Shoshone

Shoshone around their tipi, probably taken around 1890

The Shoshone (also spelled Shoshoni) are a Native American tribe with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern. The Northern are concentrated in eastern Idaho, western Wyoming, and north-eastern Utah. The Eastern lived in Wyoming, northern Colorado and Montana. Conflict with the Blackfoot, Crow, Lakota, Cheyennes, and Arapahos pushed them south and westward after about 1750. The Western ranged from central Idaho, northwestern Utah, central Nevada, and in California about Death Valley and Panamint Valley. This group is sometimes called the Panamint. The Idaho groups of Western Shoshone were called Tukuaduka (sheep eaters), while the Nevada/Utah ones were called the Gosiute or Toi Ticutta (cattail eaters). The estimated population of Northern and Western Shoshone was 4,500 in 1845. 3,650 Northern Shoshone and 1,201 Western Shoshone were counted in 1937 by the United States Office of Indian Affairs.

History

The Europeans encountered hundreds of native tribes occupying vast territories of this mineral-rich country, and they quickly recognized the potential wealth to be gained by tapping into the natural resources of the land which was by all rights, Shoshone land. However, they were very callous and indifferent at best to the cultural, intellectual and spiritual riches of the Indians.

The "New World" was seen as a melting pot for riches, and the Shoshone were enslaved and treated as pagan slaves by the religious zealots from Spain and England. Those who could no longer resist the westward expansion of the Europeans were converted to christianity and made "civilized."

The Shoshone had no idea that their freedom and way of life was about to become yolked and extinguished. After they signed a treaty on August 7, 1855 in good faith, the US Government refused to ratify the treaty. They claimed that it was because Garland Hunt, who was the Indian Agent, had overstepped his authority in offering the Shoshoni Indians the treaty. The Shoshone then realized that their word had no significance to the white man, and thatjust because they signed a document of peace didn't mean that it would be honored. Disheartening as it was, they realized that they could never defeat all of the white man. Most fought bravely and were slaughtered, while some became resigned to being dishonorably treated lived on in slavery.

Before the ink had dried on the peace treaty of 1863, the white man had already begun to inhabit Shoshone lands, and the authorities did nothing to stop the influx of the invasion. They were granted a small plot of land after Nevada officially became a recognized state, which was thousands of miles less than they were accustomed to roaming.

Lewis and Clark

On May 14, 1804, Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Lt. William Clark, charged by President Thomas Jefferson with finding a route to the Pacific Ocean, embarked from Camp Dubois, Ill., on the east bank of the Mississippi River, upstream from St. Louis. They were accompanied by a group of botonists and outdoor survivalists, consisting of 33 people, known as the “Corps of Discovery." They arrived at Oregon’s Pacific coast in November of 1805 and returned to St. Louis on Sept. 23, 1806. To commemorate the Lewis and Clark expedition, as well as the Louisiana Purchase, the U.S. Mint produced four versions of a redesigned Jefferson nickel, which replaced Jefferson’s home, Monticello, on the coin’s reverse side.

Sacagawea (c. 1787 – December 20, 1812) was a Shoshone woman who accompanied the Corps of Discovery with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in their exploration of the Western United States, traveling thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean. At the age of about thirteen, Sacagawea was taken as a wife by Toussaint Charbonneau, a French trapper living in the Hidatsa village, who had also taken another young Shoshone named Otter Woman as a wife.Charbonneau is said to have either purchased both wives from the Hidatsa, or to have won Sacagawea while gambling. Sacagawea was pregnant with her first child when the Corps of Discovery arrived near the Hidatsa villages to spend the winter of 1804-1805. Carrying an infant child, she maintained her translating duties, while simultaneously leading the expedition through the Northwest to the Pacific Coast.

Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark built Fort Mandan and interviewed several trappers who might be able to translate or guide the expedition further up the river in the springtime. They agreed to hire Charbonneau as an interpreter when they discovered his wife spoke the Shoshone language, as they knew they would need the help of the Shoshone tribes at the headwaters of the Missouri River.

