was asked for and clearly
enjoying the business of making a white man work for every scrap of
information. He was also given to dropping subtle hints and waiting with
stolid indifference to see if I had been alert. He did not deny his
shamanistic practices but was less than willing to discuss them in detail.

His equipment, he admitted (but refused to show me), consisted of a
butterfly-cocoon rattle, an eagle-bone whistle, and a feather headband. "I
don't really do nothing but help nature," he said. When I replied that
only some people know how to help nature he was gratified and smiled. "Oh
well, it's all psychological anyway," he answered, confirming Lowie's
description of him as a sophisticate.

He is noted for his rather atypical practice of tending a garden, which
consists mostly of fruit trees, and for his open liking for old-fashioned
foods, which he collects, including fly grubs and locusts. I was not able
to observe his curing procedures, but they were described to me by another
informant, a seventy-five-year-old woman, considered one of the most
progressive of the residents of Dresslerville.

"I took my granddaughter to Rupert after the white doctors didn't
do nothing for her. He don't doctor in the real old Indian way [a
phrase I later learned meant that he did not h