Though polygamy has always been practiced, the custom to-day limits the wives to two, and only a few men have more than one wife.  Where plural wives are taken they are generally sisters.  There is little intermarriage among other tribes.  Though it occasionally occurs it is fiercely frowned upon and all parties are made to feel uncomfortable.

Prostitution with the whites and Chinese is not uncommon, and children born of such relationship have just as good a standing as those born in wedlock.  The Indian sees no sense in punishing an innocent child for what it is in no way responsible for.  He frankly argues that only a silly fool of a white man or woman would do so cruel and idiotic a thing.

Children are invariably welcomed and made much of at birth, though it is seldom a Washoe woman has more than four or five babies.  They are always nursed by the mother, and not often weaned until they are four or five years old.

In the early days the labor of the sexes was clearly defined.  The man was the hunter and the warrior, the guardian of the family.  The woman was the gatherer of the seeds, the preparer of the food, the care-taker of the children.  To-day there is not much difference in the division of labor.  The breaking down of all the old customs by contact with the whites has made men and women alike indifferent to what work they do so that the family larder and purse are replenished thereby.

In the early days the Washoes were expert hunters of bear and deer.  They used to cross over into the mountains of California for this purpose, and the women would accompany them.  A camp would be established just below the snow line, and while the men and youths went out hunting the women gathered acorns.  My informant, an old Indian, was a lad of eighteen at the time of which he spoke.  In effect he said:  “One day while I was out I found the tracks of a bear which I followed to a cave.  Then I went to camp.  But we Indians are not like you white men.  You would have rushed in and shouted to everybody, ‘I’ve found a bear’s track!’ Instead I waited until night and when all the squaws had gone to bed I leisurely told the men who were chatting around the camp fire.  They wished to know if I knew where the cave was, and of course I assured them I could go directly to it.  The next morning early my uncle quietly aroused me, saying, ’Let’s go and get that bear.’  I was scared but had to go.  When we arrived he took some pieces of pitch-pine from his pocket, and lighting them, gave me one, and told me to stand at the mouth of the cave ready to shoot the bear, while he went in and drove it out.  I didn’t like the idea, but I daren’t confess my cowardice, for he at once went in.  In a few moments I heard terrific growlings and roarings and then the bear rushed out.  I banged away and he fell, and I was proud to tell my uncle, when he came out, that I had killed the bear.  ‘No, you didn’t,’ said he; ’your shots all went wild.  Here’s the shot that killed him,’ and sure enough it was a shot of a different size from that of my gun.”