Lake Legends of Wa She Shu

Lake Legends of Wa She Shu

by Allison Jones

Cave Rock, Lake Tahoe, NV

The beauty and majesty of Lake Tahoe today is an indication, but mere shadow of its brilliance and even wilder beauty during the time of the first people to the area, the Washoe (or Washo). While we have to visualize what the landscape would have been without blacktop, motorized vehicles and hill upon hill of houses, Wa She Shu, translated “the People”, lived at the water’s edge of “Da ow aga” every spring to late fall, from the beginning of time as their tradition states. They did not move here from somewhere else, they had always been here. (“Da ow”, meaning lake, was later mispronounced by European settlers to the area after 1850 and Tahoe became the result.)

The Washoe People still believe that the land, language and culture go together. As former chairman A. Brian Wallace of the Washoe Tribe said, “The health of the land and the health of the people are tied together, and what happens to the land also happens to the people. When the land suffers so too are the people.” It was with this ingrained belief that every wondrous

geographical feature of the People’s early territory was named and had a legend attached to it. Lake Tahoe was a large part of their lives and so we enjoy those stories and legends even today, explaining the natural wonders we experience around and in Lake Tahoe. Some of the Tribal practices described in the ongoing legends still go on today.

Water Babies and the Lady of the Lake

Wa She Shu considered Cave Rock, at the south end of the Lake to be a sacred place, perhaps because of the awe a cave naturally inspires; especially to people who value great land formations in the way the Washoe do. In early days, only healers were allowed to go there, for their spiritual renewal. This was due in part to the presence of

“Water Babies” in the cave. These creatures of Washoe tradition inhabited all bodies of water and were very powerful, causing harm or even death to humans. Healers would visit the creatures in the cave, consult them and bring them offerings in hopes that they would strengthen the healers’ powers. If tribesmen wanted to cross the lake or fish they prepared covered pitch baskets filled with corn, bread and pine nuts, and sunk them in the lake. They believed in this way the Water Babies would keep them from drowning, or help them catch many fish. The Washoe believed that when their people did not come back from lake trips, it was because they were drowned by the “will” of the Water Babies.

Below the cave and below the foundation of the old road, there is a natural formation in the rock which looks like the profile of a woman, looking out onto the lake. This is the Lady of the Lake, as named by the People. She is best seen from a boat on the Lake, looking from the north in the morning and through the early afternoon hours.

Chief Big Eagle

The legend, Big Eagle was named because of his hunting prowess as a child; he became a chieftain while still young, having proven his leadership abilities. When the tribe traveled from the foothills to the summer spot at the Lake, Chief Big Eagle always pitched his tepee at the “sloping back of the great rock”, today called Eagle Rock, an eroded volcano vent located on the west shore between Tahoe City and Homewood. Big Eagle liked to lie at the edge of the cliff to watch for deer and other game below in the trees, wending their way to the water to drink. In this way, he hunted for the campfires of the tribe.

In time the Chief took a bride named “Gentle Doe”; she was a good companion and great help to him. One summer morning in June, very early before the round moon sunk behind the western range, as Big Eagle was waiting for game from his perch atop the Great Rock, he heard a twig snap close to the water and saw a blurred shadow. Since there was no meat for that night’s campfire, he was ready with his arrow. He shot straight and sure and immediately heard an agonizing moan from Gentle Doe. He slid down the great rock, leapt and staggered through

the trees and brush and found his love, dying by his arrow, by the water. He cried out to the Great Spirit to save his wife, but his savage prayer went unanswered. Gentle Doe quietly said, “I will follow you always Big Eagle” and then she was gone.

While at the campfires that night wailing could be heard for the death of Gentle Doe, Chief Big Eagle stood at the edge of his cliff and spoke to the Great Spirit again, asking him if he could follow his bride into the land beyond the Black Mountains. The Spirit made one unwanted compromise: he changed the Chief into the form of his namesake, an eagle, and sent him to brood upon the high cliffs and ragged mountains. For many summer seasons after this, his tribesman would rise early to hunt and see a great, feathered shape perched on the overhanging edge of the cliff and if lucky, would actually hear Big Eagle’s wild cry from the shadows on Eagle Rock.

