While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Washo (from
washiu, 'person,' in their own language. Kroeber). A small tribe, forming
a distinct linguistic family, the Washoan, which, when first known to
Americans, occupied Truckee river, Nevada, as far down as the Meadows,
though their right to the latter was disputed by the Mono. The Washo also
held Carson river down to the first large canyon below Carson City, the
borders of Lake Tahoe, and Sierra and other valleys as far as the first
range south of Honey lake, Cal., the mountains being resorted to only in
summer. There are some evidences that they once were established in the
valleys farther to the east than where found by the whites, whence they
had been driven by the Paiute, between whom and themselves
existed a state of chronic ill feeling, breaking out occasionally into
open hostility. About 1860-62 the Paiute conquered the Washo in a contest
over the site of Carson and forbade them thenceforth to own horses
(Mooney). Of late years they have been confined to the country from Reno,
on the railroad, to a short distance south of Carson City, and have
adopted a parasitic mode of life, being almost entirely dependent upon the
towns and ranches. Recent study of their language indicates no linguistic
relationship with any other people.
In physique and general appearance they correspond more
closely with the California Indians than with the tribes to their
eastward. In 1859 the Washo numbered about 900, but are now reduced to
about a third of that number.
On the language of the Washo, consult
Kroeber in Univ. Cal. Pub., Am. Arch. and Eth., iv, no. 5, 1907.
