d of Honey Lake to Antelope
Valley and from the divide of the Pinenut Range in Nevada, almost to
Placerville, California.

A short ethnography by Barrett dealing in large part with material
culture, Lowie's Ethnographic Notes, and Stewart's Element Lists
constitute almost the only general references on Washo culture. Various
other writers have dealt with specialized questions such as linguistics
(Kroeber, Jacobson), peyotism (Siskin, d'Azevedo), and music (Merriam).

Most of the statements about the Washo give the impression that they have
long been on the edge of oblivion (Mooney, Kroeber, etc.), and population
estimates have been well under one thousand for the past fifty years.
However, I find myself in agreement with d'Azevedo(1) that the Washo are a
vigorous and continuing cultural entity. My own rather impressionistic
estimate of population is that there are perhaps two thousand Indians in
the area who consider themselves as Washo and form a part of a viable
cultural unit.

My own field work was devoted to an attempt to trace the patterns of
change among these people since the entrance of the white man into their
area. To this end I spent a great deal of time with older informants, but
my work was not exclusively "salvage ethnography." Many aspects of Washo
culture have changed dramatically in the past century; this is
particularly true in the area of material culture and subsistence
activities. On the other hand, I was impressed by the tenacity of the less
material aspects of the culture. The always-difficult-to-define world view
or ethos of the Washo, which so clearly separates them from other
cultures, is very much an entity expressed in the attitudes and actions of
the Washo Indians, whether they are oldsters who can remember many aspects
of the "old days" or children who have not yet entered the newly
integrated schools of Nevada. This continuity seems most clearly expressed
in the area which we subsume under the title "Religion." Almost all Washo,
even the youngsters, are familiar with, or at least aware of, Washo
mythology, attitudes about ghosts, spirits, medicine, and a number of
ritual actions and beliefs which are common elements in Washo life today.

This is not to imply that Washo religious activity has not been affected
by the tremendous changes which have taken place in western Nevada and
eastern California. I suggest that rather than disappearing under the
withering rationalism of civilization t