Waves splash against the rocky shores of Lake Tahoe at Zephyr Cove on a crisp, fall day. Tahoe, or Da’aw as it is known in the Washoe language, attracts millions of visitors each year, but before this region became a tourist destination and vacation home mecca, it was home to the Washoe people since time immemorial.
The Washoe believe that Tahoe is where life began for them as a people, and although it is the sacred center of their world, they now have limited access to its shores. The Washoe Warrior Society or Washiw Zulshish Goom Tahn Nu (WZGT) nonprofit aims to change that.
Before colonization many Washoe people lived along Tahoe’s shores both year round as well as seasonally in the spring and summer, said Lisa Grayshield, the nonprofit’s executive director.
“We had stories about every one of these mountains and all these waterways and the way that the lake was before the edge of the lake was all taken up by people, colonizers. So it makes it really difficult for us to get down to the edge of the lake now,” Grayshield said.
Now the WZGT is working to create more access to Tahoe lands for Washoe people. Their goal is to create a land trust within the Tahoe Basin and construct a spiritual and cultural gathering center — the Washoe People’s House or Wašiw Tahn Nu Ungal.
Grayshield said this will help them preserve their language and culture, which is tied to the land.
“Cultural centers [are] a place to really recognize our language because that holds the values of who we are as a people and our connection to the land, you know, the names of all these mountains and the meaning of the names too,” Grayshield said.But Grayshield said time is of the essence because they only have around five or six Washoe speakers left.
Melba Rakow, a founding elder of WZGT, is one of these few speakers. And she sees the People’s House as a way to help preserve the language as well as celebrate and pass on their cultural beliefs to the next generation.
“If you do it correctly, you feel good about it and you're also teaching young [people] about [the culture] and you're also helping them stay off the streets and becoming what they shouldn't,” Rakow said .
The People’s House will also allow them to have a place to gather, pray and reconnect, said WZGT board member Art Martinez.
“The Washoe People could say this is our place for our sacred ways to occur and to happen and for us to be with the spirits of our ancestors here. Remember the spirits of the ancestors didn't go anywhere.They're there throughout the basin,” Martinez said.
Martinez, a psychologist, said this gathering space is also important to the healing of the people.
“It allows them an open place for healers, helpers, elders within the tribe to bring families in need of prayer and so forth in a place that they know is spiritually protected,” Martinez said.
He said the goal to build the People’s House is part of a larger international prayer and mission shared with other Indigenous peoples from alpine lake regions — specifically the Buryat people from Siberia who are Indigenous to Lake Baikal, a sister lake to Tahoe.
And they believe when this space is created there will be healing for the land, the water and the people.
This includes all people, Grayshield said.
“When the Indigenous people are on the land engaged in traditional activities, the health of the lands will improve. So, this is our healing, you know, and it's also the healing for the greater Lake Tahoe community,” Grayshield said.
She pointed to the wildfires that have impacted the region and said that their traditional practice of cultural burning can help mitigate risks posed by these blazes. They also plan to tend any lands they receive in their traditional ways.
The next step is finding land, which comes at a high cost in the region. But Grayshield said they are looking to buy or receive land from private landowners in the Tahoe Basin or work with the National Forest Service to co-manage federal land.
In 2020 the nonprofit launched a fundraising campaign to purchase land and build the People’s House. And recently separate landback movements for the Washoe people are gaining traction.
Last month the Wildlife Conservation Board approved a five and a half million dollar grant to the Wášiw-šiw Land Trust to support the purchase of over 10,000 acres of traditional Washoe territory northeast of Tahoe.
Although this area is outside of the Basin and this grant is for the tribe’s land trust, which is separate from the WZGT nonprofit, it’s still great news, Martinez said.
“It's a very positive step. We're all moving in the same direction,” he said.
Back up at Tahoe, Grayshield said they’re exploring all options but have their eye on a parcel on the East Shore near Cave Rock, the sacred center of their world.
But time is of the essence, as many of the original members of the WZGT have already passed away, she said.
During the production of this story, former president of the WZGT and founding elder, Frank Grayshield, died. He carried the dream of seeing the people’s house built on the shores of Tahoe, a dream that is now carried on by the WZGT, their allies, and his daughter Lisa Grayshield.
“When we're here and when we put those pillars down, we'll have gathered. That means the tribal people will have come together. The local people will have come together for that support in that allyship. And we will be standing there in the healing, knowing that we're on the upside of it now. We're not fighting it any longer,” Lisa Grayshield said.
