The Two Worlds of frontispiece: Cave Rock ca. 3000 B.C. Illustration by Karen Beyers. STATE MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGICAL PAPERS NUMBER 26

The Two Worlds Of Lake Tahoe: A Report On Cave Rock

by

WARREN L. d’AZEVEDO

EUGENE M. HATTORI, Editor

CARSON CITY, NEVADA OCTOBER 2008

NEVADA DEPARTMENT OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS DIVISION OF MUSEUMS AND HISTORY

Jim Gibbons Michael E. Fischer Peter Barton Jim Barmore Governor Department Director Acting Administrator Museum Director © 2008 by the Nevada State Museum All rights reserved.

iv To the Washiw Nation

and the survival

of a people



TABLE OF CONTENTS

DEDICATION……………………….………………………………………………….…. v TABLE OF CONTENTS….…………………………………………………………….…. vii LIST OF FIGURES………………………………………………………………………... vii PREFACE……………………………………………………………………………….…. ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………….…. xi iNTRODUCTION…………………...……………………………………………….……. 1 THE WASHOE PERSPECTIVE…………………………………………………….…...... 5 The Meaning of a Place……….…………………………………………….……... 5 A Natural Shrine………………………………………………….………….…...... 8 More Washoe Voices……………………………………………………….……..... 10 Current Observances……………………………………………………….……..... 14 The Cautionary Space…………………………………………………….……...... 17 THE EURO-AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE……………………………………………...... 21 Unwelcome Predecessors………………………………………………....……...... 22 Let Them Eat Grasshoppers……………………………………………………….. 26 The Historical Rock……………………………………………………………….. 32 The New Folklore………………………………………………………………...... 37 And the Apocrypha……………………………………………………………….... 41 THE LEGACY OF CAVE ROCK…………………………………………………….….... 47 POSTSCRIPT…………………………………………………………………………….... 53 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………...... 55

LIST OF FIGURES

Cave Rock ca. 3000 B.C. ………………………………...………………………...... frontispiece Figure 1. Washoe place names at Lake Tahoe ……………………...... …………... 2-3 Figure 2. Cave Rock boat launch ca. 1957………………………………………………… 10 Figure 3. “Washoe Indians -- The Chief’s Family,” ca. 1866……………………………… 21 Figure 4. Historic Washoe camp at Lake Tahoe…………………………………………... 28 Figure 5. Cave Rock from the south ……………………………………………………… 32 Figure 6. Freight teams at the south end of Cave Rock, ca. 1870...……………………….. 34 Figure 7. View of Lake Tahoe: Cave Rock ……………………………………………….. 35

vii

PREFACE

There has been a deep interest in de ek wadapus or Cave Rock its significance and meaning to my people of the Washoe Tribe. It has also caught the attention of rock-climbing enthusiasts. Today, it still stands for the spirit of the Washoe and our way of life that has endured for hundreds of years despite predictions we would not survive. Medicine men and other spiritual leaders went to Cave Rock to seek and meditate for spiritual renewal. It required a complicated ritualistic process with special rules and restrictions. These practices and traditions are not compatible with sport rock- climbing.

In the 1990’s, Warren d’Azevedo, Professor Emeritus and founder of the Anthropology Department at the University of Nevada-Reno, joined the team conducting a study to evaluate the impact of contemporary recreational uses to the living traditions and intellectual heritage of Cave Rock.

In this publication, Professor d’Azevedo has chronicled all written material relating to Cave Rock from the earliest reports in newspapers, magazines, personal accounts of travelers, and interested parties, including cultural material from his own studies with .

Since the early 1950s Professor d’Azevedo has worked with members of the Washoe Tribe. He interviewed elders who still could recount the old traditions and customs as well as knowledge of fishing and hunting around da owga or Lake Tahoe. He was able to talk to elders who were comfortable telling him stories of the past and sharing their feelings of these traditions and of how they were changing or persisting. Among the most resilient of these traditions was their deep respect for de ek wadapus or Cave Rock.

While making valuable contributions to the academic and scientific field of anthropology, Professor d’Azevedo has always been a friend to the Washoe Tribe. He will always be my mentor and dek mil lew or friend. I will always cherish his kindness and his encouragement as I continue my research of the wel mel ti or Northern Washoe. He has chronicled our history and captured the voices of our elders while increasing understanding between people with different points of view.

A. Jo Ann Nevers Washoe Tribal Elder

ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am beholden to Glenda Powell for skillful and tireless transcription of my original manuscript. Grateful acknowledgment is also extended to Eugene Hattori and the staff of the Nevada State Museum for meticulous editing of final content and format.

There are many persons whose work and association over the years have stimulated the writing presented here. Among my colleagues Kay Fowler, William Jacobsen, Jr., Edgar Siskin, John Price, James Downs, Penny Rucks, and Jo Ann Nevers have been especially rich resources of advice. Then, of course, there are many Washoe friends and acquaintances to whom I owe an even greater debt of gratitude for entrusting me with their views. Fore- most among them, over the many years of my involvement, were Roy and Earl James, George Snooks, Hank Pete, Ramsey Walker, Amy Barber, Barton John, Laurence Christiansen, Clara Frank, Lloyd Barrington, Winona James, John Dressler, Franklin Mack, Steve James, Bertha Holbrook, Jean McNickle, Henry Rupert, Brian Wallace, Lynda , Dariel Bender, and Allen Wallace. There have been others, but these I remember with especial respect and affec- tion.

xi

INTRODUCTION

Cave Rock (De-ek Wadápuš, or “rock American notions about Lake Tahoe and its standing gray”) is a geographic feature at Lake environs are permeated by a romantic mystique Tahoe (dá’aw) of great spiritual significance to and syncretic folklore that has evolved under the the members of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada influence of Washoe beliefs. The role of Cave and , but it also figures as a natural Rock at Lake Tahoe in the cultural setting of these formation of considerable import in the brief two worldviews exemplifies its significance as historical period of Euro-American presence an ancestral and historic monument. (fig. 1). The cultural setting of Cave Rock involves two relatively distinct worldviews, In the pages that follow the reader though each has been profoundly influenced by will become aware of the author’s reliance on the other during the 150 years of confrontation numerous direct citations from the press and and accommodation between the indigenous relevant historical documents. This format people and the intruders who soon overwhelmed derives from his view that the material under them. The Washoe perspective springs from discussion here is best explicated by its advent the ancient tradition of those who occupied the in the current media, the contemporaneous voice land for thousands of years and which continues unfiltered by time or latter-day interpretations today as a defining element of heritage and and revisions. In this way one is more likely to identity. For them, every aspect of the natural get the gist of the historical moment – as it was environment was represented by sentient beings thought and said at the time. It comes closest to to whom it was necessary to demonstrate respect providing the raw data replete with fact, belief and cooperation if humans are to survive and and deliberate or inadvertent lies in the jargon use the earth’s resources. It is in this sense that and unique accent of a moment in history – lest the earth--its terrain, its firmament and all living we forget. things – is considered sacrosanct. The term Washoe has been employed The Euro-American perspective with throughout this work rather than Washo, a usage regard to the environment is manifestly secular which appears in much of the anthropological and in orientation and motive. During the great linguistic literature. The former is the standard rush Westward, the land and its resources were spelling in English adopted by the Washoe viewed as objects of frontier opportunity and Tribe and comes closest to their own word for exploitation. Within decades the fisheries and themselves (Wá šiw). The word Washoe was forests were depleted. Commercial enterprise, probably pronounced as Wa shoo, Wa shoe, ranching, construction, recreation and population or Wa shiw by early immigrants (cf., growth transformed the landscape while the Jacobson, 1996:ii). original inhabitants were deprived of livelihood and decimated by starvation and disease. The fate of Lake Tahoe Basin is a prime example of the consequences of this worldview and, though voices are increasingly raised against the destruction of its natural wonders, the trend continues with no abatement just as alarm is being raised about the burgeoning human exploitation of a vulnerable planet. At the same time, there is an irony in the fact that Euro-

  

THE WASHOE PERSPECTIVE The significance of Cave Rock in Washoe of island temples in the lake, and of the dangers tradition has been noted in the writings of of the deep waters. Of the cave, they write: travelers and scholars since the earliest Euro- American contact with Lake Tahoe. During the Upon the eastern side, about midway ten years after John Charles Frémont sighted from north to south, is a singularly “Mountain Lake” (or “Lake Bonpland”) from arched cavity or entrance, that leads the vicinity of Hope Valley in 1844 thousands of to dark and hitherto unexplored immigrants passed through Lake Valley on the recesses, and the fact that strange south shore following the new Johnson’s Cut-off sounds at certain seasons of the year, road connecting Carson Valley and Placerville. are emitted from its gloomy caverns, Yet little was known of the remainder of the has given rise to the following singular lake, its extent, its geography, or of its aboriginal legend, transmitted from sire to son, inhabitants whose summer fishing and hunting from a greatly remote period to the range it had been since ancient times and who present, and is one of the very few in offered only sporadic resistance to this massive possession of the Digger Indian. [!] intrusion. What follows is a yarn of improbable What seems to be the first recorded mention events scarcely recognizable as anything the of Cave Rock appeared in the Placerville Herald Washoe might have believed, and a marvelously (1853) scarcely a decade after Frémont’s fateful fantastic account of a voyage across the lake in an sighting of the lake. Two American adventurers, Indian “canoe” by which they eventually entered Calhoun “Cockeye” Johnson and a reporter, had the ominous “cavern that extended hundreds of trekked over the mountains from California and feet” into the great rock! happened upon what is now called Meeks Bay (named after the company that stripped it bare Some indication that this account was of trees in the 1860s) on the western shore of the widely read is contained in a note to Hutchins’ lake. Encountering a band of “Diggers” (i.e., California Magazine from George H. Goddard Washoe), they learned that the large promontory (1857:106-109) in which he refers to “the clearly visible directly across the lake was a celebrated Indian Cave with its legendary forbidden place occupied by awesome beings romance.” But neither in this note nor in who presided over the depths of the lake and his previous official report to the California all the waters of the region. In their report, the Legislature of a reconnaissance of “Lake Bigler” Americans refer to it as the “Spirit Lodge,” the (Tahoe) was there any mention of the presence “Spirit Rock,” or “the Cave of the Genii.” They of the living “Indians” (Goddard 1855). claimed to have been told that they were “the first white men that had ever trod the shores of the lake at that point,” but their account of what THE MEANING OF A PLACE they heard and saw is somewhat clouded by the exercise of hyperbole and the license to fantasy It was not until the twentieth century that in much nineteenth century frontier journalism. Washoe traditions concerning Lake Tahoe and Without explaining how they were able to Cave Rock began to be recorded in the writings communicate so eloquently across the language of ethnologists and other credible observers. In barrier, they report wondrous tales of ancient her field notes of work among the Washoe, Grace cataclysms, wars with demons and alien tribes, Dangberg (1918-1922), and in her publications

 of Washoe texts (1927, 1968), she denotes the them back into the water... For a week importance of Cave Rock as a place of special after that the fish would not bite. All spiritual power for shamans, and as the home of the Washo were afraid. About a mile water spirits (“Waterbabies”) who are dangerous from shore there is a spring; that is beings to all who do not know their ways and where these water-beings probably laws. Cave Rock figures in her transcription come from. Their hair reaches down of the creation myth in which Little Weasel to the knee. (Damálili?) steals a Waterbaby’s hair, causing the waters to rise almost to the top of the mountain Lowie (1939:345-347) also recorded where Little Weasel has fled. Only when he versions of the lacustrine creation tale involving throws back the hair does the water recede, the Weasel Brothers and Waterbaby, as well leaving Lake Tahoe and all the lakes and streams as the legend of Ang, the great predatory bird of the region as they exist today. whose nest was on an island halfway between McKinney Bay and Cave Rock (fig. 1). Robert Lowie (1939:322) reported that there was “a species of evil water-beings” that In the 1930s, Edgar Siskin carried out an the Washoe feared: extensive investigation of Washoe beliefs and medicinal practices. Among his observations Once, when walking in the sand were the following: around Lake Tahoe, Dave saw the tracks of one. These beings would Cave Rock, a high promontory on travel about a little, always along the the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe shore, at night, then go back into the towering majestically over the water, Lake again. They made the sound of an important site in Washo spirit lore, babies at night; the Indians would hear is a favorite abode of water babies. them. They live in a house under the From a point at the base of Cave water, possibly twenty feet below the Rock, a road in the form of a path of surface. Men and women both live white sand runs across the bottom of there. A Washo would be terrified, the lake, emerging at the northwest paralysed... bleed from the nose, and shore of Tahoe. “It is their road”... fall sick if he saw one of these beings. said Snooks... (Siskin 1983:24). Judging from their tracks, their feet are only the length of a little baby’s... A famous shaman recounted how at the Once a Washo was fishing in the Lake age of eighteen he was visited by a Waterbaby at with a line and reel, when the line got the in Carson Valley: caught at the bottom. He thought it was a snake, but it was a [Waterbaby] I took a bath in the river. I lay on the pulling the line down. He was pretty sand alongside the river. I saw I was strong. After a while he let go, and dreaming, in my imagination. Water the line got slack. There was a tuft Baby came to me out of the water and of hair on the point of the hook. The told me: “You sing this song.” I sing Indian was paralysed and fell down the song... Water Baby then left me unconscious in his boat for possibly and went to Lake Tahoe, to the cave an hour. There was no wind. At last in Cave Rock, in the water like ice all he woke up terrified... He cut off the the way up the rock. hook and line with the hair, and threw