Ong, the Great Bird

In the middle of Lake Tahoe, the Washoe believed there lived a great, man-eating bird they called Ong. He had the body of an eagle, the face of a warrior and a wing span longer than the tallest pine trees. When he flapped his wings, he could create the great winds on the Lake and bend the pine trees on the shores. He was covered with hard scales and his feet were webbed. His nest sat in a tree at the bottom of Da ow aga, where the waters flowed. In this way, he could trap many trout, animals and people who got swept into the Lake. Since bodies were never found, it was believed that no morsel of food ever left Ong’s nest, once there. The Washoe made sure they never walked, hunted or fished alone, so that Ong would not catch them up and carry them to his nest in the Lake.

The legend goes on to tell of a great Chief, whose daughter was more beautiful than any maiden. Her father would soon be holding a big council fire, before the tribe moved down out of the winter snows, in which great warriors would vie for the hand of the beautiful maiden with stories of great deeds and hunting prowess.

Unfortunately the daughter, named Nona, was secretly in love with a handsome brave named Tahoe, who had been too young to go out on the last war party and who had yet to have any great feats tied to his name. Tahoe prayed to the Great Spirit that his chance would come to show bravery, while he sat alone days and weeks on the cliffs overlooking the Lake. He was in despair of having his prayer answered one day when he sprang to his feet and saw the Ong flying out of the lake towards him.

The great bird grabbed him in his claws and flew straight up. Ong got the attention of Tahoe’s people in the camp below and they were well afraid for him. Tahoe quickly tied a leather thong around his waist to the leg of the bird, so that when the claws opened to drop him in the Lake, he would not fall. The bird was angered when he found he could not drop Tahoe into the Lake, to his nest. He tried and tried to get at the young brave with his horrible teeth, but every time he did, he fell through the air. Also, every time he opened his mouth the young brave was ready and threw in a handful of poisonous arrowheads he had prepared. They went down the monstrous throat and lodged there, cutting deep into the unprotected flesh of Ong. The Washoe watched the great battle in the air until the bird in frustration, plunged deep into the Lake toward his nest, with Tahoe attached by the leather thong. When the bird vanished into the waters of the Lake, the People thought that Tahoe was also gone.

The plans for the great council fire continued for that night, since many had been claimed by Ong, and the loss of one untried brave was not as important as the wedding of the beautiful Nona. As the council began and the braves regaled their chief with war stories and great feats, Nona slipped away and paddled to the middle of the Lake in her frail canoe. She did not care that the waters lapped over the sides of the boat, she just wanted to join her love. She called out his name softly, “Tahoe, my Tahoe!”

The tribe soon learned that Nona was missing and went to the edge of the Lake in search. There, they were astounded to see Nona and Tahoe riding in one of the large feathers of Ong, as a canoe, clasped in each other’s arms. Once the Chief heard that Ong had been killed by Tahoe and his poisonous arrowheads, he proclaimed the brave the hero of heroes! Ong’s body was never found as the People understood that the drowned never rise from the Lake, but his nest remains deep at the bottom to this day.

Fallen Leaf

Fallen Leaf Lake

Fallen Leaf Lake sits on the west side of Lake Tahoe, to the south. Today, there is a fourwheel drive road that hikers and day-riders can take to the right, just before Camp Richardson, going south on Hwy. 89, which will get them there. A Washoe legend tells how the Lake got its formation and name, through the plight of a Washoe brave who was fleeing for his life from the “Evil One”.

The brave was given a leafy branch by the Great Spirit, and was told to drop part of it if he was pursued by the demon. The Spirit said the branch contained magical powers and water would spring up wherever it was dropped. The warrior started out on his trip and came to the south side of the “great depression”, where he looked back to see the Evil One following him. He panicked when he tried to tear a leaf from the branch and tore off most of the branch instead, dropping it where he stood. The waters began to rise immediately, and Lake Tahoe was created, causing a barrier between the warrior and the demon.

He hurried up the canyon wall to the spot where Fallen Leaf Lake now lies. He looked back to see that the demon or “Fury” had circled the new Lake and was rapidly gaining on him. He only had one twig with four small leaves left and plucked one of the leaves, dropping it to the ground. Again the

water rose and “Doolaga” or Fallen Leaf Lake was formed. He turned away from the Fury and ran up the ravine dropping the three remaining leaves whenever the demon got close. This is where Lily, Grass and Heather lakes sprang up. As it is told, he found his way safely through the desolation wilderness to the “Great Valley” of Sacramento without harm.

All cultures have legends that are part history and part creative license, as they are passed from generation to generation. I picture the eyes of the children of Wa She Shu as they sit enthralled by the old ones’ stories, century after century, possibly at water’s edge around a fire. Spoken history is the most priceless, because it takes love to create.