band rolled up a newspaper and set it on fire and ran it along
the inside of the door where she had knocked. I don't know why he
did that except we was afraid of her."

Stewart also reports this attitude toward the same woman (1941, p. 444;
2562).

The woman who told me this story is herself under the shadow of indictment
for witchcraft. Curiously enough the same phrase, "I am afraid of her,"
serves as an accusation. She and her sister-in-law quarreled over the
disposal of her husband's body two years ago. Since that time they have
not spoken, and the sister-in-law has been proclaiming her fear.

War Power

The Washo have not engaged in real hostilities with the Miwok or Maidu for
well over a century and Paiute hostilities appear to have taken the form
of occasional defensive skirmishes; thus the details of war magic are
vague. However, Washo tradition repeatedly mentions a month-long period
during which doctors gathered and made medicine against the enemy before
launching a campaign. Usually this took place at Woodfords, which was the
site of a large earth lodge dance house copied after Miwok structures and
described as "where the young mens learned them Miwok dances." (A second
dance house is known to have existed in Sierra Valley; attributed to the
Maidu, it fell into disuse after the death of its owner.)

Summary Of Shamanism

Although there appears to be only a single practicing shaman among the
Washo today (and he certainly not a practitioner of the old school), it
would be a mistake, in my opinion, to claim that Washo shamanism is a
thing of the past. Few, if any, Washo over forty have not attended a
shamanistic curing ceremony and many have been patients. Even those
Indians who have rejected shamanism as old fashioned--or in deference to
white attitudes--give one the impression of "protesting too much" in their
denial of old beliefs. The woman who took her granddaughter to Rupert, the
curer, is among the most progressive of the Washo. She is a nominal
Christian, active in an informal way as a representative of her people
before white authority, and is most apt to deny supernatural explanations
of historic incidents. Nonetheless she has faith in the power of this
modern shaman and in the cures reported for the old-time shamans.

One factor in the decline of the shaman as a principal in curative
activities was the rise of the peyote cult in the mid-1930's (Stewart
1944). The cult w