 ...Six years later I was up at the ...Summarizing the results of the Lake--a quarter of a mile this side excavation, it is seen that Cave Rock, of Glenbrook--near the water. There in spite of its obvious advantages as a were some flat rocks close to the shelter, offers no evidence of historic Lake, and I went that far. Then large or proto-historic occupation by Washo hail fell and held me back. Then I ran groups. The prehistoric evidence back to the old cabin there, I was all indicating people of the Martis alone. I rubbed my eyes because the Culture, who may have utilized the sand was in them. I couldn’t see. I cave probably more than 1,000 years was blind. My eyes swelled up. Water ago, is scant, suggesting a spot which Baby didn’t want me to see where he might occasionally have been used by lived. He put me out of the way... Joe hunting parties rather than a camp site Mack my friend, brought me back to occupied, for example, throughout where my mother was. I still couldn’t the summer. It has been established see. For three days it lasted. Then the in the ethnographic literature that swelling came down. I was all right Cave Rock was avoided by the local again... Afterwards Monkey Pete told Washoe... The physical advantages of me I should have gone down to the the cave-shelter as a campsite coupled flat rocks, dived off into the water, and with the relative dearth of artifacts come up to the cave. Then I wouldn’t recovered from the midden deposit, have gone blind. I don’t know why suggest that the peoples of the Martis I didn’t do what Monkey Pete said Culture may also have considered (Siskin 1941:46-48). the place a danger spot, perhaps as a place that should not be visited except At the suggestion of J. W. Calhoun of the under unusual circumstances. Nevada State Museum in 1957 a test excavation of the cave (Site 26-Do-1) was conducted by J. E. In this regard, see also the comment of Smith and A.B. Elsasser (1962:45-47) just before Mordy and McCaughey (1968:50) in which Cave the opening of the second tunnel road. They Rock is listed as a major Nevada historic site: wrote: Cave Rock is a prominent landmark It was hoped that a more complete on the shore of Lake Tahoe between sample than that obtained in 1953 Glenbrook and Zephyr Cove... could be taken from the deposit before Although it was at first assumed that the the new docking and recreational Washoe or earlier peoples in the area facilities near Cave Rock were put had used the cave as a camping spot, to use. Although no actual damage Washo now living in the area disclaim from the construction work was this, and a recent archaeological contemplated, consideration of future investigation by the University of vandalism connected with increased California confirms that there is little numbers of tourists or sportsmen or no evidence of occupation in the in the vicinity encouraged the early cave at any time in the past. It was completion of the archaeological believed by the Washoe to be a place project. where their curing specialists could

 commune with special supernatural of their views, in the publications of their tribe, powers which would help them in and in the writings of students of their culture. their practice. Throughout this relatively inconspicuous body of commentary the significance of Cave Rock to the By the 1950s, the Washoe people had been Washoe people emerges as a prevailing theme. all but decimated by a century of poverty, disease In 1951, for example, when it was announced and the loss of their once provident habitat. that the government was planning to bore a Though their leaders continuously had pled for second tunnel through the rock, the Record- the return of some portion of their ancestral lands Courier [Gardnerville, Nevada] of April 20, to live upon, their voices were largely ignored and 1951 (see also Reno Evening Gazette of April 25, the Washoe were the only Native American tribe 1951) made a rare acknowledgement of Washoe in the region never to be assigned a reservation. concerns summarized as follows: They are well aware of the ironical fact that as a peaceful and unassertive people they were passed Preservation of Cave Rock, historic over in favor of those who resisted or made war landmark at Lake Tahoe, as a natural against the intruders. The few acres of rocky memorial to the Washoe Indians who waterless allotments apportioned to them at the once inhabited that section of Nevada turn of the century were being depleted by sheep is sought in a petition being circulated ranching and chain cutting of the trees essential this week. to the annual pine nut harvest. Unwelcome in the towns, they lived in makeshift camps on the The petition which originated at outskirts of white settlements, on the ranches Stewart, headquarters of the Carson where some of them worked, or in crowded Indian agency, is addressed to the “colonies” such as Dresslerville on the dry flats Nevada state highway board. It of Carson Valley. protests against a plan for erecting of a huge, illuminated cross atop Cave At Lake Tahoe--once the major location of Rock together with the construction Washoe summer fishing and hunting excursions- of a religious shrine in that area. -not only were these resources in the process of despoliation, but the laws and intolerance of the George Whittel, owner of considerable white occupiers drastically limited their access to property in the Lake Tahoe area, some the fishery and to their traditional habitation areas. months ago agreed to donate ground Nevertheless, Lake Tahoe remains a profoundly for the cross and religious shrine to nostalgic and compelling element in Washoe the Catholic diocese of Nevada. consciousness. And the most prominent emblem of that heritage has come to be the “standing Plans for the erection of the religious grey rock” (de’ek wadápuš) and its cave on the shrine envision the building of a large eastern shore, an emblem subject to increasing natural amphitheater together with a dishonor and defilement by heedless intruders small chapel which could be used in (cf., d’Azevedo 1993). inclement weather. There would also be a large parking space in the area.

A NATURAL SHRINE The petition circulated by the Indians and said to have been signed by the Over the past 50 years, the insistent voice governing councils at Nixon, Carson of the Washoe can be heard in rare press reports City, Reno-Sparks and Dresslerville

 claims the Nevada department of and that steps be taken for a public dedication highways holds title to Cave Rock ceremony at the Cave Rock site. Referring to through which the road is carried by the alternate plan calling for “the construction of a tunnel. It is the argument of the a large religious shrine at Cave Rock, which is Indians that since the right-of-way one of the most spectacular sites on the shores of for the highway is provided through Lake Tahoe” the report notes that: the historic rock that the state agency actually holds title to not only the Under that plan a huge cross would be actual roadway but to the portion erected on the top of the rock. That above the road. cross would be illuminated at night and would be visible from practically The petition urges that the highway any point on the shores of the Lake. department set aside the rock to be preserved in its natural state as a As the report suggests it would be memorial to the Washoes. difficult to conceive a more radical physical and spiritual conversion of this ancient edifice than It is pointed out by the petitioners that envisioned in the pious scheme of a good that the Lake Tahoe area once was pastor from post-frontier Carson Valley. Neither the principal hunting grounds of the the girding by trestle in 1864, the boring of a first Washoes and it is fitting that nothing tunnel in 1931, the blasting of a second tunnel be done to mar the natural beauty of in the 1950s, nor even the “refurbishing” of the the huge rock which can be seen for famed cave itself by rock-climbing enthusiasts many miles. in the 1990s can compete with the penultimate twentieth century image of Cave Rock with a At one time the county and state held great illuminated cross atop and a large “natural title to the roadway around the rock, amphitheater” carved into its concave face. jutting toward the lake. Sometime ago that section of the highway officially Had this proposal actually been was abandoned in connection with the implemented, the contentions of the 1990s move for construction of the shrine. concerning the status of Cave Rock might well have been nipped in the bud. The Washoe, The Rev. John J. Ryan, former pastor though still pressing their legitimate claim of a of the St. Galls Catholic parish in cultural property and sanctuary, would now be Gardnerville which included the Lake confronting a rival spiritual tradition well versed Tahoe area as well as the Stewart in dealing with aboriginal complaints, holy wars Indian parish, was active in negotiating and clashes of cultures. Conversely, the intrepid the plans for the construction of the rock climbers and obdurate tourists early proposed shrine. on would have surrendered their inalienable American rights of free access in deference to A few weeks later, the Record-Courier any sacrosanct venue such as private property, (May 11, 1951) reported on what seems to be a national monument or, in this portentous yet another petition from Indians throughout this instance, a Christian shrine. The concerns of the area addressed to Charles H. Russell, Nevada’s Washoe people in the 1950s would have been governor urging that a “roadside park” be no impediment, and the notion of honoring a established as “a monument to the Indian people monument to their heritage a mere anomaly. of the state of Nevada,” that it be “properly marked to point out the significance of the area,”

 The petition of the Washoe and other four-lane thoroughfare, the roadside parking tribal councils at that time to have Cave Rock lot, some picnic tables and the recreational boat dedicated as a monument to the Indian peoples ramp we see today. As for the illuminated cross of the state clearly was a desperate effort to and “natural shrine”, it appears that the zealous save this patrimonial landmark from further pastor of St. Gall’s had overreached himself desecration. Already a new tunnel was being and the ambitious plan was quashed by thrifty bored, again without any consideration of their bishops of the Nevada Diocese (Bro. Mathew views. And now there arose the threat of its total Cunningham, Personal Communication, Reno, alienation by a religious order of the newcomers June 11, 1998). to their land. Moreover, there was a danger that title to the rock might revert entirely into private hands: for, in fact, a bill to this effect had been introduced to the Nevada legislature, though subsequently dismissed (Reno Evening Gazette, April 25, 1951). Apparently, this issue remained very much alive for at least another year during which C. Charles Morris, District Engineer of the Nevada Department of Transportation, conferred with his district superior about the problems involved in completing the tunnel and roadway:

Reference is made to your memorandum of March 5 relative to recent developments in connection with the proposed Cave Rock Shrine... We think your point regarding Figure 2. Cave Rock boat launch incorporating the desirability of early action on tunnel fill , ca. 1957. Note historic roadcut on acquisition of right-of-way before left (west) side of Cave Rock. (Courtesy Nevada final plans for the Shrine are completed State Museum, Carson City, Department of is well taken. Inasmuch as it now Cultural Affairs) seems certain that development of the Shrine will proceed and that some MORE WASHOE VOICES form of access from the highway will be established, it appears desirable to During this period, Warren d’Azevedo determine what can be worked out in visited the lake with three Washoe men from reducing to a minimum the hazards to Woodfords, California, whose families had traffic (Morris 1952). maintained regular summer encampments on the south and east shore in former times, and It is not clear how this problem was where a few still come to fish when possible. resolved, excepting for the fact that the new tunnel The trip awakened many memories of places and expanded highway indeed were completed and events important to the Washoe, but as they on Highway 50 and “a serious bottleneck on the drove up Highway 50 toward Cave Rock, the only transcontinental highway to touch the shores men became increasingly uncomfortable. Just of Lake Tahoe...eliminated” (Record-Courier, as the rock came in sight, they asked that the July 25, 1957; fig. 2). And, as it turned out, there car stop and turn about. All said they had never is neither a monument nor a shrine but only the been through the old tunnel and were especially

10 apprehensive about the area since hearing of for Christmas, when a group of his Washoe planned construction of a new tunnel. On the trip friends turned up with a battered old truck and back there was some discussion that d’Azevedo guided him expertly over submerged roads and noted: invisible trails to high ground at Genoa where he could take the route through Jacks Valley to They agreed that the main home of Highway 50 and thence Tahoe, Echo Pass and the Waterbabies (met’súngé) was the coast. But before taking leave of his friends in Lake Tahoe. They don’t actually at Genoa he remembers one of them pointing to live in the water, but in a country the flooded valley below and then in true Washoe under the water–“in their own towns fashion indicating with a sharp nod of the head and there.” They use all the streams and extension of the lower lip the steep mountain to rivers “like roads” to travel all around the west: “This is what happens when those little wherever they need to go. They guys get mad.” Such allusions to Waterbabies come up and camp in caves near the and the tunnel construction at Cave Rock then in water. Cave Rock was one of their progress were common at the time. main places at Tahoe. Certain Indian doctors could go there to deal with While conducting research among the them. There was a hole or tunnel from Washoe in 1955, James Downs (1961:370-371) the rock that went down through the spoke with many persons about traditional beliefs mountains to Carson Valley. Some and practices: doctors knew that way and could go directly up to the rock from the valley Doctors were privy to a number of in a few minutes. They were friends secrets which were not common to the Waterbabies and could do that. knowledge among most Washo. Such B----- says he thinks he knows where a secret was the cave reputed to be the entrance is on the west side of the inside Cave Rock at Lake Tahoe. valley, but he doesn’t go near there or This cave was a retreat for shamans like to talk about it. He says he heard who went there to commune with that if the Waterbabies ever got mad their spirits or to secrete a particularly about what people were doing there important piece of paraphernalia. would be a big earthquake, the hole The cave could be entered through a would be opened and the lake would narrow opening on the landward side, pour down and flood Carson and “all but most shamans preferred a more the valleys down there” (d’Azevedo, dramatic entrance. By standing on a 1954 [see also 1956:49-50]). certain rock and singing a special song they were lowered through the water d’Azevedo also recalls that in December of and then lifted into the cave. The the following year (1955) there was an unusually last doctor to attempt this was Blind torrential rainfall in the region, creating flash Mike. He was directed to go to the floods and swollen streams that coursed down cave in a dream... This promontory is from the Sierras along the eastern slopes. Carson the center of Water Baby habitation Valley became a broad shallow lake leaving the and is reported to be the upper end hamlets of Minden, Gardnerville and the Washoe of a tunnel which extends under the Colony of Dresslerville isolated like small mountains to Genoa so that Water islands. He was stranded in Gardnerville, and Babies can move freely from the lake about to give up hope of returning to California to the valley. The rock also marks the

11 eastern end of a road of white sand one of them mermaids. Some white reported to cross the lake bottom. On people caught it while fishing. They the northwest end of the road was put it in a big jar [the Aquarium] and located a bed of plants, probably wild kept it like that. That was one time parsnips, which doctors gathered for there was a big flood all over down medicine. there. The water came up and covered the whole place and a lot of people A leading Washoe elder told Stanley and drowned. There was an earthquake Ruth Freed the following story which is known too. That went on for a long time and in many versions among the people: was bad for a lot of people.

A famous shaman, Welukushkush, There was that time an Indian doctor frequently took a young boy around named Weliwkushkush lived up here with him. One day the boy had a fit around Tahoe. Weliwkushkush heard and became unconscious on the shore about that flood down there and how of Lake Tahoe [near Glenbrook and them white people had that Waterbaby Cave Rock]. His parents sent for in a jar. He took a trip down there, Welukushkush whom they blamed for and he found the Waterbaby like that. the boy’s condition. Welukushkush He took it out of the jar and put it said that the boy’s soul had been taken back in the water where it come from. by the waterbaby for his wegeleyu Then that flood stopped and there was [medicine/ power]. Welukushkush no more earthquake. Weliwkushkush began to shake his rattle and pray. came back to Tahoe then, and he lived He walked into the water and stayed there a long time before he went on. underneath for ten minutes... He walked around the boy four times and In a version reported by James Downs had the boy’s mother call his name (1961:367), Weliwkushkush is replaced by four times. The boy began to revive; an important Washoe leader of the turn of the his nose bled and blood covered his century: chest. Welukushkush faced the boy toward the lake and gave him his There was this white man up here rattle to shake. Then Welukushkush fishing. He caught a Water Baby walked the boy around in a circle four but he didn’t know what it was. He times. The boy acted as if he had been thought it was some kind of fish and asleep. After this experience, the boy took it to San Francisco and they put became a shaman. (Freed 1963:44) it in that place where they have a lotta fish [aquarium]. Captain Jim went all For another version of this legend, see the way down there to tell the mayor d’Azevedo (1954). Also, natural disasters often that they had better let that Water are attributed to the displeasure of the Waterbabies Baby loose, but nobody would pay no over some affront. The same renown shaman attention to him. Well you know they figures in an anecdote about the San Francisco had a big earthquake down there and earthquake recorded by d’Azevedo (1954) as the water came up around everything. follows: When it was all over that tank where they had the Water Baby was empty. They caught one of them Waterbabies in San Francisco one time. It was like

12 This conflation of a flood with the Charlie Schofield. Just as regular at San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 is a that same time--maybe if the moon significant element of these narratives. Floods was right--he’d hike up to Cave Rock and their portent are associated with the ire of at the lake. I don’t know how many Waterbabies in Washoe traditional tales as well days he’d stay there, talking with the as in popular discourse. For example, when an spirits. It was just as regular--every article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle season, every year, when it came (May 27, 1998) about the great California flood that time. He used to tell us what the of 1862, a Washoe friend of the present writer spirits told him. He’d stay up there remarked that this was the same year that the for three or four days. trestle road had been built around the outer face of Cave Rock and that his grandparents had heard The noted Washoe historian, Jo Ann of that flood which had turned the Central Valley Nevers (1976:5-6) compiled a history of her into an immense lake. Similarly, the western people based upon extensive archival research, but Nevada and California floods of 1955 and 1986 especially on the words of the many elders with were mentioned by others in connection with the whom she conferred. The profound importance blasting of the tunnels through the rock and the of Lake Tahoe and Cave Rock in Washoe life is desecrations by rock climbers. Leonore Bravo underscored: (1991:132), who worked as a teacher in the small Washoe school at Woodfords during the 1930s, As soon as the weather permitted, the gives evidence of the wide currency of such views Washo began their annual journey to over time by her recollection that “some Washo Lake Tahoe. The Washo lived around reportedly blamed the San Francisco earthquake the lake and referred to it as Da ow a of 1906 on a Waterbaby that had been caught by a ga, which means “edge of the lake.”... white fisherman and transported to San Francisco The pure waters of the high mountain for observation. Such was the power of earth lake offered them more than simple changes of the Waterbaby. The tale also reflects material benefits. Da ow a ga was the annoyance of the Washoe with the white “the life-sustaining water, the center usurpation of their ancestral fishing grounds.” of the Washoe world.” The waters of the sacred lake “breathed life” into In his recorded memoir, Harry Hawkins the land, the plants, the fish, the birds, (1965:48), whose family owned a large ranch at the animals, and the people around the head of Diamond Valley between Woodfords it... The spring trip to Da ow a ga and Markleeville, recalled the days when was the most important gathering for hundreds of Washoe lived in their old homesites the whole tribe. When the Washoe throughout the area. During his childhood he reached the lake, they “blessed the knew many Indian children and their families, water and themselves because they and became familiar with their customs. One had come to a sacred place. Da recollection is of particular interest here because ow was the giver of life; it fed fish, of the impression made upon a young white local animals and humans.”... The Washo resident by a Washoe man’s connection with respected the land they lived on. Since Cave Rock: they did not abuse their campsites, when the Washo left the area, it was There used to be an old fellow. He as if no one had been there... Indian worked for a long time at the Raycrafts doctors travelled to the site at De-ek in the livery stable. His name was wa dop push [Cave Rock] to meditate.

