The ritual of seizing and hiding the wand is carried out perfunctorily. During a recent dance the girl’s uncle took the wand but simply carried it to the grandmother’s house, intending to take it to the mountains later. However, the stick remained with the grandmother, who was somewhat concerned about it. It was kept in an upright position, and she constantly reminded the man that he should take it. He regularly promised that he would, the next time he came to visit, but just as regularly forgot it. It may well be that as an adult and an important peyote chief, he was reluctant to carry out what he considered an old Indian superstition. There is no indication now that the girls’ puberty dance is dying out among the Washo. It may well be changing in form and developing into more of a party. As the number of persons who know white dances increases, these may replace Indian dances. There is some suggestion of this in other ceremonial activities. And of course the fact that future generations of Washo girls will attend integrated Nevada public schools and associate with white students with different aspirations for approaching adulthood may have important effects on the future of the girls’ dance. Pine-nut flour seems to have taken on an important symbolic role in latter-day dances. We see no mention of this food in 1919 or 1926. Today it might be considered proper to delay holding a dance if it was not possible to get enough pine-nut flour to feed the crowd. Puberty: Boys (2379-2386, 369-374) The approaching maturity of a boy cannot be measured in dramatic physiological terms, and puberty is considered to occur about when a boy’s voice changes. The ritual for boys is less important than that for girls. The emphasis for a boy is on his developing ability as a hunter. Although hunting is far less important today than it was even in the recent past, few Washo go through the winter without depending on rabbit or deer for meat. The pursuit of the squirrel, ground squirrel, gopher, and other small game appears to be minimal, but certainly this food is not spurned, if available. One of the common legal conflicts with the white man stems from out-of-season hunting during the winter by Washo men filling out the family larder. Young boys were encouraged to hunt with bow and arrow as soon as they could. Quite often such training was carried out by an older male relative—a grandfather or an old uncle. Expeditions of old men and young boys after chipmunk and squirrel appear to have been common, freeing able-bodied men for major hunting while the experienced, but less able, older men instructed the boys. However, all the game taken by a boy was taboo to his immediate family. This included young deer and does which he might kill. Such game was given to another family, usually related. The boy was also forbidden to eat his own take. The taboo included any fish the boy caught.