In April, the expedition left Fort Mandan and headed up the Missouri River in pirogues, which had to be poled and sometimes pulled from the riverbanks. On May 14, 1805, Sacagawea rescued items that had fallen out of a capsized boat, including the journals and records that Lewis and Clark were keeping. The corps commanders, who praised her quick action on this occasion, would name the Sacagawea River in her honor on May 20. By August 1805 the corps had located a Shoshone tribe and was attempting to trade for horses to cross the Rocky Mountains. Sacagawea was brought in to translate, and it was discovered the tribe's chief was her brother Cameahwait.

Clark's journal recorded the reunion:

"August 17 Saturday 1805 The Interpreter & Squar who were before me at Some distance danced for joyful sight, and She make signs to me that they were her nation [...] the meeting of those people was effecting, particular between Sah cah gar we ah and an Indian woman, who had been taken prisoner at the same time with her and who, had afterwards escaped from the Minnetares [Hidatsa] and rejoined her nation…"

Washakie (c. 1804/1808-1900) was a renowned warrior who first appears in 1840 in the written record of the American fur trapper, Osborne Russell. In 1851, at the urging of trapper Jim Bridger, Washakie led a band of Shoshones to the council meetings of the Treaty of Fort Laramie. Essentially from that time until his death, he was considered the head of the Eastern Shoshones by the representatives of the United States government.

Much about Washakie's early life remains unknown, although several family traditions suggest similar origins. He was born to a Flathead (Salish) father and Lemhi Shoshone mother, two tribal groups that were frequent hunting and trading partners. Their territories basically were separated by the Bitterroot Mountains of the Rocky Mountains, with the Lemhis occupying the Salmon River country of Idaho and the Flathead Salish claiming the Bitterroot Valley. Washakie's birth name may have been Pinaquana ("Smell of Sugar") and he may have had other names before being called Washakie. During his early childhood, the Blackfeet Indians attacked a combined camp of Flathead and Lemhi people while the latter were on a buffalo hunt near the Three Forks area of Montana (where the Gallatin, Madison, and Jefferson rivers form the headwaters of the Missouri River). Washakie's father was killed; his mother and at least one sister were able to make their way back to the Lemhis on the Salmon River in Idaho. In the melee of the attack, Washakie was lost and possibly wounded. According to some family traditions, he was found by either a band of Bannock Indians who had also come to hunt in the region, or by a combined Shoshone and Bannock band. He may have become the adopted son of the band leader, but for the next two-and-one-half decades (c. 1815-1840) he learned the traditions and the ways of a warrior that were typical of any Shoshone youth of that period.

Statue in Bismarck, ND

A statue of Sacagawea and baby Pomp appears on the grounds of the North Dakota State Capitol, and a replica of it represents North Dakota in the National Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol. The Northern Shoshone fought conflicts with settlers in Idaho in the 1860s which included the Bear River Massacre. They fought with the U.S. Army in the 1876 Battle of the Rosebud against their traditional enemies, the Lakota and Cheyenne, and again in 1878 in the Bannock War.

His prowess in battle, his efforts for peace, and his commitment to his people's welfare made him one of the most respected leaders in Native American history.

20th century

n 1911 a small group of Bannock under a leader named "Shoshone Mike" killed four ranchers in Washoe County, Nevada. A posse was formed, and on Feb 26, 1911, they caught up with the band, and eight of them were killed, along with one member of the posse, Ed Hogle. Three children and a woman who survived the battle were captured. The remains of some of the members of the band were repatriated from the Smithsonian Institution to the Fort Hall Idaho Shoshone-Bannock Tribe in 1994

In 1982, the Western Shoshone, who also invited "unrepresented tribes," made a declaration of sovereignty and began issuing its own passports as the Western Shoshone National Council.

Washakie holding pipe

Culture

Rabbit-Tail

The Shoshone were largely farmers and hunters. They have a culture rich in family values and tradition, and parents and grandparents bestow the oral history of their ancestors to their children. As with most other Native American groups, the Shoshone have ritual dances to express their gratitude to the earth for planting the seeds in the autumn, and the harvest in the spring.

According to the Shoshone, the Coyote brought them to the lands of the Great Basin. According to mythology, two Shoshone women gave Coyote a basket by two native women coated with pine pitch to make it waterproof. Coyote was supposed to carry this basket to the Great Basin, and was warned against opening the lid. His curious nature overcame him, and when he opened the lid, some of the beings inside jumped out and ran away, which is how they say their ancestors came to dwell in the land of the Great Basin.