13 At this site, Waterbabies lived in an Plan 1993-1994 (Nevada Division of State underground cave. A monster also Parks 1994), and Phase II: Cave Rock Cultural lived in a cave in the area. Resource Protection and Management plan 1997- 1998 (Tahoe Regional Planning Agency 1998), The suggestion that monsters or giants each of which included recorded interviews with were associated with Lake Tahoe and Cave Rock members of the tribe. The following verbatim in Washoe lore is substantiated by references to statements are excerpted from a sample of them in a number of traditional tales. Also, Jo interviews, the original transcriptions of which Ann Nevers recalls that she was warned in her are on file at the respective agencies along childhood by her father of a frightful being with with project reports. The statements below are the name of Gausigausi who lived near the rock referenced by date of interview and the Initial (Personal communication, 1998). In 1926 Lowie letters of the respondent’s name only. (1939:331) learned from Dave Cheney that “Four or five miles away [from Glenbrook] there is a Interview (R.J.) October 27, 1993: big cave, and a wild man lived there before the whites were here. He had a big belt and his name My grandfather and grandmother used was Pets’i’ltsi tekme’liwi...” And then there to fish in summers around Glenbrook. are the many versions of a well-known legend But they didn’t go around Cave Rock... about another monstrous predatory creature only certain individuals were allowed noted by Freed (1966:82, Site 27): “About 100 to go to the cave...others didn’t go yards offshore from this rock was the nest of a near the rock...the rock was sacred mythical bird (‘Aŋ).” Moreover, it is interesting to the Washoe people...some of our that Lowie (1939:322) refers to Waterbabies at people who happen to go there have the Lake as “a species of evil water-beings,” had some problems... people passing most likely reflecting the tone of dread expressed by there faint...have never-ending by his Washoe informants about these creatures. headaches. These elements of Washoe perception of Cave Rock help to illustrate the special deference and ...It was a place for people with wariness with regard to it and, especially, for the power...doctors...da’mom’li...who powerful Waterbabies with whom certain spiritual practiced the medicine of me’tsunge practitioners could negotiate safe passage and [Waterbabies]...a person got that power utilization of the Lake’s environment on behalf from dreaming of the me’tsunge... of the people. Lots of people had the power in the old days. Some could see me’tsunge. But today I can think of only two or CURRENT OBSERVANCES three people who have... They come from the water--from Lake Tahoe. It’s Washoe tradition concerning Cave their home ground--right there at Cave Rock remains a potent force among the modern Rock. That’s where they are originally descendants of this ancient culture, a fact that from, where they congregate... I think has been vividly recorded in recent testimony they still do that, but now you have by members of the tribe. In cooperation with zillions of people going back and forth the Washoe Tribe, the Nevada Division of State in their boats disturbing them. Parks (NDSP) and the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA) initiated two sequential projects ...Weliwkushkush knew the entrance and reports--Phase I: Cave Rock Cultural from the valley [Carson] to Cave Rock, Resource Protection and Land Use Enhancement and he knew the passage from Cave

14 Rock to that island [the submerged near the rock...wash themselves and island in the lake where the bones of talk. Just doctors did that at that time. the legendary bird ‘Aŋ lie]... Many But now anyone can go there. If you know the entrances now, as of today. have that very strong belief, you don’t It’s big medicine to the Washoe Tribe go there...but I myself have not had if you know the entrance...but the that strong belief... I should have paid Washoe know it is sacred and want more attention when I was younger, to keep it as it is... Maybe someone but I was stupid... People talked about will have the opportunity to go to Cave Rock, but I was just a kid and the rock that way and then come didn’t pay attention... I heard what back and help their people... In the I know of Cave Rock mainly from old days people put offerings for the my husband...he never went there spirits as they went by, so as not to because he wasn’t a medicine man... be troubled by the me’tsunge... I think Sometimes we drove around there there are enough interested people on the way to Carson or something who know and respect Cave Rock to like that, but we never did stop or work to protect it. They care enough anything...there was that trestle road but don’t know what they can do to around the rock...it was scary. keep it off-limits to rock climbers and tourists and people just going in and Interview (J.M.) June 11, 1997, [Respondent, destroying the rock. Every time I whose grandfather was a famous Washoe shaman, pass by it, time flashes before me and has a spiritual connection with Cave Rock and I know what it stands for. Time goes goes there to pray and care for it]: by and I see my elders respecting the rock as sacred ground... That lake is ...Our people never bother that place. so crystal clear and calm, looks like That was only for special people... glass out there. Sometimes you see they couldn’t stay there, make their little bubbles coming up, and Indian camp and fish there... That was a people know the reason. Those little sacred area for people... And people me’tsunge guys are out there kicking knew if they messed around there, up the dust and dancing up a storm. something was bound to happen, and they didn’t want that. So they stayed Interview (W.J.) July 31, 1993: away...people had to camp by Logan Shoals there. They didn’t go right to My husband used to tell about how the rock...they didn’t trespass. the Indians when they were going to be a medicine man went up there ...The first thing is that the whole of [to Cave Rock] to pray and do their Lake Tahoe is a sacred area, and Cave ritual...that’s what that place was for. Rock is more so because that’s where The Waterbabies were there. Cave all the shamans and prospective Rock was their sacred ground...you people that wanted to become doctors couldn’t say anything bad about it... and shamans, they were the only ones you had to be really careful what that could go there... I’m just telling you said around there...be respectful people that Lake Tahoe is the center of to the Waterbabies... People went to our world, and it’s just sacred to us... the rock and took a bath in the lake These people that stay there [White

15 residents] are respectful, except for of garbage down for us... And after the casinos and stuff. They just want they left, two others came up...I asked to build and build and make more them how would they like it if I went money. But the people who have the to their church and pounded in all the interest in the lake want to conserve hardware and climbed up there and the beauty, and they respect our defiled and desecrated it. And they sacred areas... And all these people were agreeable about not climbing that that live around the lake have seen the day, even though they had traveled a contamination and pollution, and they long way to do it. don’t like it...we’d hate to have all these corporations come in and ruin it Interview (D.B.) at Cave Rock, October 18, for us. 1997:

[When they put the tunnels through [Discussing the small rock the rock]: Well it was just like cutting outcroppings on the ridge on either into your heart, because it’s just like a side of Cave Rock]: That one just church and somebody going in there north of the rock...there was more and blasting holes through it...Well, to it at one time, my dad said. That people were saddened by that, but they little outcropping right in the middle. couldn’t do anything about it. It’s just I guess when they built the road, like everything else. People come in, dynamited it, a lot of it fell out. they want this, they take it, and if you And that rock right there was very, don’t give it up, they blow you away very important... I guess the Indian or they get it somehow... Nobody said doctors took offerings there... They a word to the tribe... And, of course, it always left something there... This gives me a pain to think about those one up there, and that one there, and rock climbers desecrating and doing there’s another one on the other side. all that, that disrespectfulness... And The one on the other side is very you’ve seen along the way people important. That’s the first one they go who were injured or something had to when they come up here...on this happened to them. Some of the rock side of that trail... There was another climbers say that they’ve had bad luck trail that went behind this whole hill since they’ve started to climb, and [east of the ridge behind Cave Rock] things happen to their family. And I right here that most of the Washoes know that happens because they were used, especially the women... Way on treading where they weren’t supposed the other side coming down, that little to tread. valley that’s on the other side there, that was one of the main trails... They ...One day we were cleaning, hauling left offerings there. out garbage and trash, and four rock climbers came to climb... I explained ...[About the shoals off Lincoln Park, just to them what the rock meant to our south of Cave Rock]: There’s supposed people...and they understood what I to be stuff that’s not buried, but just put was saying and where I was coming in the water over there...offerings... But from. So they declined to climb and different places around here where they they actually helped carry some sacks buried their people...certain men they’ve

16 buried out there in the water. They here... He died over here. He had a took them out. Tied rocks to them or heart attack in 1971, I think. He didn’t whatever. believe the Indian way, even though he was my brother... He used to take ...[For Indian doctors going to Cave his boat out right here. He believed Rock]: That was almost like renewing. different from us... He died out here... It was a very, very religious thing with He’s the only one in the whole family whoever went up there. As far as I that used to come up here. can gather from my uncles...it had to do with the person communicating with the Creator... They fasted, and THE CAUTIONARY SPACE took different things they used to doctor people. They had the eagle... The cultural setting of Cave Rock in the wing bone whistles. And some Washoe tradition is well-documented in the had feathers, their rattles. Things they historical and ethnographic record, and the used I guess to renew... continuity of that tradition into the present is expressed in a letter to the editor of the Tahoe ...I’ve heard some people say that the Daily Tribune by Brian Wallace, current chairman Washoes worship Waterbabies. No, of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California: they didn’t worship Waterbabies. They respected them because they Cave Rock and Lake Tahoe (Da-ow) were strong beings, and they could are believed to be the genesis of the make things good or bad for you... Washoe, where we came to being... They live here. They’ve always been This ancient place has been a pivotal here... The Washoe believe that this part of the Washoe religious belief and is the main area for them. Right here human existence, and an enduring part where we’re at right now... They go of the natural and cultural heritage of from here to different areas in Washoe Lake Tahoe for a documented nine to country...a lot of your springs and ten thousand years. Every Washoe creeks on that side of the Sierra Range knows that Lake Tahoe is a part of comes from here, and that’s the way their ancient territory and that their they get around. ancestors had named every mountain, jutting rock, stream and cove around ...what I know of this rock...I’ve it... After many years of relentless already told you, and me asking my desecration, Cave Rock has now dad and different old people, they been reduced to a two-acre site. It would say, “No.” They wouldn’t tell is pockmarked with pitons, bolts and me... Said it was none of my business. other devices used to get a grip, where And actually it wasn’t, you know. nature has not supplied a handhold. They said, “If something happens to Some person or persons even went so you, like your power comes to you, far as to cement the floor of the largest then you’ll know.”... I didn’t come cave, destroying pre-historic Washoe around here very much, especially information that is now lost for the this area right here... Usually I went ages (Wallace 1997). around Kingsbury Grade or over the Mt. Rose highway... Some did come In the Washoe worldview, the land and here, yes. My brother used to come the natural environment of their vast ancient

17 territory was sacrosanct, for every feature and has not diminished. The Washoe continue to creature of the landscape and heavens was under avoid or circumvent the area in recognition of the guardianship of spirit beings to whom it traditional mandates, while even in the twentieth was essential to demonstrate respect if humans century a succession of privileged spiritual wished to make use of the natural resources or practitioners have trekked to the rock and its survive. Therefore, humankind inhabited the caves to commune with their tutelaries and earth not as privileged or dominant beings, but by renew spiritual power. This practice continues provisional consent. Nothing was to be taken for today on the part of a few endowed persons or use without an invocation or gift of appreciation. those seeking attainment while maintaining a Throughout Washoe territory there are numerous degree of reticence and anonymity about their special places where such offerings were left in calling. recognition of this primordial obligation. From the ethnographic record and the Within this cosmological realm of the testimony of contemporary Washoe people, it Washoe homeland, there were some locations of is possible to assign general boundaries to the extraordinary spiritual embodiment. Lake Tahoe zone the Washoe consider to be a sanctuary was such a place--the immense and mysterious involving avoidance or special observances. body of water high in the mountains, the most This cautionary zone of approximately 160 acres abundant fishery of the region surrounded by includes the following: verdant forests with plentiful game and medicinal plants, a major summer destination during the --the littoral of the lake from about annual subsistence cycle, and defended by Logan Vista (and Cave Rock Cove) the Washoe from unwelcome intruders. This on the north, to the shoals off Lincoln place, believed to be the source of all springs Creek on the south. Also included and streams of the region, a provider of food are the sandy shallows of the lake out even in the worse of times elsewhere, was the to where the legendary submerged home of the me’tsunge, the “Waterbabies,” the island of ‘A_ and the deep springs powerful beings who traversed all waters of the of the me’tsunge habitat under the land and controlled their flow. These beings lake were purported to be. (Some of were dangerous to those who failed to honor this submerged beach apparently was their dominion, but they could also confer great exposed during periodic prehistoric rewards on those who sought their good will or and historic low lake levels.) guidance. No Washoe person of the past, nor few today, approach the shores of Lake Tahoe --the hills behind Cave Rock to without a feeling of veneration or moved by an elevation of about 6550 feet thoughts of their ancestors. encompassing the old Washo trail (later a wagon road, and now a bike Cave Rock was, and remains, for and walking path) that passes by four the Washoe one of the most formidable and or five small volcanic outcroppings inviolable sanctuaries of those beings feared and which served as offering repositories propitiated by their ancestors. Even individuals for the spirits of the lake. This who may no longer hold to the old beliefs are, extension eastward is about 800- nevertheless, deeply affected by the meaning 1000 feet from the shoreline at Cave it has had for their people. And despite the Rock, and tapers north to Logan desecration of the rock by tunneling, tourism and Vista and south to Lincoln Creek. climbers, its sacred and symbolic importance

18 Within this cautionary zone of less than 160 acres lies the core zone of Washoe traditional observance encompassing approximately 25 acres as follows:

--Cave Rock itself and its broad base extending two to three hundred feet on the north and south.

--the lake bed out about 300 feet.

--the saddle on the east connecting with the ridge and the old trail on which the five offering rock outcroppings are spaced about 800 feet inland.

This area constitutes the most crucial zone of Washoe concerns where the proscriptions against unwarranted trespass or profanation are considered to be the most consequential.

19

Figure 3. “Washoe Indians – The Chief’s Family.” Photograph taken at Lake Tahoe, ca. 1866. (Courtesy Library of Congress LC-USZ62-26973)

THE EURO-AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE

Ever since John Charles Frémont’s brief negotiating transactions and often hazardous and distant glimpse of “Mountain Lake” on raillery at trading posts, or rare news from the Valentine’s Day 1844, the extravagant beauty of east or from California. However, most made this natural wonder has inspired awe and delight note of the amazing size and abundance of fish in all who have laid eyes upon it. Early Spanish in the lake, the luxuriant forest in its surrounding explorers and miners from California may have basin, the “unclaimed land” and potential for known of the lake, but it was the Americans commerce. of the 1840s and 1850s who were the first to describe it in writing and the first non-Native In less than a decade from its first sighting, Americans to exploit its bounty. Though these thousands of Americans were trekking westward early commentators were profoundly impressed over the mountains from Carson Valley in by this extraordinary phenomenon in the high Nevada, through Lake Valley at the south end of Sierras, there was only passing mention of the Lake Tahoe (Bigler’s Lake), and over Johnson’s “Indians” or “Diggers” who inhabited the area Cutoff to California. By the mid 1850s, during (fig. 3). The wayfaring white pioneers were more the height of the westward , trading intent upon the business of the day--maneuvering posts and way stations had been established wagons, stock and immigrants over the tortuous on the route south of the lake, and land patents mountain terrain, finding food and pasturage, were being applied for by enterprising persons.

