SPOKEN BY CHRISTINE GORDON I
t is 3:30 p.m. in Wašiw country, and language class is in session. Two young girls sit side by side at a small table in a tribal community recreation center in Carson City, Nevada. They take turns responding as their teacher,
Mischelle Dressler, holds up flash cards dis- playing words in the Wašiw language. When a phrase pops up that one can’t decipher, the other whispers the answer in her ear. “We call that being a ‘language angel,’” Dressler explains. “It’s a way of supporting each other and creating safe spaces to learn.” A language unique to the some
1,500-member Washoe Tribe, Wašiw is now spoken fluently by fewer than 20 people. The tribe’s focus on language is not new; Dressler is part of a team of teachers who are striv- ing to carry on a legacy of preservation and respect for all aspects of their culture, includ- ing Wašiw. (“Wašiw” is the spelling often preferred by Native speakers; the tribe used “Washoe” officially for the name of the tribe when incorporating in 1934.)
THE PEOPLE OF “DAɁAW”
Members of the Washoe Tribe live in four federally recognized communities: Carson, Dresslerville and Stewart in Nevada, and Woodfords in California. They occupy a landscape that changes abruptly from high desert to woodlands, and just over the massive Sierra Nevada mountain range to the north- west lies Lake Tahoe. This lake, which the
Wašiw people refer to as “DaɁaw” (the lake) or “DaɁaw Ɂaga” (the edge of the lake), is the center of the Wašiw world; Wašiw creation
stories say they have always lived there. Stories handed down from one generation to the next describe the lake’s many sacred sites and how the waters “breathed life” into the land, plants, fish, birds, animals and people around it. Only in recent years, however, has the
Lake Tahoe is the center of the Wašiw world. For generations, it has provided not only fish and other foods, but also a place to gather for ceremonies.
tribe regained access to portions of its origi- nal homelands around the lake; more than a century of mining, logging and real estate de- velopment had driven the tribe away. A mas- sive influx of settlers in the mid-19th century transformed the landscape, encroaching on
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 23
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