Shoshone culture often refers to the rogue coyote as the prankster and the clown, but paradoxically also as the teacher of wisdom and morals passed down in oral tradition through the generations. The tricky old coyote is a crafty animal that was both feared and revered. In many tales the coyote goes from the trickster to the tricked, much as the Warner Brothers cartoon character the "Wiley E. Coyote" who roams the desert plains and mountainous caverns of the American southwest, in which the Shoshone tribes inhabited, constantly playing the role of the scheming predator who can never seem to catch up to his desired prey, the infamous "Road Runner."

Rabbit-Tail

Language

Shoshone is a Native American language spoken by the Shoshone people. Shoshone speaking Native Americans occupy areas of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Montana. The number of people who speak Shoshone has been steadily dwindling over the last few decades, so there are only a few hundred people who speak the language fluently today, although a few thousand know it to one degree or another.

Shoshone is northernmost member of the large Uto-Aztecan language family, which includes over thirty languages whose speakers originally inhabited a vast territory stretching from the Salmon River in central Idaho down into northern and central Mexico. Shoshone belongs to the Numic subbranch of Uto-Aztecan. The word Numic comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for "Person." For example, in Shoshone the word is "neme," in Panamint it is "nümü," and in Southern Paiute the word is "nuwuvi."

Shoshone is an agglutinative language, in which words, especially verbs, tend to be quite complex with several morphemes strung together. Shoshone speaking tribes consist of a loose affiliation of clans and groups. Each tribe occupies a specific area of land.

Contemporary Shoshone

Today, many of the Shoshone tribes are still waiting to become formally recognized by the federal government, along with over 200 other Native American tribes. Much controversy surrounded the U.S. Government's planning to commemorate the bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark expedition in 2006, with many Shoshone and other American Indians protesting the conquests of the white man.

Shoshone live on a number of reservations. Following are some examples.

Wind River Reservation

Flag of the Eastern Shoshone tribe

Wind River Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation shared by the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribes of Native Americans in the central western portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming. It is the seventh-largest Indian reservation in the United States, encompassing a land area of 8,995.733 km² (3,473.272 sq mi). The 2000 census reported a population of 23,250 inhabitants. The largest town is Riverton. Headquarters are at Fort Washakie. Also home to the Wind River Casino (Northern Arapahoe) and Shoshone Rose Casino (Eastern Shoshone), which are the only casinos in Wyoming.

Duck Valley Indian Reservation

Duck Valley Indian Reservation was established as a homeland for members of both the Shoshone and Paiute tribes. It lies on the state line between Idaho and Nevada in the western United States. Archaeological record attests to the use of these areas for over 15,000 years. These people had villages along the Snake, Bruneau, Owyhee, Boise, Payette, Salmon and Weiser Rivers and their major tributary streams in southwest Idaho. Fishing, hunting, and gathering provided the basis for our ceremonial, subsistence, and economic livelihood. Salmon was the single most important resource.

Ely Shoshone Indian Reservation

Ely Shoshone Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation for the Shoshone people of Nevada, in and near the south side of the city of Ely, in south-central White Pine County. In 2005 it had a population of around 500, a textile business, and its own court system.

Goshute and Skull Valley Indian Reservations

The Goshutes, a Shoshonean people, maintained a territory in the Great Basin extending from the Great Salt Lake to the Steptoe Range in Nevada, and south to Simpson Springs. The tribe once numbered 20,000. Only 500 remain. The name Goshute derived either from a leader named Goship or from Gutsipupiutsi, a Shoshonean word for Desert People. Prior to contact, the Goshutes wintered in the Deep Creek Valley in dug out houses built of willow poles and earth. In the spring and summer they gathered wild onions, carrots and potatoes, and hunted small game in the mountains.

The Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation are composed of Goshute, Paiute and Bannock. The reservation lies on both sides of the Nevada-Utah border, in White Pine County in Nevada, and in Juab County and Tooele County in Utah. It has a land area of 459.517 km² (177.42 sq mi) and a resident population of 105 persons was counted in the 2000 census.