21 Little was known of the remainder of the lake, its presence, in view of the fact that many hundreds size or depth, and in 1855 George Goddard, an of Washoe frequented the lake during the spring official surveyor from California, was unable to and summer, attests to their well-documented determine whether it had an outlet to the Truckee inclination to avoid strangers and to resist only River in the north. when protecting their customary habitation sites or crucial subsistence activities. A review A few years later, a reverse traffic lured of the frontier literature makes it patently clear by the Comstock silver mines, brought more that the Washoe posed no real threat and that hordes of seekers over the southern lake route reports of their menace often were anticipative and new routes were opened from the Auburn- or conventional hyperbole for the titillation of Donner Pass roads to Incline and Glenbrook on homefolks and other readers. Also, theft and the northeastern shore and over the mountains to murders among the settlers, miners and travelers Washoe and Carson valleys. Commercial fishing were often blamed on the Washoe. The Washoe and logging began in earnest, almost depleting had more to fear from the white sojourners and these resources by the end of the century. In the settlers than the latter from them; the underlying 1860s, passenger steamers and logging barges fact is that they were simply in the way. were traversing the lake, long seines and large trawlers were harvesting tons of trout to be sold The attitudes of westward-migrating to travelers and to the settlements, hotels and whites during this period were conditioned to a spas dotting the shoreline and to Sacramento considerable extent by the experience of passing and California towns. At Glenbrook, a major through the country of aggressively defensive logging center for the Comstock just north of tribes to the east and uprisings among the Cave Rock, an excursion steamer was reported to remaining tribes of California where Americans be “leaving Glenbrook Landing for all points on had won the war with Mexico and were in the Lake Bigler” daily. And Glenbrook was known process of quelling the last native resistance by as “the Saratoga of the Pacific,” its hotel “the virtual genocide (cf., Heizer 1974 passim). The gathering place for the fashionable of the world” intervening Washoe, a relatively vulnerable (Scott 1957:267-268). people, had offered little resistance to the rapid appropriation of much of their fertile territory along the eastern slopes of the Sierras. By the UNWELCOME PREDECESSORS late 1850s they had been reduced to a landless and largely dependent people held in contempt From the first mention of “Indians” or by the usurpers. But in the mountains and at “Diggers” at Lake Tahoe by Euro-Americans, Lake Tahoe it was possible for a few to maintain and well into the following century, the image a vestige of their traditional lifeways--to hunt and and status of the Washoe underwent significant gather as they had since ancient times. transformation as they were steadily marginalized by the encroachers. Early explorers and However, as the hordes of immigrants travelers, though giving scant notice of the native and enterprising settlers increased during the inhabitants, usually depicted them either as hostile rush to California goldfields, followed by the and treacherous or, quite to the contrary, as shy Comstock , game and other natural and friendly. It appears likely that the bent of resources became scarce. Even Washoe access these characterizations depended as much on the to the vital Tahoe fishery was in jeopardy. By personality and objective of the beholder as on the the 1860s, the lake and its littoral were entirely nature and circumstances of the actual encounter. occupied or claimed by whites, and the Washoe Moreover, the paucity of comment about their were deemed a nuisance and a burden. For

22 the remainder of the nineteenth century whites This little gem among mountain vigorously discouraged Washoe use of the vales, is the summer resort of the lake excepting the few tolerated as laborers or “Digger,” and as the lake abounds domestics. Earlier stereotypes were replaced by with fish, ‘tis here he luxuriates till the more patronizing one of the comical indigent the next winter’s snows drive him and supplicant--“Poor Lo”--benignly tolerated, down to the valleys... There are but kept in place. about seventy Indians in the valley [at Meeks Bay], though it might be The ambivalent and changing perceptions made as well the home of thousands, of whites about the Washoe people they for the waters of the lake are literally encountered at Lake Tahoe from the earliest to alive with fishes, among which the the recent phases of contact are illustrated by the speckled trout and the real salmon following sampling of extracts from the historical predominate (Placerville Herald, record: July 9, 1853).

1844–W.T. Hamilton claimed to have seen: In September of 1853 Martin Smith, the first settler in Lake Valley, with the help from the ...large lake and beautiful valley at Placerville Herald, fabricated a gold strike the upper end of the under the guise of the “Lake Valley Diggings.” where a small band of Indians had The Placerville Herald (October 8, 1853) their village about half a mile from enthusiastically reported: our camp. They were a miserable and degraded lot. I doubt if our ancestors The gold find is now certain – Mr. a million years back could have been Smith is going to arrange winter more so. They could properly be residence in the Valley... It [Tahoe] will classed with the savages of the flint become a world-renowned place... age, as they used flint for the points of their arrows and spears, of indifferent Preparations are being made by Mr. manufacture. Game was readily Smith for a winter’s residence at Lake approached and they were easily able Valley, though situated between the to supply themselves with meat, while two highest summits of the Sierras. they were expert in catching fish. It is the Valley in which Lake Bigler They were notorious beggars and is situated, and it is the intention of thieves (Hamilton 1905:162). Mr. Smith to build a suitable boat, with which, in the spring, to explore 1852--Trekking from Carson Valley, over the entire shores of this Lake, more Daggetts Pass to Lake Valley and the new than fifty miles in length, from north Johnson’s Cutoff, Col. L.A. Norton described to south, and from three to ten wide, the region as “unbroken forest, wild, inhabited abounding in fishes of several varieties, by grizzlys, California lions and wild Indians” and is the locality of one of the most (Scott 1957:361). remarkable caverns in the world... Lake Valley, with its magnificent 1853--John Calhoun Johnson guided a reporter Lake, its immense crater of an extinct from The Placerville Herald who claimed to have volcano, with its grottoes, and fields of visited Cave Rock and that they were the first wild strawberries ripening in August, white men to discover what is now Meeks Bay: will ere long become of world-wide- renown as a place of summer resort. 23 1854--In this year, A. H. Hawley opened one ...The Washoe Indians...are a warlike of the first trading posts on the immigrant road and dangerous tribe, numbering some through south Lake Tahoe, and in his memoirs eight thousand [!] They cherish wrote: an antipathy to the white man, and lose no opportunity to do him When I first went into Lake Valley injury when there is little danger of the Indians would not allow white discovery. Some weeks ago, Uncle men to fish in the lake...they tried to Billy Rodgers shot two of them in the drive me off, but I was never afraid street here, for theft... Their enemies, of Indians except their treachery... I the Pah Utahs, say it is dangerous for consider all Indians treacherous and the whites to go unarmed out of sight think the government ought to deal of the settlements. (p. 3) [Ironically with them in a firm and steady hand enough, the settlers were engaged in (A. H. Hawley 1917:177). a war with the Pyramid Lake Paiute two years later, and the Washoe were 1855--Reporting on an encounter with a group praised for aiding the whites.] from the “Washaw Tribe” in Indian Valley just south of Lake Tahoe, O.B. Powers wrote that ...Our old adversaries, the Washoe they were digging for wild onions, “peaceful, Indians, of whose bloody deeds friendly but wary” led by a “captain or chief you used hear so much...seem to be they called Pah-sook”: who spoke English and disposed to peace...perhaps the red “wore a blue flannel shirt and a white fur hat.” skinned rascals are propitiated by a The chief guided them to Carson Valley (Powers present of a pound of flour apiece, 1855:187-191). made to about a hundred of them a short time ago, by our Indian Agent, 1857-60--A correspondent of the San Francisco Colonel Dodge. (p. 19) Herald in Genoa, Nevada (using the pen name “Tennessee”) wrote a series of letters between ...During the late severe weather we 1857 and 1860 that contain vivid examples of have had, the Washoe Indians have ambivalent white views of the Washoe. The suffered much for want of food... following paginated extracts are from The several have died of starvation...and Tennessee Letters (Thompson 1983): probably a great many more among the mountains. Game, such as they Two more men have been murdered are accustomed to hunt, is becoming today...by them Washoe Indians... scarce, and it is high time for Uncle About three hundred Washoes are Sam to provide something for their encamped within a few miles of this assistance. Major Dodge, it is true, place [Carson Valley], and they have has done all in his power, but thus declared their intention to kill all the far his time has been occupied almost whites in the Valley. (p. 1) exclusively with the Pah-Utahs. (p. 32) ...It has turned out that only one man was killed --by whom it is not known, ...[The settlers]...attempted the but as his partner is missing, suspicion destruction of some wolves by means rests upon him. (p. 3) of strychnine baited beef, which being stolen and eaten by a band of Washoe

24 Indians, resulted in the death of seven tenor of that tumultuous era is, perhaps, nowhere of them. (p. 49) more cogently disclosed than in an exchange between two distinguished gentlemen of the ...The Shashose [Washoes] are 1850s. The report of Captain James H. Simpson engaged in packing acorns from of the Army Corps of Engineers on his exploration California to Lake Bigler, where they across the in 1859, and his exchange are to have a grand feast and fishing. of letters with Dr. Garland Hurt, a former major (p. 53) Indian Agent of the Territory of Utah, exemplify the current strands of opinion about “Indians” ...Captain Jim, the Washoe chief, and “race” – significantly enough, on the eve of refused to permit whites to fish in Lake the Civil War. (Simpson, 1876, Appendix O). Bigler, but Maj. Dodge has succeeded in convincing the rascal that he cannot In response to Captain Simpson’s request whip the whole world with his few for information about “the Indians of the Territory hundred redskins. (p. 59) of Utah,” Dr. Hurt provides a forthright account in the bearing and parlance of the time, but ...Whatever was once their condition, concludes with the following pronouncement: it is quite apparent that at the present day and generation our Indians here The conclusions, then, to which we are so poor as to need the care of must arrive by this course of reasoning the Government. I have an original are obvious. suggestion...to sell them to the highest bidder for cash...instead of being First. That by becoming the constant a burden...they would be a fruitful recipients of our care and sympathy source of revenue and...the poor their condition is temporarily devils would be better provided for ameliorated, but only so during by individuals than...at the hands of the application of that care and government officials. (p. 110-111) sympathy.

...“Captain Jim of the Washoes” was Secondly. By amalgamation we visited the other day by the Agent, and elevate them at the expense of the considerable donations were made degradation of the superior race. to him and his tribe. They are all encamped on Lake Bigler, within the Thirdly. By coercion they are made California line, where they have been subservient to the intellect of the fishing. This whole tribe remains at superior race, and made to bear the peace. (p. 154) burden of their own subsistence, by controlling and directing their This conglomeration of raffish maligning physical energies into the channels and condescension, together with outright of usefulness. There is a misguided contradiction, is characteristic of much of the philanthropy which seems to be written opinion about native peoples at the time. constantly directing our energies to For example -- on the one hand, 8000 warlike the accomplishment of what in the Washoe are said to be awaiting an opportunity to nature of things is utterly impossible, do white men injury, while on the other hand, they and which it is the province of moral are pitifully peaceful starving outcasts dependent philosophy to correct. upon Uncle Sam for assistance! The ambivalent

25 These errors are exemplified in the say, except as to the original disparity attempt of our Government, at the of the races, and the impossibility expense of millions of treasure, of their restoration to the same level to improve the moral and social of physical, mental, moral, and condition of the aborigines of the religious condition. The same God country, who continue to sink lower in who has for wise purposes permitted degradation and want, and are annually the degradation of some portions of diminishing in numbers. While a the human family, can also by His small African colony, in the Southern Spirit so breathe upon mankind as to States of the confederacy, under what cause them, through the purchased some are pleased to style tyranny and redemption of His only beloved Son, oppression, have swelled to a powerful to see each other eye to eye, and to nation, infinitely more happy than the delight themselves in the common Indians or than themselves could be blessings of one united family. This without the controlling influence of view is perfectly consistent to my the superior race. mind with the coercion, for a time, of the inferior races to labor, of which These Africans, we repeat, are you speak, and which I believe is one infinitely more happy and prosperous of the divinely appointed means to than it were possible for them to be that end. without the controlling influence of the superior race; while at the same Very respectfully, yours, time, instead of diminishing they J. H. Simpson Captain contribute to swell the sources of the Topographical Engineers national revenue. Odd as such an exchange may seem Very respectfully, today, between a “scientific” man and a believer your obedient servant, in “primary truths,” it is fascinating to consider Garland Hurt. how these arguments continue to reverberate with ever new forms and patrons in American The other facet of mid-nineteenth century philosophical discourse. mores is revealed by Simpson who, while praising Hurt for a communication that will be appreciated by “all who take an interest in LET THEM EAT GRASSHOPPERS ethnological subjects” and placing him among “many excellent and scientific men,” nevertheless In 1863 the San Francisco newspaper takes issue with him over certain salient matters: Golden Era reprinted a column from the Territorial Enterprise [Virginia City] attributed to Washington, D.C., May 5, 1860. Mark Twain in which he discourses with a friend Dear Sir: named “Grub” concerning the name Tahoe: Your very valuable letter, in relation to the Indians in , I have ...Hope some early bird will catch just received and read with a great this Grub the next time he calls Lake deal of interest. It will constitute an Bigler by so disgustingly sick and important portion of my forthcoming silly a name as “Lake Tahoe.” I have report. I agree with you in all you removed the offensive words from his

26 letter...which at least has a Christian possessing all his baser instincts, and English twang about it... Of course none of his manly attributes... Let his Indian names are more fitting than name go down unsung and unpainted any others for our beautiful lakes and upon the escutcheon on the gem of rivers, which knew their race long the Pacific (Sacramento Daily Union, ago...but let us have none as repulsive November 9, 1863). to the ear as “Tahoe” for the beautiful relic of fairyland forgotten and left 1869--As for the naming of the Lake, our beloved asleep in the snowy Sierras when humorist Twain adds the following ethnocentric the little elves fled from their ancient eloquence to his earlier diatribe: haunts and quitted the earth... I yearn for the scalp of the soft-shelled crab- “Sorrow and misfortune overtake the -be he Indian or white man--who legislature that still from year to year conceived of that spooney, slobbering, permits Tahoe to retain its unmusical summer-complaint of a name. Why, cognomen! Tahoe!... if I had a grudge against a half-price nigger, I wouldn’t be mean enough “Tahoe means grasshoppers. It means to call him by such a epithet as that... grasshopper soup. It is Indian, and “Tahoe”--it sounds as weak as a suggestive of Indians. They say it is soup for a sick infant (Golden Era, Pi-ute -- possibly it is Digger -- those September 13, 1863). degraded savages who roast their dead relatives, then mix the human 1863--Thomas McConnel of Sacramento bought grease and ashes of bones with tar, 388 acres of lakefront from Hampton Craig and ‘gaum’ it thick all over their Blackwood who homesteaded the land around heads and foreheads, and ears, and go Blackwood Creek. It is said that Blackwood shot caterwauling about the hills and call a Washoe tribesman for setting a fish trap on the it mourning. These are the gentry creek (Scott 1957:64). that named the Lake.” (cf. James 1915:26) 1863--On November 2 of 1863 the elected delegates of met in Carson City [I am unable to find where Twain uses the to frame a constitution for the “State of Washoe.” customary name “Washoe” for the people, rather A number of the delegates objected to the name, than the denigrating word “Digger,” though he among them an L.O. Stearns from Esmeralda does name the “Pi-ute.”] County who offered the following remarks: 1876--An early historian wrote: --We are here, sir, to brush away the relics of Washoe barbarism, Pi Ute The Washoes inhabited the eastern ignorance and atrocity... We oppose slope of the Sierras and made the the name Washoe because it represents stealing of the stock of the settlers the lowest and most despicable both their business and their pleasure. tribe of Indians that ever desecrated Like crows they sat looking down in the American continent--Wash-oe, the valleys from the tops of the rocky Wash-what? This despicable tribe- buttresses of the mountains, and when -a disgrace to the name of Indian-- they saw the coast clear, down they

27 Figure 4. Historic Washoe Camp on Lake Tahoe. Site was probably near a Euroamerican sawmill or settlement. (Courtesy Nevada State Museum, Carson City, Department of Cultural Affairs)

came and gathered in as many animals heavy drinker. The editor of the Carson Appeal as they were able to drive... The tribe was incensed by an article in Harper’s Magazine has dwindled away until at the present stating that Tahoe was the word for “big water” day those remaining are few and in Washoe Indian tradition and that this was a miserably poor, ragged, filthy, and “sweeter word” than the name for a “degraded” spiritless... (De Quille 1876:7-8) California politician. In his angry reply he came to the support of ex-governor John Bigler and ...About the shores of Lake Tahoe denied that “anyone living or dead knows what will frequently be encountered the ‘Tahoe’ means” (Carson Appeal, May 19, 1877). huts of the Washoe Indians. They are A few days later there appeared a retraction: generally found in some romantic spot, and, with their uncouth occupants, add The other day, in criticizing an article not a little to the picturesqueness of in Harper’s on Lake “Tahoe,” the the region. Some of the old sawmills Morning Appeal went so far as to say are also of a rather unusual style and that there was no such word as “Tahoe” will attract the attention of tourists known to Indians about here--that it and the artist. (Ibid. 7-8; fig. 4) was a pure invention, or if not that, an importation from some Eastern stock In the 1870s there was a continuing of meaningless lingo. A friend who controversy over the naming of Lake Tahoe. The dates back his sage-brushing to `54 California legislature had officially designated it says we are mistaken...the Washoes, “Lake Bigler” after its former governor who was in speaking of any large body of water accused by his Republican and other opponents as allude to it by a word which sounds a Democratic supporter of the Confederacy and a like “Tahoe.”... Therefore, “Tahoe”

28 meaning Lake, and the mountain sea writings alluding to local Indians throughout the on our west being properly named nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there after an early California Governor, also was increasing indication of exasperation it may be spoken of, with propriety and intolerance on the part of whites toward and aboriginal correctness, as Tahoe- the lingering remnants of a vanquished people Bigler (Carson Appeal, May 24, whose pathetic efforts to retain some presence at 1877). this utopian haven of their former homeland had become an embarrassment and, to some, nothing Further documentation of the vituperation, short of affront. A major issue was Washoe fishing ignorance and droll bluster current in the press at the lake, once a crucial source of subsistence, during this period concerning this issue is but now a desperate necessity for a people on the provided by Scott (1957:462-464). A few of the verge of starvation. Laws were passed to prevent extracted comments are: it, yet it continued. The general view was that the Indians should forage elsewhere, and it was ...Tahoe was probably the idiomatic the Government’s obligation to do something Indian word for whiskey–“Big about the matter. The tragic irony of the era is water.” exemplified in the following brief record:

...Tahoe was nothing but a thieving, 1851--George H. Goddard wrote in a letter to his conniving, mean, treacherous Indian, brother: so bad in fact that he was actually outlawed by his own miserable tribe “We have been all winter in the of Washoes, while Bigler is the name seat of the Indian disturbances and of a man who actually saved an early have had plenty of false reports and immigrant party in Lake Valley from exaggerations, --the unfortunate those same thieving Indians. Indians are shot down like deer by the Americans...” (cf. Lekisch 1988, p. ...Tahoe means an Indian squaw in 148). mourning with burgundy pitch trimmed with chimney soot in her hair and 1861--Warren Wasson, U.S. Indian Agent at other parts of her physical economy Carson Valley Indian Agency wrote to Governor in proportionate cleanliness. Nye of the Nevada Territory in August, 1861:

...Tahoe has an obscene meaning in “As regards the Washoe tribes, I see Consumnes Digger Indian jargon, no other recourse than to aid them from which it was taken. with provisions through the winter... There is a great justice in the request. ...If Tahoe is an Indian word, it must The streams in which they formerly be an importation from the lingo of fished are now all spoiled for that an extinct tribe in Massachusetts... purpose by the operations of the Certainly the Washoes of the present miners and the washing of the ores day claim that they have no knowledge and metals. They are indeed most all of its meaning. [!] diverted from their original courses, or damaged so frequently that the Although this tone of arrogant disdain fish have disappeared from them. tempered with lampoon was commonplace in Lake Bigler, lying in the country of

29 the Washoes, and from which they spear and net trout in the streams (Scott formerly obtained large quantities 1957:156). of the best kind of fish, is now taken possession of by the whites, and has 1891— become a watering place, to which large numbers from this Territory and Lo, the Poor Indian. The Indians California resort, and from which this hereabouts are getting into trouble poor tribe are virtually excluded. The by spearing fish across the California hills and plains over which roamed line in Lake Valley... When whites plenty of game are now occupied by came into this country the Indians whites, and the game has fled, like held sway...and were at liberty to the Indians, from their presence. (cf. fish and hunt in any manner they Davis 1913:35) pleased. Owing to the fact, no doubt, that the Indians were peaceable, 1880--Captain Jim, Captain Pete, and Captain the Government did not set apart a Walker met and prepared a petition to Governor reservation for them, consequently Kinkead of Nevada requesting that he stop the they have not a foot of land under the destruction of pine nut trees and also the depletion shining sun that they can call their of fish in Lake Tahoe: own... The noble red man thinks it hard to bow to the mandates of the law in ...we demand that the Government this respect, but such must be (Genoa stop further destruction of the Weekly Courier, June 26, 1891). property belonging to the Washoe Indians... Or, in default thereof, that --- The Placerville Democrat says: the Government of the make us a suitable compensation for “The wanton destruction of fish in the same (Council of Washoe Indians, this county, tributary to Lake Tahoe, 1880). by Indians who roam from their reservation [sic] in Nevada, is exciting 1881— complaint among the residents of Lake Valley and will likely, ere long, require Indians at Lake Bigler are destroying the attention of the District Attorney. many fish with spears. As the law does This being the spawning season of not appear to affect them, it would the lake trout, immense numbers be a good thing to arrest the whites make their way for that purpose to who purchase the speared fish. If the the headwaters of the streams that Indians cannot dispose of the fish in flow into the lake. While swarming that way, they will soon discontinue there the Indians dam the streams the practice (Genoa Weekly Courier, below them and then begin the work April 22, 1881). of destruction by means of baskets and spears. A special statute now in 1881— force makes it a misdemeanor to catch or kill any fish in the waters of Lake …an uprising was narrowly averted Bigler, or in any stream leading into when friendly tribesmen from the nearby or from the lake, by any other means Washoe encampment were forbidden to other than that of a hook and line. It

30 is not known that any person outside the benign beneficence of continuing of the Indian tribes have violated the to starve...the Washoes, Nevada’s provisions of the statute applying in nature children, are objects of these particular waters, [!] and in all charity and plead most piteously for likelihood a punishment inflicted sustenance from the Tahoe tourists...it upon one bad Indian will make good is a monumental disgrace to Nevada ones of the rest.” (Ibid. p.2) that her children should become the paupers and beggars of America’s 1891— greatest playground, Lake Tahoe and vicinity” (Davis 1913:133). About 150 Washoe Indians [were] assembled near Bijou a short time 1915— ago and were addressed by Captain Jim, the highest authority of the tribe. While in the early days of settlement The meeting was the outgrowth of the of whites upon their lands the Washoes conviction of an Indian for spearing a now and again rose in protest, and a fish... He stated that they were the only few lives were lost, in the main they tribe left without a reservation and have been a peaceable and inoffensive that the old Indians who were unable tribe... Their dwellings are of the to work for a living thought it pretty rudest character, mere brush shacks in hard to be prohibited from spearing the summer, and in winter, nondescript fish to live on... The speaker held that structure of brush, old boards, railroad the Government should provide a ties, tin cans, barrel staves, old carpet, reservation for the Washoes... (Genoa canvas, anything that will sustain a Weekly Courier, July 3, 1891:6). roof and keep out wind, rain and as much cold as possible. Their name 1894— for this structure is campoodie [!] (James 1915:36). The Commission will maintain an efficient patrol of the streams and 1935— promptly arrest any Indian detected in violation of the law... The warning to One thousand Washoe and Paiute the Indians is published in the Carson Indians hired as extras for the filming Appeal, and that paper says: “Anything of Rose Marie starring Jeanette the aborigines see in the Appeal is McDonald and Nelson Eddy, along regarded as ‘good medicine’” (Genoa with 125 “Hollywood Indians.” They Weekly Courier, October 26). were quartered at Camp Richardson and food was managed by “Pop” 1913— Bechdolt of Tahoe Inn--stewed hogs “from head to tail” and watermelon. In a chapter on “Destitute Nevada Everything was cooked in washtubs Indians” in his , that were used for laundry during the Sam P. Davis wrote: “In the summer day. Beds were of straw (Stollery time the Washoe migrated to the 1969:90-94). more genial shores of Lake Tahoe, where California allows the Washoe

31 Figure 5. Cave Rock from the south along the Lake Bigler Toll Road, ca. 1870. Note prominent toll road cut into the west (left) face of Cave Rock (Courtesy Nevada State Museum, Carson City, Depart- ment of Cultural Affairs)

1951— THE HISTORICAL ROCK

Chief Hank Pete...now sixty-nine As one of the most striking formations years of age...says his one desire is on the Lake Tahoe littoral, Cave Rock has had to have a small piece of land at Lake an intrinsic role in the history of exploration Tahoe... It is today that Indians have and settlement by Euro-Americans (fig. 5). Yet, no right to make campfire around the aside from its well documented importance Lake. Can’t even look for herbs for in the tradition of the Washoe people, and as a medicine. Can’t go for wild berries. major source of a relatively unexamined wealth Property owners do not permit... of fantastic “white folklore” about the Lake, Some place for a Washoe campground historical commentary about the Rock itself has could be found, where Washoes could been notably sparse and disperse (cf., Earl 1991, come at least during the summer 1997). months (Lake Tahoe Journal, May 11, 1951:1). The highly imaginative account described earlier of the reported reconnaissance of “the Spirit Cave” (i.e., Cave Rock) by a party of Americans in 1853 may well be its first specific mention in print, though the writers make a somewhat enigmatic comment alluding to “the

32 heretofore much doubted cavern of the Genii” length, from north to south, and from (Placerville Herald, July 9, 1853). Two years three to ten wide, abounding in fishes later, the official California surveyor George of several varieties, and is the locality Goddard (1855) submitted a report to the of one of the most remarkable caverns California Legislature in which the Rock was in the world...will ere long become not directly mentioned, but in his 1857 note to of world-wide-renown as a place of Hutchings’ California Magazine he refers to summer resort. “the celebrated Indian cave with its legendary romance.” It would appear that, by this time, the An “improved Washoe Indian game path” cave and its lore had become widely known. ran north on the lake shore from Kingsbury toward Cave Rock and Spooner (Scott 1957:231). It was After this auspicious beginning apparently this route that James Lampson took the historical role of Cave Rock in Euro- on foot, noting in his journal of 1861: American perspective seems to operate in two general categories of exposition: the copious Five miles further travel brought me accumulation of mythic tales and lore about Cave to a remarkable rock, which rose Rock and Lake Tahoe apparently influenced by from the lake about 300 feet high Washoe and other Native American traditions; and was called Cave Rock, from the and the occasional reference to the Rock as an large cavern in its side. The cave is imposing landmark or as an obstacle in the on- but an opening, broad at the mouth going business of the day. In the latter category, and extending back forty or fifty feet. Cave Rock takes its place among other special Being elevated to a considerable height prominences around the lake such as Shakespeare above the ground, and requiring some Rock and Eagle Rock, each having figured as a clambering to get to it, I did not waste point of reference on the shoreline and a major the time necessary to go up (cf., Scott tourist attraction. Cave Rock, however, was also 1973:64 fn.). an impediment to early north-south lakeshore transportation and an object of curiosity as well Prior to 1863 Cave Rock was an as some controversy. A sampling of what can be impediment to north-south traffic for logging and gleaned from the historical record is summarized travelers. Though the old Washoe trail behind the in the following chronological roster: rock had been slightly improved as a wagon road, it was so steep and rocky few ventured it. In 1862 Possibly the first printed description of the Nevada Territorial Legislature responded Cave Rock as “the Spirit Lodge or Cavern” by to complaints and demand by authorizing the American travelers, though its authenticity is in construction of what became the Lake Bigler Toll question, appears in 1853. (See the Placerville Road from Carson City to the California border Herald, July, 1853.) And, anticipating the southeast of Lake Tahoe. A 100-foot trestle commercial potential of the area, Martin Smith was built around the outer side of Cave Rock operated the first trading post in Lake Valley, a on hand-chiseled stone buttresses (fig. 6). The move enthusiastically reported in the Placerville Pioneer Stage Company and many others began Herald of August 8, 1853: moving heavy freight and travelers over what was also known as the Lake Shore Turnpike. A ...it is the intention of Mr. Smith to short distance to the north, William Hamilton build a suitable boat, with which, in established the Rocky Point House (facing “The the spring, to explore the entire shores Lady of the Lake”--i.e., Cave Rock) to service of this Lake, more than fifty miles in traffic on the new road and, a few years later,

33 Figure 6. Freight teams on the Lake Bigler Toll Road at Cave Rock, ca. 1870. Photograph depicts the southern end of the toll road’s trestle buttress and a retaining wall. Note the figure standing in front of the cave (26Do1). (Courtesy of Library of Congress LC-USZ62-22270) Robert Logan and Wellington Stewart opened and Stripes flag that could be seen from all it as Logan House with “fine meals, fishing and points around the lake. A few weeks later “some sailing skiffs...with magnificent views of Bigler dastardly wretch tore down the noble flag” and from Rocky Point, Cave and Sierra Rocks, a posse of irate unionist settlers with dogs made nearby” (cf., Scott 1957:195, 256, 259; Earl a search for the “fiend” presumed to have been 1991; Wheeler 1992:16). a Confederate [or Mormon] sympathizer. (A report from the San Francisco Daily California A. W. Pray acquired 650 acres in the Alta, July 1, 1865.) Cave Rock precinct, and with associates in 1861 formed the Lake Bigler Lumber Company A. W. Von Schmidt, a German engineer, which produced 10,000 board feet of lumber a announced a plan in 1866 to supply San Francisco day, transporting it by high-bed oxen drawn with 200 million gallons of water daily from wagons from Glenbrook to Carson Valley (Scott Lake Tahoe by means of a tunnel through the 1957:265, 490 fn. 8). Sierra. Another scheme was proposed later to bore a tunnel and conduit through the mountain In March 1865 a 90-foot flagpole was on the east side of the lake to empty into Carson placed on top of Cave Rock flying a large Stars Valley (Wheeler 1992:87). The following note

34 appeared in the Carson Daily Appeal (August 28, 1869):

Cave Rock, which is on the Nevada side, about three miles south of Glenbrook, rises boldly out of the water to a height of 480 feet. The road winds around the rock, by means of an artificial bridge, about 150 feet above the water. It is a large excavation standing perhaps 100 feet into the rock and was caused, evidently, by action of the water which washed its sides. If this theory is correct, the lake must have been several hundred feet higher than at the present time. Every word uttered in a clear and distinct voice, is echoed far up the side of the rock.

