The following account of the pine-nut dances of the past was given to me by a man, now almost blind, of between seventy-five and eighty. His father claimed to be chief of the Washo through an affinal relationship to the famous Captain Jim, and my informant maintains the claim, stoutly denied by all other Washo except his relatives and admitted by them only when they are forced to depend on his hospitality. The account is one of a well-regulated four-day ceremony of the first fruit. However, it will become apparent as other information is presented that it is a highly idealized version. It is valuable, however, because it includes a number of sacred elements of obvious importance. “This prayer(11) fella [Captain Jim] lived at Double Springs all year round. He would have a dream telling him when to have a meeting. He was what you would call a religious man. He would get someone he could trust and send out a long, tanned string of hide with knots in it. For every day until the meeting there was a knot and every day the messenger untied a knot so the people would know how many days they had until the meeting. “All the men came and hunted for four days, and the women would start gathering pine nut. They would hang up the game to let it dry. “The prayer wouldn’t eat meat during those four days but he could drink cold water, and some lady would cook him pine nut. “Every night they would have a dance. On the fourth day everybody would bring the food they had and put it in front of the prayer, and then he would pick some man who was fair [just] and the food was divided a little before sunrise. If you have a small family you get less, if you have a big family you get more.(12) “Then the prayer makes a prayer something like this: ‘Our father I dream that we must take a bath and then paint. Even the childrens ... [we must] wash away the bad habits so we won’t get sick from the food we have in front of us!’ “Then everybody go to the river ... no matter if there was a little ice on the water, and take a bath. If they was not near the river they bathed the kids from baskets at Double Springs. The prayer he prayed for pine nut, rabbit, and deer.” Suzie Dick, an ancient Washo woman who claims to have reached the century mark in 1959, recalls that Captain Jim was her mother’s sister’s son and that she called him brother. He was a big man in a figurative if not a literal sense. He wore eagle feathers on his head and arms. He had red trousers made out of a blanket with feathers on the sides of the legs. As she remembers him at these ceremonies: “He would scare you to death.” The assembled Washo brought pine nuts, deer meat, megal [Indian tea], and much other food. Captain Jim prayed and gave a sermon, urging everyone to drink water and avoid liquor, and supervised four nights of dancing.