At A Glance:
Born: Sometime between 1880 and 1883
Died: December 20, 1984
Maiden Name: Dick
Race/Nationality/Ethnic Background: Native American, (Northern Paiute tribe)
Married: Jimmy George
Children: Eight (several died in infancy)
Primary City and County of Residence and Work:
Fallon (Churchill County)
Major Fields of Work: Folk arts (preserving Paiute crafts and customs)
Other Role Identities: Wife, Mother, Household Domestic, Language Interpreter, and Tribal Elder.
Biography
Wuzzie George, a Northern Paiute woman, learned Paiute tribal customs from her grandmother. She then spent an important part of her life teaching and demonstrating her skills and knowledge, thus preserving those tribal traditions. She also preserved Paiute customs through her work with Nevada anthropologist Margaret Wheat. Wuzzie was born sometime between 1880 and 1883 to Sam and Suzie Dick. She was born somewhere in the Nevada mountains during a pine-nut gathering expedition in the fall. Her Paiute name was Wizi?i, meaning “Small Animal,” which is pronounced similar to Wuzzie, the white man’s version of her name. Her ancestors were of the group of Paiutes called “Cattail-Eaters.”
During her childhood, she lived near “Indian Village,” about 60 miles east of Reno near the Carson Desert. The Nevada towns of Fallon and Stillwater are now located where Wuzzie spent most of her life. Wuzzie’s grandparents, who were known as Stovepipe and Mattie, played a major role in shaping her life.
During the 1880s and 1890s, the Northern Paiute Indians were adopting some of the white ways and working for white people. Wuzzie’s father, Sam Dick, worked for a rancher named Charles Kaiser herding sheep, building fence and working as a general ranch hand. This is where he learned to speak English. Wuzzie’s mother, Suzie, washed dishes at John Sanford’s hotel in Stillwater. While her mother worked, Wuzzie spent her days with grandmother Mattie, who taught Wuzzie the traditional skills of the “Cattail-Eaters.”
Wuzzie and Grandmother Mattie began each day by gathering greasewood for the hotel’s kitchen stove. In exchange, they were given breakfast. Afterwards, they spent their days walking to the sloughs and rivers to fish. They gathered berries and tules, dug roots, and collected pine pollen and honeydew from the cane. Wuzzie learned to make the baskets that were used to carry water, berries, nuts and seeds, and her grandmother taught her how to gather duck eggs and hunt ducks.
While they worked, Grandmother Mattie told Wuzzie stories about her life and her tribe’s first contact with whites, such as this one:
“Before the [1860] war at Pyramid Lake, the Indians lived in tule houses for miles along the Carson Slough. Indians lived everyplace. Smoke all over when Indians built their fires in morning. That’s what my grandmother said. When soldiers threw poison in river lots of them died. Killed lots of them. After that, not so many. My people in the mountains that time. That’s what my grandma and grandpa always say. Stay over there on the mountains all winter, make house over there on mountain. That’s why they never catch it, the poison. We call that place, where Indians died, ‘people’s bones’… ”
When Wuzzie was ten years old, her parents separated. Wuzzie moved away from her grandmother and went with her mother, Suzie, to the Ernst ranch. There she worked for white people for the first time. Her job was to iron towels, and being a small child, she had to stand on a box to reach the ironing board. She also watched a herd of sheep. Her wages were ten cents a day, which she spent on candy at Jim Richard’s store. Mrs. Ernst talked to Wuzzie while she worked, so Wuzzie began to learn English.
When her mother died, Wuzzie’s father took her to live with his mother in Virginia City. She was not there long before she was moved to Carson City to enroll in the new Indian School. Her father removed her from school after just six months, fearing [Accessed 2018-03-22]
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