C. W. Vernon, father of Mrs. Lillian Farr, kept a diary of his honeymoon boat trip around Tahoe in 1863 in which he wrote of stopping at Cave Rock to meet the Steamer Tahoe and get mail and groceries (Stollery 1969:11). Writing of points of interest on the old Bonanza Road in the 1870s, Dan De Quille noted: Figure 7. Views of Lake Tahoe: Cave Rock. (De Quille 1876:318) Cave Rock, on the eastern shore of On January 21, 1879 a strange and the lake, is a huge pyramid of granite unaccountable item appeared in the San Francisco which occupies a very picturesque Examiner purporting that Cave Rock had toppled position and which contains on one into the lake, sending a wave forty to fifty feet side a cavern of considerable extent. high on a destructive rampage along the shore: In the neighborhood of the rock tall “Nothing remains but an unsightly hole in the and beautiful pines are seen quite mountain.” This was either a waggish hoax or down to the shores of the lake...[all the kind of rumor often picked up by the press of logged off since]. The view from what the time. is called Rocky Point, on the eastern shore, looking toward Cave Rock, is A widow Burke, owner of the last thick also very fine. Another view in the stand of tamarack and sugar pine between direction of Cave Rock is obtained Kingsbury Grade and Daggetts Pass, sold her from the Sierra Rocks (De Quille 520 acres to Gilman N. Folsom for $750 gold in 1876:317; fig. 7). 1888. She is reported to have told Folsom the following: Population figures for the Cave Rock settlement were recorded as early as the 1870 Census (cf., ...I’ve no more use for it now... Carlson 1974:73). Take that young Walter Hobart...I remember when he struck it rich on

35 the Comstock to become a millionaire road above the cliff and according to at 21, and even the very day he took reports is in poor condition, tourists up more than 7800 acres stretching having filed complaints with the from Glenbrook south past Cave Nevada highway association during Rock right to the border of my north the work (Record- Courier, July 21, forty. Bought it the way I’d buy a 1931). dozen eggs from neighbor Small-- didn’t think twice. And now Hobart, --The highway tunnel through Cave Bliss, and Yerington’s Eldorado Wood Rock was completed by the Nevada and Flume Company, they’ve near Construction company last week and hemmed me in (Scott 1957:239). automobile traffic is now diverted through the new bore which will be And the record continues: part of the improved highway under construction on the east side of Lake --The bureau of public roads will open Tahoe by the bureau of public roads, bids on May 29, it was announced, for with forest service funds (Record- the road between Cave Rock and the Courier, 25, 1931). Kellum estate, a distance of 4.2 miles, and within Douglas county. This Proposals were made in 1951 either to establish work calls for the tunneling of Cave a religious shrine at Cave Rock, or that: Rock without disturbing its beauty in any manner, the Gazette reports. It is ...the lake’s most conspicuous planned to build portals to the tunnel landmark be made into a roadside with native rock and it is specifically park for the use of the public... The provided that the big rock must not latter suggestion has been made by be injured in any manner [!] (Record- the Indian councils, who declare Courier, May 8, 1931). that Cave Rock has been associated with Indian legend and the unwritten --With highway construction under history of the Washoe tribe for way at Cave Rock by the Nevada countless years. The tribal leaders Construction Company, many changes ask that the rock be dedicated as a are to be made at this historic spot at monument to the Indian people of the Lake Tahoe... The hanging bridge state (Reno Evening Gazette, April around the face of the cliff is to be 25, 1951). eliminated... In order to give tourists a view of Lake Tahoe, galleries are The new tunnel through Cave Rock was to be cut through the face of the cliff scheduled for completion and opening to traffic at stated intervals, similar to those in on August 6, 1957: the tunnels on the Zion Park road... The hanging bridge at Cave Rock When work on both tunnels and was built over a half century ago, and approaches is completed, a serious records reveal that the board of county traffic bottleneck on the only trans- commissioners had the timbering continental highway to touch replaced forty years ago this month. the shores of Lake Tahoe will be Traffic on the Cave Rock highway eliminated (Record-Courier, July 25, is now being detoured over the old 1957).

36 A public boat launching ramp is planned at which a dominant society adopts and reinterprets Cave Rock by the Nevada Fish and Game elements of the culture it has superseded. It has Commission: generated a peculiar new mythology and esthetic that has conditioned some part of the reverence --Proposed facilities will be evoked by a wonder of nature, while at the same constructed at the southern end of the time exposing the profound contradictions of paved parking and picnicking area a headlong and heedless exploitation. Euro- built into the lake with waste rock American lore about Lake Tahoe and its environs from the excavation for the new tunnel is an intrinsic element of its allure as well as its through Cave Rock...breakwater was historic presence. Especially portentous in this extended from the southern end of regard is the fact that Cave Rock appears to be the parking area... (Record-Courier, the first specific feature of the lake to receive October 31, 1957). a degree of notoriety in the western frontier literature of the 1850s. --Funds to be used in the construction of a public-operated boat landing and The fanciful if not largely fictionalized launching ramp at Cave Rock have account of its exploration printed in the been donated by the Washoe Rod and Placerville Herald of July 1853, as discussed Gun Club... Proposed boat landing earlier above, contains a remarkable number and launching ramp will be the only of those notions about the lake and the rock public-operated facility of its kind which emerge in variant forms again and again on the Nevada shore of Lake Tahoe throughout nineteenth and early twentieth (Record-Courier, November 14, century commentary. For example, in the mode 1957). of Gothic tales and customary romances, the writer of the account claims to have discovered --Cave Rock, located about five miles a “beautiful vale” [Meeks Bay] where he meets a south of the junction of U.S. Highway wise old “Digger Indian” [Washoe] camped with 50 and Nevada State Highway 28, is his band on the shore. From the “shriveled lips” primarily a boat launching facility of a “centenarian Digger” he hears the “legend (Nevada Division of State Parks of spirit cave” across the lake--“the cavern of the 1990:7). Genii.” He learns that the lake is bottomless, that no one should venture out upon it, that bodies disappear and never rise again, that there is an THE NEW FOLKLORE island or sunken temple in the middle of the lake remaining from a great cataclysm brought by Any reviewer of the pertinent historical the Great Spirit angered at the evil oppressors record would find it difficult to ignore the deep of the people, that the great rock was a place of substratum of folklore that has permeated Euro- dangerous beings and that no one should dare to American perceptions of Lake Tahoe and Cave go there. Rock. It often overshadows the ambivalent attitudes about “Indians,” and has distant roots in When the writer and his reluctant Washoe and other Native American traditions, as companions nevertheless cross the lake by well as European poetic literature, whose tendrils “canoe,” they pass over the sunken island and have become interwoven into a flourishing eventually enter “the cavern of doubt, of terror array of romanticized hybrids. The process and of mystery.” While paddling hundreds represents a kind of reverse acculturation by of yards [!] into the grottoes of the mountain

37 they hear the “ceaseless plunge” and the “shrill geological corroboration of the potential peril cry from the mysterious occupants.” After inherent in the eastern shoreline. “It would be enduring more dread and “unearthly sounds,” interesting,” he wrote, “to ascertain the depth of further advance is blocked by the narrowing the lake, lying as it does at an elevation of nearly of the cave: “At this place the roar is almost 1,500 feet above Carson Valley, and separated deafening, its violent twanging and hissing, as from it only by a narrow ridge of extremely friable though, at intervals, water and air together were white granite mountains, which are wearing forcibly driven through narrow apertures...” The away with considerable rapidity (geologically article ends with a relatively sober speculation speaking).” as to whether the turbulent waters at the end of the subterranean passages might have “some A sampling of the writings of subsequent connection with those remarkable springs in decades (much of it compiled by that unsurpassed the vicinity, upon the eastern slope of the Sierra Tahoe historian, Edward B. Scott), reveals the Nevada, that at intervals of a few seconds, throw tenacity and mutability of these basic themes in a jet of water from two to four feet above the rumor, tall tales and reportage: surface of the ground.” --On September 8, 1869, five men Although Scott (1957:253) expresses were drowned when their sailboat credible doubt that the trip was ever made, the capsized off Observatory Point. historical import of the article is nonetheless “This was Tahoe’s greatest single patent. It was widely read in its time and is a marine disaster and, although it was virtual crucible of elements of lore about the lake explained that `all were drunk after an and Cave Rock that persist as mutable themes election’ this did little to quiet fears of in anecdote, allegory and local legend to this the mystified and frightened Lakers as day. Whether the particulars of the fabulous tale none of the bodies were recovered.” can be attributed to the trail-blazing Col. John (Scott 1957:319; see also Truckee Calhoun “Cockeye” Johnson who “discovered” Republican, August 9, 1869; and C. Lake Valley and laid out the famed cut-off route F. McGlashan “Wonders of Lake over Echo Summit in 1852 (and was the alleged Tahoe,” Sacramento Union, May 9, leader on this arcane trip of 1853), or whether the 1875). aspiring reporter of the Placerville Herald who accompanied him merely gleaned hearsay from --No Indian will cross Tahoe as the travelers over the new road in order to create a Evil Spirit will drown them to the titillating fiction, is a worthy subject for archival bottom. (Historical Souvenir--El ferreting. But the fact remains that the published Dorado County, Paolo Sioli, Oakland, article is a repository of early conjecture about 1882 quoted in Scott, 1957:489). the lake and the cave remotely suggestive of Washoe or related lore, and which continued to In 1883, a story appeared in a Nevada resonate in white perception over the decades. newspaper under the heading of “Tahoe’s Subterranean Outlet...” about a group of young In this regard, it may be noted that when men trawling near Carnelian Bay. Their boat George Goddard (1857) referred to Cave Rock began to revolve in a whirlpool and, looking as “the celebrated Indian Cave with its legendary over the side, one of the men spied a hole in the romance,” he seemed to be confirming the bottom of the lake. Throwing out a gunnysack currency of an already prevalent image, just as his tied to a rope to plumb the spot, rope and all were earlier pioneering survey report of 1855 provided wrenched from his hand and shot into the hole.

38 The article goes on to surmise: been drowned in Lake Tahoe--some fourteen between 1860 and 1874-- --It is possible that this outlet furnishes and it is the uniform testimony of the the water which is found in the residents that, in no case, where the Comstock levels. The surface of the accident occurred in deep water, were lake is on a level with C street, Virginia the bodies recovered. This striking City, and with the mines over 2000 fact has caused wonder-seekers to feet deep the force of the water in the propound the most extraordinary lower levels could be easily accounted theories to account for it (James for. If such is the case it would be no 1915; 1978:47). trick of engineering to stop the leak at Tahoe. As the hole is only three feet --Between 1860 and 1874 a total of broad and in the solid rock it could 14 people drowned in the lake, their easily be plugged and the pressure bodies never found. Many curious of the water would keep the plug in stories circulated in the 1870s and place or debris could be cast in until 1880s concerning the ultimate fate the passage was choked... Heretofore of those who disappeared in the the fact that the Truckee River did depths... In 1872 the San Francisco not carry off as much water as came Bulletin solemnly assured its readers: into the lake...led many to believe “A corpse remains suspended and that the surplus was carried away by motionless...at a depth of 200 feet and evaporation, while others have held over...the great pressures encountered to the theory of a subterranean outlet. in the vast deep of the lake reduce (Carson Morning Appeal, July 28, an adult’s body to that of a child’s 1883; see also Sacramento Union, stature, exercising a clamping effect July 31, 1883). that holds the person in a vise-like grip, preventing its rise to the surface” This story had wide currency and seems (Scott 1957:456-457). to have been the inspiration for Sam P. Davis’ extravagantly comic satire, “The Mystery of the --Any phenomenon that purported to Savage Sump” (cf., Scott 1957:343-347; Stollery link the Virginia City mines with Lake 1969:17-20). Some indication of its dispersion Tahoe was always caught up by the is provided by the following: Nevada and California newspapers. In June of 1890 the Carson City Appeal --Homer D. Burton of Burton’s Island uncovered a miracle. Their reporter Farm and Hotel, a “tallest teller of learned from a French-Canadian tales” in the 1880s, was heard to say cordwood cutter at the Cove [Zephyr] that “Tahoe dried up in the summer that earlier in the month Tahoe rose of 1864. All the water slipped out four inches in a one-half hour period. through a slit in the bottom to Carson As it was calm that day and no rainfall and Washoe Valleys--it sure watered was reported around the lake, wags in down them farmers, you bet!” (Scott Carson immediately attributed this 1957:357). amazing happening to “those miners in the Comstock who were getting tired --Why Bodies of the Drowned Do of being on the receiving end of all Not Rise: A number of persons have that underground water flowing into

39 the sumps, and who now pumped it and-ready regulars of the lake during this period, back into Tahoe through subterranean fortified by frequent reports of serpents and` fissures” (Scott 1957:247-248). mermaid-like creatures. It is clear that such lore represents a syncretic fusion of Euro-American --In the 1890s Orsamus W. Dickey... and Washoe folklore: there is, for example, vanished into the blue of Tahoe while a Washoe counterpart in the sightings of small rowing one spring afternoon. Headed Waterbaby footprints on the shores of the lake and for Glenbrook, he never arrived... banks of streams--some with high-heeled shoes it was believed his body had joined (cf. Downs 1966:62; Lowie 1939:322). Then those the lake had claimed and never there are the fictionalized accounts of Washoe given up (Scott 1957:219). legends by white writers about “little people,” monstrous serpents, and of young braves who By the 1920s most of the eastern shoreline fall in love with “fish maidens” and go to live of the lake was owned by the Hobart and Bliss with them in caves at the bottom of the Lake (see, estates. Walter Scott Hobart, Jr. resided at Sand for example, Stollery 1969:57-59, 111-113, 132- Harbor and protected his privacy by ringing the 135). And the following: entire estate with signs such as “Pixies and Other Indians Stay out” (Scott 1957:309-310). --Cave Rock is passed before reaching Glenbrook. It is about 300 feet in --A legend still persists, originally height and seen from the deck of a fostered by the native Washoe Indians, steamer, towers upward like the castle and handed down for centuries, of some “Blue Beard” giant of the that Tahoe is bottomless (Scott Sierras. It has in its face a yawning 1957:457). cavern some 80 feet in depth. In this dark cave one might suppose the giant “Big Jim” Small of Friday’s Station at Lake to live (De Quille 1889:124). Tahoe, a notorious teller of tall ales, was cited in the Carson Appeal (May 6, 1875) as follows: --Cave Rock, towering high above the shore of Lake Tahoe, has been Big Jim tells us that he has seen suggested as the site of a religious a mermaid in the lake with a fine shrine (Reno Evening Gazette, May chest development, beautiful white 25, 1951). mustache one and one-half inches long, and a most amenable nature. --When a boat is brought in close to As some of the lady guests staying shore on the north side, one of Tahoe’s at Small’s had their underpinnings more famous natural wonders becomes stolen from the clothesline in the visible to the passengers. Outlined on meadow on that particular day, he is Cave Rock is the 50-foot profile of sure beyond doubt that the loss was the “Lady of the Lake,” complete in the doing of the fresh-water nymph, detail down to the eyelashes. Above as he recognized one of the missing the features of Tahoe’s “Lady,” and petticoats that she had decked herself rising on the upper curve of the Rock, out in. is the “Gorilla Profile,” a somewhat startling example of beauty and the Zany tales and buffoonery of this sort beast combined--an anomaly in the seem to have been standard fare among the rough- history of natural rock profiles (Scott

