Ethnographers Among the Washoe:
The Chroniclers

The following individuals were interviewed as part of the "Ethnographers Among the Washoe" project. Along with their positions of employment at the time their oral histories were done, the following abbreviated biographical sketches also list selected works they have authored on the Washoe. To read synopses of the tapes recorded with each chronicler, click on their names.

James Downs
James Downs passed away in 1999. At the time of his interview in March of that year, he was working in Japan as a consulting anthropologist in international marketing. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California Berkeley, and he was the author of The Two Worlds of the Washo, and Washo Religion.

Stanley Freed
Stanley Freed is the retired Curator of Anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California Berkeley and wrote the 1960 work, Changing Washo Kinship.

Don Handelman
Don Handelman received his Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Manchester, and at the time of his interview, he was a professor of sociology and anthropology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is the author of "Development of a Washo Shaman" (Ethnology 6:444-464) as well as a number of other works on shamanism among the Washoe.

William Jacobsen
William Jacobsen received his Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California Berkeley, and he is Professor Emeritus in English at the University of Nevada, Reno. He is the author of A Grammar of the Washo Language and Beginning Washo.

Philip Leis
At the time of his interview, Philip Leis was the chair of the Anthropology Department at Brown University. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Northwestern University. His work among the Washoe focused on changes in child-rearing practices throughout time, and he also authored a paper on agression in Washoe witchcraft.

Peter Miller
Peter Miller received his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1969, and was working as a forensic anthropologist with the United States Army when he was interviewed in 1999. Miller researched peyotism among the Washoe.

Brooke Mordy
Brooke Mordy received her M.A. from the University of Nevada in 1966. Her master's thesis, A Conflict Over Rights of Residence, addressed property rights among the Washoe.

Norman Scotch
Norman Scotch retired from the Boston University School of Public Health in 1992, but at the time he was interviewed, he was still doing volunteer work for a substance-abuse program in the Boston area. He earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from Northwestern University, and his research among the Washoe focused on epidemiology. Together with his wife, Freda, he was author of an article on social factors affecting Washoe hypertension.

Edgar Siskin
At the time of his interviews, Edgar Siskin was the director of the Jerusalem Center for Anthropological Studies, having received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Yale University. He was also an ordained rabbi and was most recently the author of Washo Shamans and Peyotists. Dr. Siskin passed away in 2001.

Anita Spring
Anita Spring is a professor of anthropology at the University of Florida. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University. For her master's thesis at San Francisco State, she authored Washo Marriage: A Social Institution in Transition.

Betty Reveley Wendt
Betty Reveley Wendt was retired from her position as an English professor at Sonoma State University at the time of her interview. She received her Ph.D. in English Language and Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin.