Book Description
"This case study of the Washo Indians of western Nevada and the eastern Sierra slopes of California is one of those rare events in the vast professional literature on the American Indian where a picture of a single tribal culture as a whole is presented. Though Washo culture in its traditional form has virtually ceased to exist at all, its disappearance was gradual enough and its relatively full appearance recent enough so that Professor Downs has been able to put the memories of the old Washo together with known history and knowledge of the culture area to form a coherent and dynamic reconstruction of the traditional Washo way of life. But he never forgets history. There is a sense of time in the book, which is so often lacking in attempts to reconstruct traditional cultures. Even as the traditional patterns of subsistence techniques, of rituals and religion, of kinship and social organization are described, the reader anticipates the dramatic changes in the Washo world to be wrought by the coming of the white man."-- Foreword.