40 1957:255; and see p. 254 for 1909 of the Washoe as told to a sympathetic and photograph) aesthetically attuned white listener. The style, phraseology and content, however, are more --A white resident of Lake Tahoe, reminiscent of nineteenth century or earlier and member of a group professing glorification of the Noble Savage as exemplified a spiritual regard for Cave Rock, in popular romances about vanquished eastern explains: “It was last Mother’s Day tribes and Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha,” actually that [we] were guided to or by the nostalgia for bucolic landscapes and come to Mother Rock, or at least we medieval chivalry expressed in Walter Scott’s call her that, and so for quite some “Lady of the Lake.” Many of the typonyms and time we really didn’t feel permission quaint allusive designations imposed on various to go to the rock or the cave, but we prominent features around the lake are artifacts spent several times doing trash pickup of past Euro-American modes of beholding along the highway...several trunk (e.g., Cave Rock as the mysterious “Lady of the loads [before] we went in the cave, Lake”). and we just totally cleaned it up... I got interested in the Washoe people by The strain of romanticism was especially way of a friend... She told me...how in vogue during the early twentieth century and this used to be their land and that the produced a substantial accumulation of printed Washoe have spiritual charge of Lake material in the form of feature stories, booklets or Tahoe. And I think I have some native author-published pamphlets that have been widely blood in me somewhere. Definitely in available in local shops and the flourishing tourist my heart, for animals and plants and trade. A few notable examples are presented here trees...and the earth itself...we need as typical of this literature: to look first at the lake, and listen to the lake...” (Tahoe Regional Planning “The Legend of Tahoe” by Nonette Agency 1998 [J.M.]). V. McGlashan (1905) in which “an old Indian woman” tells the author the tale of “ong,” the great Such lore about the nature of Lake man-eating bird that terrorizes the Washoe at the Tahoe and Cave Rock and strange occurrences lake, and who flew off with a “handsome young associated with them abounds in the literature brave” named Tahoe in its talons, the bridegroom and in common discourse that has diffused in of “Nona” the chief’s daughter “fairer than ever diverse ways in the historical period. Much of Indian maiden had been.” She goes off frantically it is suggestive of Washoe views adopted and to rescue her lover in “her own frail canoe.” But reinterpreted by whites in the course of their own he has already killed “ong” and Nona and Tahoe historical experience and has become an intrinsic return triumphantly “clasped in each other’s aspect of perceptions of the lake. arms” on a great wing of the bird. “But,” the author tells us, “the ong’s nest still remains, and the drowned never rise in Lake Tahoe.” AND THE APOCRYPHA Lake of the Sky by George Wharton James Another significant genre of lore about (1915) contains a brief tale about the origin of the lake is represented by a distinctive repertory Tahoe and other lakes (ostensibly told to him of writings that might be termed allegorical by “Susie, the Washoe Indian basket maker, and revamping of native texts. These are the highly narrator of Indian legends” whose photograph sentimentalized tales purported to be legends appears on the preceding page). It is a strange

41 version of the Weasel Brothers and Waterbaby Interestingly enough, her first “legend” myth in which the characters are transposed into seems to have been lifted almost wholecloth from a “Good Indian” and the “Evil One” respectively. George Wharton James’ 1915 booklet without The Good Indian is pursued by the Evil One due crediting. However, the four following tales from “over beyond Glenbrook...to where Tallac give the impression of being relatively credible Hotel now is.” Then the “Good Spirit” came and straight forward account of what she may to his aid “giving him a leafy branch which had have heard from her two Washoe narrators, certain magical qualities.” Whenever the Evil “Susan and Jackson.” The Legend of the Two One approached, he was to drop a leaf and water Brothers and Waterbaby is quite recognizable would spring up. He did so as he fled and, as as a version of the traditional Washoe tale. But the Evil One could not cross water, the leaves Price adds a note indicating some dissatisfaction created all the lakes from Tahoe to the valleys of that “the rest of the story is confused and full of the mountains. At last “he found himself safe in repetitions,” quite oblivious of the fact that this the long-wished-for valley of California.” is the way Washoe tellers tell a tale. In another tale, “The Origin of the Different Indian Tribes,” Lake Tahoe Legends by Ethel Joslin Vernon [an interesting version of the Wolf and Coyote (1949) contains three tales “as remembered by origin tale of the Washoe], Price does note that elder members of the Washoe Tribe, including the “Susan and Jackson” give different details and late Captain Pete and his wife Princess Agnes.” interpretations of the story, something which In the first tale, “Legend of Eagle Rock,” Big lends some credibility to her claim to have written Chief Eagle mistakes his bride, Gentle Doe, for a down what she heard. deer and kills her with an arrow at the foot of the cliff. The Great Spirit will not yield to Big Chief Rather unique among writings in this Eagle’s pleas to follow his lover into the “Land genre is the insight, albeit inadvertent, that Beyond the Black Mountains,” but eventually Price provides with regard to her perspective relents and turns the brave into a rock image on as a curious and well-meaning white woman the face of the cliff now known as Eagle Rock, endeavoring to learn about Washoe tradition. where he could “brood endlessly.” (Having Her prefatory statement to “A Ghost Story” is a known Hank Pete, his wife and family, and having particularly cogent example: “In several talks worked with them extensively, d’Azevedo doubts with Susan and Jackson,” she writes, “after the any such tale ever passed from their lips!) death of Susan’s sister, I endeavored to find out some of their religious beliefs. But these talks Legends of Tahoe by Bertha de L. Price were not very satisfactory. Neither one knew (1971) has a somewhat singular introduction by what he did believe. Their old Indian religion, the writer stating that “Long before the white whatever it may have been, seemed to have man saw and wondered over the beauty of Tahoe, passed, and the religion of the white man had not theorizing over its origin and concocting curious taken very deep hold.” Then “Jackson” tells her tales about its ‘unfathomable’ depths, the Indians a most poignant anecdote about a husband and knew and loved it...so among the Washoe Indians child meeting the ghost of the wife and mother stories about Tahoe have been handed down from at the grave. Price notes that “Jackson was not generation to generation. I do not vouch for these sure whether he believed this story or not. But legends. The modern Indian too often tells what his manner of telling it indicated that it was very he thinks you want to know--if only you will real to him.” (Would that there were more of cross his hand with silver. But there are touches such revelatory observation in amateur as well as here and there that make me feel that for the most professional ethnographic writing!) part they are remnants of very old legends.”

42 Of quite another stripe is the copious characteristic fashion, Stollery prefaces the tale agglomeration of lore about Lake Tahoe spawned with the remark: “As usual, it cost us the rest of from the pen of David J. Stollery, Jr. whose Tales the peanuts in the bowl on the desk, and half a of Tahoe (1969) originally appeared as columns package of cigarettes, before the Chief began his in the Tahoe City World between 1963 and 1969. story.” The following is a brief synopsis of Wa- The eight-page weekly was edited and published na-ni-pa’s tale: by his brother, Stub Stollery, at Tahoe City, and he was listed on the staff as “Historian.” In a ...The Lake of the Sky was much forward to the subsequent book, his brother deeper in the old days because describes him affectionately as “the oldest and mountains surrounded it and there ugliest of the tribe of Stollery Indians who settled was no way for the water to get out. in California because had no sewage ...The tribes of my ancestors climbed disposal facilities.” Nevertheless, David Stollery over the mountains and when they became enraptured of Lake Tahoe from an early saw the Lake of the Sky they were age, eventually settling there as a resident where happy, for there were many fish in it. he came to know many of the old time locals as well as historians such as Edward B. Scott. ...So the tribes built their villages on the shores of the lake, but the lake kept Tales of Tahoe is an odd miscellany getting deeper and deeper, because it ranging from “true historical” pieces about had no outlet, and the people of the “people, places and events” to waggish tales and tribe had to keep moving their villages parodies--admittedly in the mode of Mark Twain higher on the mountain-sides... and O. Henry. One of its unintended merits as an historical document is that it is an unprecedented ...And finally, my great-great-great- compilation of white folklore about the lake. Just great-grandfather, the chief of the about every known anecdote or popular notion tribe, prayed to the Great Spirit to in circulation among locals and visitors receives help the people. And the Great Spirit notice, or at least a passing squib. Significantly, answered, saying: “I shall thrust my the local “consultant” for many of the pieces is a lance through the mountains, thus, patronized fictitious character with the punnish and cause a great cave through which title of Chief Wa-na-ni-pa who hangs around the waters of the lake will drain...” in anticipation of edibles, cigarettes and liquor for which he will hold forth on quite novel ...But when the waters rushed into renditions of Washoe beliefs and customs. The the cave-opening the canoes of the Washoe words are sheer inventions of Stollery’s Indians were swept into the cave and fertile imagination and reminiscent of the lingo many fishermen were lost. attributed to Indians in popular fiction. The “legends” are equally outrageous. Of course, ...Then, answering the prayers of “Great Spirits” and “Evil Ones” abound. the people, the Great Spirit caused a great wooden stump to be placed But it is in “The Legend of Cave Rock” at the entrance of the cave which that Chief Wa-na-ni-pa offers a most fascinating could be rolled into it when fishermen revisionist take on Washoe tradition as it has been were near, or rolled back to let the brewed and filtered through countless alien voices waters out. No more fishermen were ever since John Calhoun “Cockeye” Johnson drowned. stumbled over old Indian trails to the lake. In

43 ...Many years later, the Lake of the Indians ever saw were occasional Sky gradually found an outlet where trappers who wandered into the new the Truckee River now flows, and the and strange land. Then, the beautiful lake level fell to where it is today. Indian name, soft and limpid as an Indian maiden’s eyes, was Wasiu – not ...When asked what happened to the the harsh Anglicized, Washoe. big stump that was used to stop up the cave, Chief Wa-na-ni-pa had “a ...While in the early days of the sardonic twinkle in his eyes” when he settlements of whites upon their lands answered: “Maybe when white men the Washoes now and again rose in come to the lake, he use Bo-na-ha-te’s protest, and a few lives were lost, in stump as ‘The Plug in the Bottom of the main they have been a peaceable the Lake!’” and inoffensive tribe... On account of their nomadic habits it is impossible Thus Stollery concludes the piece with a to secure a complete census.” (James crafty reference to another of his tales in the book 1915:35-36) and also to Sam P. Davis’ spoof in the 1880s about mysterious holes and slits at the bottom But it came as a disquieting revelation of the Lake. Farcical and trivializing of Washoe to some that the Washoe are still here and that tradition as these pieces in Tales of Tahoe may be, their real voice emerges as a strong and clear they attest to the tenacity of the acculturative lore remonstrance concerning their plundered estate. and media-driven fables about Lake Tahoe and Moreover, they have begun to reclaim fragments Cave Rock circulating among the generations of of their former lands on the eastern slopes of white squatters well into the twentieth century. the Sierras, have established beachheads on the shores of Lake Tahoe, and are demanding that Perhaps most significant of all is the fact Cave Rock be made a sanctuary. For a people that Euro-American lore about the lake and its who have endured a loss of so much of their environs has absorbed if not supplanted much of culture and homeland the value of what remains the largely unwritten traditions of a people swept is magnified as an emblem of a precious heritage, aside and all but decimated by alien hordes. In just as their efforts to restore a language is seen this process the white perspective of the lake has as the key to recovery of buried traditions. become imbued with the fading echoes of and a welling nostalgia for a vanishing This seems the propitious place to note frontier. The voice of the vanquished people, the somewhat ominous geological commentary long ignored and thought to be silenced forever, that appeared a few years ago in a leading journal may be heard revamped and sentimentalized as (Science News, June 10, 2000, Vol. 157:378- a theme in minor key gracing the rambunctious 380). It could be considered as an inadvertent saga of westward conquest. substantiation of Washoe tradition with regard to potential cataclysmic occurrences and the After the turn of the twentieth century, for enormous powers inherent in Cave Rock, as well example, one writer reflects on the “Indians of as a renewed stimulus to the corpus of syncretic Lake Tahoe” in the mode of requiem: white folklore:

–“Prior to the coming of the emigrant --Postcards from Lake Tahoe all bands in the early ‘forties of the flaunt a peaceful, brilliant-blue stretch last century, the only white men the of mountain water. But geologists

44 have been snapping a very different picture of the lake lately. Far beneath Lake Tahoe’s gentle surface, they say, several hidden earthquake faults snake across the lake’s flat bottom. These faults put the lake at a bizarre risk...

...As the world’s tenth largest lake, Lake Tahoe stretches 35 kilometers long, 19 km. wide, and in some spots, 500 m. deep. What’s more, the lake sits smack in the middle of earthquake country, nestled in a fault- riddled basin that straddles California and Nevada. Dozens of minor or moderate quakes erupt along faults in the region every week, and Lake Tahoe is no exception. All it would take, scientists say, is a strong quake directly beneath the lake to send the waters spewing tsunami-style... According to their calculations, if a magnitude 7 quake struck either of the two major faults under the lake, the bottom would open like a trapdoor, with a chunk of it suddenly dropping as much as 4 m.

