Handed Down - Nevada Arts Council

1996–1997
Paiute Plants:
Ida Mae Valdez, Lillius Richardson and Marlin Thompson
An outing with Ida Mae Valdez, a Paiute woman
in her mid-70s, is no stroll in the park. She takes
off up a hill looking for petroglyphs or clambers down
a stream bank in search of an elusive water plant, and
you’ll lose her if you’re not careful. She thinks nothing
of loading up her pickup with tarps, washtubs, and
long pruning shears, not to mention her 68-year old
sister Lillius Richardson and several granddaughters,
and driving out to the Mason Valley Wildlife Refuge
near Yerington for a morning gathering buckberries.
And her backyard garden keeps her in corn, tomatoes,
squash, and beans all summer and then some. Ida
Mae is a woman at home in the outdoors, and rich in
knowledge and understanding of the wild world that
has been passed to her from generations past.
But that connection to the earth and its inhabitants
is being lost; even Ida says she knows only a fraction of
what her mother knew when the family was growing up
in Smith Valley. They lived on wild rabbits, porcupines
and fish, domestic chickens, turkeys and pigs, and the
cornucopia of wild plants that was used for food and
for medicine. The local bands of Nevada’s tribes were
named for the foods they were associated with, that’s
how important their tie to a place was. Ida Mae is sharing
her knowledge with her sister Lillius and Marlin
Thompson, a young man with a keen interest in all the
traditions of his Paiute people. When they all gather
at Ida’s house outside Yerington to look at the plants
Marlin has collected and taste some of the traditional
foods, the stories and memories come thick and fast.
Sagebrush was made into a poultice to sooth a burn
or boiled as a tea for colds, an experience vividly and
not always fondly remembered. Ida’s niece Clara remembers
her grandmother “always had a pan of that
sagebrush and the longer it sat, the bitterer it would
get. But you never said no to your elders. She would
get a couple of tablespoons and just douse it down you.
But it seemed to have cleared up that cough.” Almost
everyone knew the remedies for common ailments and
injuries, and knew where to find the right plants, what
part of the plant to use, and what time of year to find
them. They also knew to ask permission of any wild
thing before taking it for human use, and that they had
to leave some for the future.
Marlin Thompson and Lillius Richardson with plant
samples they have collected.
Marlin has been trying to collect and identify the local
plants, comparing them to a list that was compiled in
the 1940s, and finding that many of those species can no
longer be found. Often Ida Mae and Lillius know only
the Paiute name for something, so he has a hard time
connecting a plant with its English or scientific name.
But the most important thing is that the knowledge of
their use is being passed on to at least one member of
the younger generation, even though the older women
lament the general lack of interest among young people
for their heritage and language. Although she herself regrets
not learning basketry from her mother, Ida Mae
says, “That’s how we were raised, so we know a lot of this
stuff here. One day when we’re gone, this is all going to
be forgotten. Our kids don’t know, those two girls out
there [her granddaughters] don’t know…they’ll never
know. To them it’s just weeds.” To Ida Mae and Lillius
and Marlin those weeds are the source of life.
Ida Mae Valdez
cutting branches off a
buckberry bush.
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