ritual activity. This suggests that for the Washo the importance of ritual
may have increased in proportion to the element of chance inherent in the
activity undertaken. Gathering was a surety, assuming of course that there
was a harvest to gather. With the wide variety of plants available within
the Washo territory during the spring, summer, and fall it seems highly
unlikely that the failure of one species of plant created a serious
problem. This, of course, was not true of the pine nut. A failure of the
pine-nut crop was a harbinger of a starvation winter. The gathering of
pine nuts, in contrast to the gathering of other plants, was the subject
of a great deal of ritual and, in some degree, of ceremonialism uncommon
to most Washo gathering activities. This will be dealt with later in the
paper.

Hunting

_Deer_ (1-27).--Deer were hunted in a number of ways. Barrett reports, and
old informants confirm, that hunting parties of as many as thirty or forty
men were formed in the old days to go to the western slope of the Sierra
in pursuit of deer. The large number may have been necessitated by the
possibility of meeting hostile Miwok or Maidu. My own informants claimed
that these large parties often set fire to the forest to drive the deer
into the open, and that the large number of men was needed to cover the
escape routes.

More common, apparently, were small groups of five or six men, usually
relatives, who went into the deer country together. Their technique was to
drive along a single deer run toward one of their number who was
considered the best shot. This method was very common after the
introduction of firearms, particularly repeating firearms.

Finally, any Washo man might hunt singly. Often groups of five or six men
went hunting together but each did his own stalking.

Whatever the technique, hunting magic was an individual affair which did
not require any ceremonial activities.

A single hunter, before the days of firearms, often stalked in the antlers
and hide of a deer. Washo were often superstitious about using the real
antlers and made artificial sets from manzanita branches. This fear of
using real antlers appears related to the treatment which was accorded to
the bones of deer. These, once the meat had been completely stripped off,
were submerged in a stream to prevent their being eaten by dogs or wild
animals. Perhaps the best account of the magic involved in stalking is the
following by