--While most of the lake floor is flat, parts are littered with huge rocks jumbled every which way. This debris, geologists say, came from a landslide in which one wall of the lake collapsed, possibly within the past 10,000 years...it’s likely that a quake along one of the under water faults triggered the landslide... If catastrophe struck Lake Tahoe once, why not again? (p. 379)

...The good news, geologists say, is that a magnitude 7 quake under Lake Tahoe only has a 3 to 4 percent probability of striking in the next 50 years... (Pp. 378-379)

45

THE LEGACY OF CAVE ROCK

It is consoling to learn that from a it -- why can’t the Washoe accept the climbers’ geological perspective the 3 million year legacy connection to the rock?” (Ibid. App. A-3). of Cave Rock is not likely to include yet another calamitous event such as that which occurred This shoddy effort to rival the impact some time around 10,000 years ago in the Lake of Washoe tradition on public consciousness is Tahoe Basin, and we are given an estimated 3 so transparent as to evoke no more than a bitter or 4 percent probability that one could happen smile. In a very real sense it epitomizes the within the next 50 years. Therefore residents of character of the drama that has unfolded with the central region may go about regard to Cave Rock as well as with the Lake their business as usual -- though with fingers Tahoe basin itself. Despite continuous Washoe crossed. complaints concerning desecration of the site it was not until the 1990s that federal agencies were From a historical perspective, however, it persuaded to nominate Cave Rock for inclusion would seem that a contentious issue of only 150 on the National Register as a Traditional Cultural years duration should by now have been resolved Property, proposing a new Forest Service between the Washoe people and the belatedly management directive that “would eliminate enlightened descendants of those who invaded climbing activities currently occurring at the and usurped their domain. Not so. For at long site to protect Cave Rock’s heritage resources” last this simmering dispute has erupted once (Rucks 1996). In anticipation of general public more into the general public arena. Cave Rock, concerns, the proposal was ameliorated a bit later this ancient edifice on the eastern shore of Lake to the effect that “other non-invasive recreation Tahoe, is no longer a mere tourist attraction, a consistent with the historic period including, favored challenge to a cult of rock climbers, or but not limited to, hiking, picnicking, stargazing a recreation venue for the increasing hordes of [!], boating, and fishing would be allowed to modern Americans seeking rare communion with continue.” (U.S.D.A. Forest Service, 2002:1-2) natural wonders, but is emerging in the national consciousness as a symbol of the traditions and The justifying grounds for the proposed remnants of a displaced culture. This compelling ban and other delimitations are contained in a reality can be no longer ignored. labyrinthine 165 page document with an extensive Appendix A summarizing the results of five public At the same time there is a profound meetings held in 1998 and, also, an Appendix B irony to a situation wherein the claim of the presenting over 20 letters from concerned parties. Washoe people for restoration and protection During the meetings it became apparent that rock of their ancestral sanctuary is now found to be climbers and their association (The Access Fund) opposed, not by the general non-Washoe public, had emerged as the major opponents of any ban but mainly by a powerful organization of rock- on the sport. In the summary of this remarkable climbing enthusiasts. The irony cuts even deeper collaborative effort on the part of the Lake Tahoe when we learn that these single-minded partisans Basin Management Unit (LTBMU) of the Forest are now claiming a “communion with vertical Service the document states: places...a spiritual side” to climbing (U.S.D.A. Forest Service 2002:3-51). More specifically, The two primary stake holders in this “Climbers consider Cave Rock sacred to them – effort, the Washoe Tribe and rock they have spiritual experience when climbing on climbers, both have strong connections

47 to the area. Cave Rock is central Very recently, the Forest Service has to the Washoe Tribe’s traditional acknowledged ownership of Cave cultural beliefs and practices. The Rock, which opens an opportunity cultural values surrounding Cave for greater enforcement and perhaps Rock, specifically, maintaining conveyance back to the Tribe for its integrity as a traditional sacred protection... The sacredness of location, is a great motivating factor Cave Rock at Lake Tahoe will be for this group’s involvement in the protected by returning the Rock to discussions surrounding Cave Rock Washoe ownership and elimination of management. Rock climbers’ ties to disruptive and destructive activities in Cave Rock are also very strong. As the vicinity. (Washoe Tribe 1994) a world-renown climbing area with highly challenging routes and breath- The Forest Service Management Report taking views, this site is important also offers explanation of why direct land transfer to the local climbing community, as from federal ownership to the Washoe Tribe is well as to climbers nationally and unfeasible in that the Forest Service does not internationally. The desire to keep have authority for such a move unless backed this location open to future climbing by congressional action. It adds, however, that is the driving force for the climbers’ the Forest Service does have authority to issue interest in management of Cave Rock. special-use permits such as what the Washoe Tribe (Ibid. App. A-1) has for Meeks Bay Resort. Such a permit has not been issued for Cave Rock. Also considered From the very outset it was clear that the was a curious proposal to develop another “man- two focal groups would not come into accord. created” climbing site “that rivals Cave Rock,” It was also clear that, in the absence of the rock and then close Cave Rock to all climbing (Ibid. climbing contention, the Washoe would now be 2-6). But climbers who attended the meetings close to achieving their goal of preserving the insisted adamantly that “Cave rock is such a monument which at last had been deemed eligible spectacular natural occurrence it will be next for a National Register of Traditional Cultural to impossible to recreate [it] in terms of setting, Property. In the process the Forest Service made seasonality and challenge.” the significant discovery that Cave Rock was not on private land, as previously supposed, but that it While these and other considerations were was located on lands owned and administered by being reviewed at length, six basic “Alternatives” the National Forest System. Thus, due to the fact were devised. They are excerpted in brief as that the United States government has a unique follows (Ibid. 2-9 to 2-16): legal relationship with federally recognized American Indian tribes, the elected governments Alternative 1--No Action/ No Project: of these tribes are considered sovereign The types of activities conducted governments: “Therefore, at Lake Tahoe, the at Cave Rock in recent years would Forest Service’s LTBMU forest supervisor continue without Forest Service interacts on a government-to-government basis interference or regulation. with elected officials of the Washoe Tribe” (Op. cit. pp. 1-4, 1-5) In the same report the Forest Alternative 2--Manage Sport Climbing Service cites the following statement from the to Reduce Effects on Cave Rock: Washoe Tribe’s earlier Comprehensive Land Use Sport climbing would be allowed, Plan: however, routes above the highways

48 and several other selected routes and protect, preserve, enhance, and would be removed. The installation interpret improvements that are of new climbing routes and use of consistent with the historic period at artificial light for climbing would Cave Rock beginning with the arrival be prohibited; bright-colored and of the Washoe Tribe to Lake Tahoe shiny climbing equipment would be through 1965, the year of Henry camouflaged to blend with the natural Rupert’s death. (Henry Rupert was a colors of the rock. Washoe spiritual practitioner whose association with Cave rock contributed Alternative 3--Phase-Out Sport to its National Register eligibility.) Climbing Over a 6-Year Period: The Forest Service would work These alternatives were discussed with climbers to remove climbing extensively and in great detail in the Cave Rock equipment in stages (approximately Management Direction of October 2002 and 50 bolts per year) and fill the holes. should be sought out and read by all interested The installation of new routes and persons. Though much too complex and lengthy climbing with artificial light would be to be presented here, this resumé must suffice to prohibited. bring these important papers and their substance out of agency obscurity. It is worthy of note, for Alternative 4--Exclusive Washoe Use: example, that most of the rock climbers involved Exclusive access to Cave Rock by appeared willing to accept Alternative 2, while spiritual practitioners of the Washoe the Washoe representatives were steadfast Tribe. Cave Rock would be closed in affirming that nothing short of the closure to all other recreational and public proposed by Alternative 4 would be acceptable to access. Where resource conflicts the tribe. As the third voice in these proceedings, occur...protection of the values of the the Forest Service, though originally supporting Traditional Cultural Property will take Alternative 2, determined that Alternative 6 was precedence. its “preferred” action.

Alternative 5--Phase-Out Climbing During the interim following these Over a 3-Year Period: Climbers meetings the Smithsonian magazine published would be prohibited from using Cave an interview with Dave Schuller, a leading rock Rock during a phase-out period of 3 climber, and Brian Wallace, Washoe Tribal years. Activities and improvements Chairman (Roberts, Mar. 2003). The elements of that adversely affect the qualities for the confrontation are nowhere more succinct: which the property was found eligible to the National Register would be --“There’s nowhere else in the United removed. States with rock climbing like this,” says Dave Schuller. “It would be a Alternative 6--Maximum Immediate horrible loss not to be able to climb Protection of Heritage Resources here anymore.” (Preferred Alternative): All climbing, both traditional and sport climbing, ...The loss Schuller fears is a ban on all would be prohibited immediately climbing at Cave Rock, which could following adoption of the management go into effect when the Lake Tahoe direction...would allow activities Basin unit of the U.S. Forest Service

49 makes a ruling later this spring. The ...Climbers pointed out that they have possibility of a ban on climbing grew cleaned up the site, which, by 1987, out of allegations by Washoe Indians, had become a hangout for teenagers. who say the area is ancestral homeland [and climbers, and others! Also, they and that Schuller and others commit ignore the fact that a group of white sacrilege every time they touch women, led by a Washoe woman Cave Rock... Though white settlers shaman, have been cleaning the area and government agents drove them over recent years – i.e. “The Friends from the shores of Lake Tahoe more of Lake Tahoe”] “It smelled like an than a century ago and reduced their outhouse,” says Schuller, “full of numbers to 200, the Indians insist beer cans, broken glass and campfire De’ek wadapush remains a powerful scars.” sacred site... The Washoe believe that only a few shamans, who have --“We view a ban on rock climbing at carefully prepared themselves, should Cave Rock as arbitrary, capricious and ever visit the site. unconstitutional,” says Jason Keith, policy director of the Access Fund, a ...As Schuller starts to pull himself Boulder, Colorado-based organization up the vertical rock face, the roar dedicated to keeping crags open of car traffic muffles the sound of to climbers. “If the Forest Service his exertions. Twin tunnels blasted finalizes the ban, as it’s expected through the heart of Cave Rock in to do, the fund plans to appeal the 1931 and 1957 carry tourists to and decision.” from the casinos and hotels of South Lake Tahoe on four lanes of U.S. ...For the Washoe, who traditionally Highway 50...like so many Christmas avoid the place, the rock’s dark power tree ornaments, dangle scores of is potentially catastrophic. “We’re “perma-draws,” two-foot-long cables required to say a prayer before we hung from bolts to assist climbers and even mention it,” says Wallace. provide safety. More than 300 bolts sprout from the overhanging walls, ...Today Washoe shamans still and the gray andesite is smeared with make the long pilgrimage to De’ek the white gymnast’s chalk climbers wadapush, although some have turned use on their hands. (p. 29) back at the sight of the rock face swarming with climbers. ...Over the past 15 years, Cave Rock developed into one of the hottest At the same time, while recognizing the sport-climbing locations in the Forest Service proposal as an important step in country. Groups of climbers can be the direction of their interests, the Washoe make found here every summer weekend, it clear that they could not fully accept its terms, virtually all of whom oppose the ban. particularly insofar as the cave itself would “I would ask what the Washoe have still be open to trespassers. The Smithsonian done this century to demonstrate their interview concludes with the statement by respect for the site besides maintain a the Washoe Tribal Chairman that “In the long superstitious avoidance” [!] view, only repatriation of Washoe homelands is acceptable.”

50 --In the meantime, he and other ...Cave Rock is a significant Washoe cling to the belief that they Traditional Cultural Property, will someday repossess not only Cave Historic Transportation District, and Rock but all of Lake Tahoe. “Why Archaeological site. As such, it is not?” says Wallace. “We’ve stared unique as the quintessential symbol down extinction. We believe that of the Washoe people’s culture. Its eventually we’ll find our way home.” significance as a symbol of cultural (Roberts 2003:29) identity is analogous to the Statue of Liberty for many American citizens. On August 5, 2003 the new Lake Tahoe Throughout the Washoe tenure at Basin Forest Supervisor, Maribeth Gustofson, Lake Tahoe and in spite of their 20th issued the following salient justification for century exclusion, Cave Rock has a permanent ban on climbing at Cave Rock: endured as an important symbol of (U.S.D.A. Forest Service, 2003:1-3, excerpted) Washoe traditional values and helped to maintain the viability of Washoe --The new management direction culture. allows open access to the public and allows identified activities to occur Notwithstanding these resonant words, while protecting and preserving the and the puzzling acknowledgement that cultural and historical resource values “Alternative 4 is the environmentally preferred of Cave Rock. The management alternative” (p. 13), the directive does not fully policy prohibits the recreational address Washoe Tribal concerns. And, true to activity of rock climbing as well as their earlier warning, the climbers’ Access Fund any new, non-historic activities that has challenged the decision in the 9th Court of might be proposed at the site. All Appeals. Written arguments have been filed, bolts and other climbing equipment and after oral testimony is presented, the court is that are technically feasible to remove expected to issue a ruling. will be removed. Modern graffiti and historic graffiti that do not contribute to Meanwhile, the portentous legacy of historic districts will be removed when Cave Rock unfolds as the ban remains in effect doing so will not physically damage through 2006 (the time of this writing). Though Cave Rock. New graffiti is prohibited one cannot augur the adjudication of the venerable and will be removed if it occurs. The court nor the disposition of the two constituents masonry flooring within the cave will in the case, it is doubtful that the temper of both be removed and disposed of. No parties will be assuaged. Two worldviews are motorized vehicles will be allowed likely to remain in confrontation. The rock outside of the highway corridor. climbers, a lone voice of frontier presumption, College class instruction will not be assert they will not tolerate a ban on their beloved permitted. Non historic activities sport, and the Washoe are wending their long way will be eliminated from Cave Rock; home. The heritage of Cave Rock is alive and however other non-invasive recreation well in the interim. Its prime mover, wounded activities, consistent with the historic but unbroken, still looms like a spectre over the period (time immemorial through eastern shores of a wondrous mountain lake. 1965) including, but not limited to hiking, picnicking, stargazing [!], and fishing will be allowed to continue.

51

POSTSCRIPT

The long awaited decision of the United the same place elder Steve James remarks, “You States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was filed on can’t separate us from our land, our language and August 27, 2007 denying the appeal of the Access our culture.” Lynda Shoshone, Director of the Fund and letting stand the Forest Service’s ban Washoe Language and Culture Program, adds: on climbing at Cave rock. This action effectively “The creator gave us this land to take care of concludes a decade or more of vigorous contention and, in return, it takes care of us,” while Florine over the status of a beleaguered monument but Conway of Gardnerville recalls, “Every year my also constitutes a significant, though partial, mother said ‘Don’t forget to pray for The Lake. victory for the Washoe People. Whatever you do, don’t forget to pray for The Lake!’” All who have followed the course of these events harken back to what may be considered a These deeply felt views resonate with turning-point in the long struggle to bring Washoe those of former Tribal Chairman Brian Wallace concerns to the fore in public consciousness. who has stated that Cave Rock “has come to A major advance was achieved when in 1997 represent the Tribe’s continuing struggle to President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore return to Lake Tahoe.... The ancestral lands of convened a Presidential environmental summit the Washoe Tribe consists of at least one and at Lake Tahoe where Washoe Tribal Chairman a half million acres spanning California and Brian Wallace and a group of Washoe elders Nevada. Lake Tahoe was the center of the lands presented the tribal perspective. As a result the of the Washoe Tribe’s ancestors for thousands federal government has conveyed a number of of years until with the approval, encouragement parcels of land on the shores of The Lake in trust and support of the United States government, to the tribe and committed over $900 million the Washoe Tribe was forcibly deprived of the for a program to clean up the degradation of the use and occupancy of these lands.... Within just Tahoe area from logging, mining and burgeoning several generations the Lake Tahoe area has commercial developments. Federal agencies changed from thriving communities of Indian were also directed to coordinate their efforts with people living in balance of nature, economically the interests of the Washoe, a move which has self-sufficient, feeding and clothing themselves evoked the wry comment of Washoe elder Darrel off the resources of their own land, to an area that Cruz, “It was decided we are the missing link in is beset with environmental problems to such the ecological balance of the Lake Tahoe Basin.... an extent that we may be sacrificing paradise” The U.S. Government recognized we’ve been (National Public Radio 1997). inhabitants of the area for thousands of years” (Read 2007). But, says Wallace, “the Washoe Tribe declares that all people who now share and live Meanwhile, members of the tribe are upon or in any manner use the ancestral resources deeply gratified by the increasing recognition of of the Washoe Tribe must become responsible their presence in the region and the antiquity of as the guardians of our ancestral lands....Lake their culture. “Our heritage as Washoe and The Tahoe is our shared commons. It is owned by all Lake are interwoven,” says newly elected Tribal and therefore must be protected by all....we are Chairman Waldo Walker. “The Lake sustains all responsible” (Wallace 1996). every expression of life for us” (Read, Ibid.). In

53 And, Wallace concludes: “Our concern belongs to all in the basin..... Our liberty and fate is yours too, and we are more closely related than one may see today.... I believe that a community, a tribe, or a great nation that cannot remember its dignity, its past, and honor it, is truly in danger of losing its soul” (See Rooney 1993).

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