“What’s purple and lives at the bottom of the ocean?” “You tell me,” I said, from behind the wheel of a 15-passenger van filled with elementary school children, from our martial arts business in Hillsboro. “Moby Grape,” he replied, laughing in the way only a pre-teen youngster can. The sorry excuse for a joke—kids say the darnedest things, don’t they?—comes to mind whenever I think of “Water Babies,” the mythical creatures talked about by an earlier generation of Washoe Indians. Best that anyone can say, Washoe Water Babies tales predate the crazy corps of white Americans who crowded into northern Nevada when silver was first discovered in 1859. The story is a familiar one, if you’re at all acquainted with Nevada history. As the Comstock began to explode, the Washoe’s claim to the area began to implode. By 1863, most people say the tribe(s) were driven from their land, the forests from Virginia City and its environs all the way to Lake Tahoe were clear-cut, and traditional migration patterns—simply pictured, to Lake Tahoe in the summer for fishing, to the Pine Nut Mountains east of there for the fall harvest of nuts, and the valleys in-between so as to winter warmly into the spring—were made difficult, at best. The impact on the Washoe culture was terminal, so much so that by 1866, Indian agents in Reno believed the tribe faced imminent destruction and no government provision was made for the tribe’s future. Fast forward 150-some years. The Washoe have persevered. And despite significant challenges, which are beyond the scope of this simple blog entry—the Washoe people have formed tribal governments, regained control of (some) tribal lands and are busy, even to this day, actively building and teaching about their culture. In some small way, I hope my novels—set in northern Nevada, in the 1880s and forward—contribute to our understanding of this important community which, by some estimates, dates to more than 9,000 years ago. But I want to talk about Water Babies, because you’ll see them pop up, as it were, in some of my books. At the beginning of Lady of the Lake, for instance. “Did you see them?” the voice asked. Ronin looked left and right, but not before he placed his right hand on the black buffalo-horn handled Colt sitting cross-draw at his waist. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured. Read more…