Winnemucca Speaking to the Gathering of the Dokado, Picture by KimMarie

Chapter Two

Leaving and Coming Together

            Spring was a blessing in that it came early.  The cold season had been hard for the oldest and youngest of the band.  They survived on the tiny seeds inside the dried out cattail heads.  They burned the fuzzy interior of the plant and sifted the ashes for the cooked seed.  Now winter was over and the people were extremely grateful for the rabbit lettuce that grew amongst the sage.

            Winnemucca sent out word for a gathering at the sink.  Hundreds assembled from the mountains and the basin floor.  Five days of joy followed. 

            Men went out and netted rabbits; the boys and women beat the ground and scared the long ears into the nets.  Races were held for the pure joy of running, and all around the encampment was the sound of happy voices raised in song and laughter.

            Winnemucca had mixed feelings when he looked out over the bands of Numa united together.  It was good to see the people enjoying themselves but he had seen a vision.  It was to share his revelation that he requested the gathering.

            For three nights he had dreamed the very same.  It clung after he woke like the bitter taste of some rotten food.  In the dream he saw dust rising from the basin floor.  Dust to the north, the south, the east and the west.  This was the dust of the white man's feet and their horse's feet and the dust from the wheels of the houses that move.  He heard his people weeping.  The women wept loudly for their men who had been shot down by the white.  There was something that sounded like thunder and it killed the Numa.  They lay around him with blood pouring from their mouths.  Horror and death surrounded him.  The dream was a real dream and in its reality was his fear for the Numa.

            Early on the sixth morning, Winnemucca rose and stood in council.  "Amidst all this happiness there is a sorrow.  The White man we call our Brother is bringing it.  He is truly a great nation and has much strength to travel in large bands down the trail.  They are men like us, and think like us and know right from wrong.  They must have known that they did wrong when they destroyed our winter store of food."

            The people all listened quietly.  He went on.  "I will tell you my vision."

            The feelings of the dream, the dread, returned as he told the Numa his dream.  Tears came to his eyes as he told them of the people dead, the people that he loved.

            "Now we must travel to the mountains and stay away from the trails for the summer.  We should lay up great stores of food.  We can hunt the rabbits and dry them and send parties down to the lake to fish.  We can harvest the pine nuts and the wai seeds.  Then we can winter in the mountains.  You may think what I told you was only a dream, but I feel it will come to pass."

            He sat.  The group was quiet.  Each man would make his own decision but the council would discuss it far into the night.  For now Winnemucca felt relief at having spoken.  Men started talking.  They each took turns, waiting politely until a speaker had finished.  Occasionally a woman or youth had a question or comment and the group listened to everyone, because the matter concerned all.

            Winnemucca answered only the questions he was asked.  His dream had spoken for him and he did not need to say any more.

            The council took on a life of its own.  Mothers left to tend their children or cook meals, but the council traveled with them as they discussed their concerns.  Men left to hunt and fish and as they sat quietly in their blinds or on the weirs they thought about the dream.  Winnemucca saw this and felt he had done what he could.

            Uniting his band, he reluctantly led them away from the gathering and into the hills.  He hoped that each group would make a wise decision.

Paiute Seed Gatherers. Carson Indian Agency, Stewart Nevada., Real Photo Postcard

            They traveled slowly.  There were thirty in the group including babies and toddlers.  Winnemucca looked over his people and knew he would do whatever he could for each one's safety.  Sometimes he wished he was still known as Poito and that his father-in-law was once again in charge.

            "Winnemucca,"  Tuboitonie called to her husband. She pointed to the ground.  Fresh green tops showed the location of fat tubers hidden below the dirt.

            "We can camp here tonight."  The older children quickly busied themselves building brush shelters and gathering firewood.  Winnemucca smiled when he saw one of the youngest, little Shell Flower, squatted beside her mother and digging the large roots out with a stick she had found.  She was already so serious at five he thought. 

            Her long, black hair was recently brushed by her big sister, using a root brush made for her.  Shell Flower had woven a small burden basket and kept her brush and robe in it.  Tonight, Winnemucca told himself he would show her how to harden the tip of the digging stick in the fire.  For now, he would look for animal trails and set some deadfalls.

            In the morning the group prepared to travel once again.  The tubers tasted good roasted.  A rabbit and two squirrels were caught in the traps and cleaned and cooked for breakfast.

            Days flowed by like the water from the springs that they drank at.  The women wove new skirts and threw back the rabbit skin robes as the days warmed into summer.  As they travelled in the large circle around the basin, word reached them of Truckee's return.

            It was difficult for the whites to find Winnemucca's wandering band.  It was easy for the band to find Truckee.  Winnemucca sent out word through runners and travelers to Truckee and the groups again met near the Humboldt lake.

Making Rabbit Skin blankets. Picture from Postcard from 1920’s

            With the return of the group from California, the stories of wealth were impossible to stop.  Truckee brought with him horses and guns.  Winnemucca's band was now one of the richest band of Numa in the area.  The few treasures that they had gleaned from the white travelers were nothing in comparison to what was brought back from California.

            Winnemucca watched with wary cheeriness.  His wife was happy at the return of her father and brothers but there was an unrest that grew in the band.  All who saw the goods wanted their own.

            Truckee approached his young granddaughter. "Have you kept my heart safe for me?"  he asked.

            She hid beside her father's legs.

            "You haven't forgotten your true love, have you?"  Truckee squatted next to Shell Flower and held out his arms.

            Shell Flower drew herself up to her full five-year height and pursed her lips.  She glared at her grandfather.

            He laughed and called to his older grandchildren.  "You still love me, don't you?"

              Shell Flower's older brothers were happy to see their grandfather and were impressed by the show of guns.  As young adults they had nothing to fear and stood beside Winnemucca with glee on their faces at the sport that their grandfather made with their little sister.

            "See there, they remember me,"  Truckee spoke to Shell Flower.  "If you don't love your sweet heart any more, I might as well take them with me and go back to California."

            Her stubborn face broke into tears as the young child pulled herself into her fathers blanket.

            "Enough," cried Winnemucca. To Shell Flower he said, "Little one, your mother's father doesn't mean it.  Go to him and show him the brave girl that you are."

            Warily, taking her father's blanket with her, Shell Flower approached her grandfather.  Without a word she stood facing him.

            "Do you bring me my heart?" he said.

            She scooted within reach and her grandfather bent down and hugged her tenderly.  "Come sit with me while I tell you of the houses that float on the river and the pretty things that the whites have."

GoldWashing. Picture From Book Print

            Over the next few days Truckee warmed to his role of story -teller and the tribe became familiar with the ways of the whites.  This worried Winnemucca.  The whites had only brought sorrow to his people while his wife and children spoke morning and evening about California.

            Truckee started a campaign for the group to travel across the mountains to visit his white friends.

            "We belong here."  Winnemucca stood facing his wife's father.  Gently but persistently he started giving his arguments.  He told of the attacks they had suffered, the food sources destroyed, and the vision he had in the dream.

            Truckee looked concerned.  "I know my White Brother.  He wouldn't do these things to us.  Perhaps he thought that the Numa were warring Bannocks or some of the evil tribes to the north."  Truckee stood by his friends.  "Tuboitonie wishes to travel with me when I return to California."

            Winnemucca stood silent. His heart was in turmoil. Tuboitonie was an adult.  She could make up her own mind about going, but she would have to take the children with her.

            "Will you go?"  He looked into his wife's eyes as he spoke.

            There was a long pause.  Tuboitonie was not answering.  She stood, head down and sighed.

            "No!" A small voice broke into the quiet.  "Don't take me away from here."  Shell Flower cried as she perceived the separation from her father.  She detached herself from her grandfather and ran to Winnemucca, wrapping herself in his rabbit skin blanket.

            The small girl peeked around her father's legs.  "I won't go." she stated to her mother and grandfather with a scowl.

            Winnemucca unwrapped the blanket and picked her up.  "Careful, little Shell Flower, you don't know if they are going yet."

            The next few weeks brought division to the tribe as Truckee counseled for the group to travel to California and Winnemucca spoke of avoiding the white. 

            The boys, Natchez and little Poito, loved the loud noise of the guns and begged for stories of the battles that Truckee had fought with the white soldiers against the Mexicans.  They wanted to see California.

            Tuboitonie heard of the floating houses and the luxuries and ease of life and she wanted to experience the things she heard about.

            Shell Flower stood in front of her father one afternoon as he worked on his rabbit nets.  "Father, you won't make me go away will you?"

            "What is in your heart?" Winnemucca asked her.

            "Mother is already making plans and Grandfather has always said he'd go back.  I want all of us to stay here."  A tear slid down her cheek.

            Winnemucca knew that the band would be split.  Every man and woman could make their own choice about what was best for them.  It hurt him to see his Little Shell Flower trying to make this decision at six years.  "Don't you want to see all the wonders that Grandfather has spoken about?  The wagons full of goods and the things to eat that the white brothers have?"

            "I just want all of us to go back to the lake and fish again.  Why did they have to come?"  Shell Flower climbed into her father's lap.

            "We knew that the white brothers would come back someday."  Winnemucca's heart was breaking.  What his daughter asked for was all he really wanted.  "If Mother and Grandfather go across the white mountains, you will go too."

            A sniff and the small face snuggled into his chest was the only answer that Winnemucca received from her.  "You'll come back." he whispered.