Located about half-way between the Goshute Reservation and Salt Lake City, Utah is the Skull Valley Band of Goshute. The tribe consists of about 125 people, of whom 31 live on an 18,000 acre (73.004 km²) reservation in Utah. The Dugway Proving Grounds lies just south of Skull Valley. To the east is a nerve gas storage facility and to the north is the Magnesium Corporation plant which has had severe environmental problems. The reservation was a proposed location for an 820 acre (3 km²) dry cask storage facility for the storage of 40,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. Only 120 acres are for the actual facility, and the rest of the land is a buffer area. After 8 1/2 years after application, this facility was licensed by the NRC.

Reno-Sparks Indian Colony

The Reno-Sparks Indian Colony is an urban Native American Tribe comprised of members with Washoe, Paiute and Shoshone heritage. The Tribe has a colony in central Reno, Nevada and a reservation in Hungry Valley, which is about 15 miles north of Reno.

The colony started out as a neighborhood in Reno where Native Americans who worked in local businesses and ranches lived. Under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 these people formed a tribal government. The Tribe was later granted land in Hungry Valley for a reservation.

Fort Hall Indian Reservation

File:DSCN6304 forthallreservationelevator e.jpg

Grain elevator on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation

The Fort Hall Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation of the Shoshoni and Bannock people in the U.S. state of Idaho. It is located in southeastern Idaho on the Snake River Plain north of Pocatello, and comprises 2,110.514 km² (814.874 sq mi) of land area in four counties: Bingham, Power, Bannock, and Caribou counties. Founded in 1863, it is named for Fort Hall, a trading post that was an important stop along the Oregon Trail and California Trail in the middle 19th century. The ruins of the fort are located on the reservation. The community of Fort Hall, along Interstate 15, is the largest population center on the reservation. The total population of the reservation was 5,762 at the 2000 census.

The reservation was established by an agreement between the United States and the Shoshone and Bannock tribes in the wake of the Bear River Massacre, in which the United States Army under Colonel Patrick Edward Connor slaughtered over 200 Native Americans in present-day southeastern Idaho. The massacre was the culmination of a long struggle between the Shoshoni and U.S settlers, which included numerous attacks by both sides. The Shoshoni, led by Chief Pocatello, were motivated to attack emigrant parties in part because of the despoliation of natural resources in the region by the increasing tide of settlers. The Mormons, led by Brigham Young, had subsequently pursued a policy of reconciliation with the Shoshoni, but the arrival of the U.S. Army into the Utah Territory in 1858 led to a full-scale conflict between the U.S. and the Shoshoni. Connor led his troops from Fort Douglas in January 1863 in order to "chastise" the Shoshoni. Pocatello was able to receive advance warning of Connor's advance and led his people out of harm's way. He subsequently sued for peace and agreed to relocate his people to the newly-established reservation along the Snake River. The U.S. government agreed to supply the Shoshoni annually with 5,000 dollars in goods.

File:DSCN6307 forthallidahohouses e.jpg

Houses in the town of Fort Hall

File:Bandera Shoshone-Bannock.png

Reservation flag

The reservation, located on the open plains, was not especially amenable to agriculture, and the U.S. government did not always fulfill its obligation of payment of goods. In the years following their relocation, the Shoshoni suffered from disease and hunger. Hoping to relieve his people's suffering, Pocatello led them to a missionary farm in the Utah Territory to receive mass baptism and conversion to Mormonism. Although the Shoshoni received baptism, the local population of settlers agitated for their removal. In response, the U.S. Army forced the Shoshoni back onto the reservation.

The main agriculture on the Ft. Hall Indian Reservation today is the cultivation of wheat and potatoes. The reservation has recently become the site of a casino, The Fort Hall Casino, operated by the Shoshone-Bannock tribes along Interstate 15, exit 80, north of Pocatello.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Fort Hall Reservation and Off-Reservation Trust Land, Idaho United States Census Bureau
• Ditchfield, Christin, The Shoshone: True Books Children's Press CT. ISBN 978-0516246437
• SOnneborn, Liz, The Shoshones" Native American Histories Lerner Publications. ISBN 978-0822528494
• Crum, Steven J., Road On Which We Came: A History Of The Western Shoshone University of Utah Press. ISBN 978-0874805093
• Smith, Anne, Shoshone Tales University Of Utah Press. ISBN 978-0874805703

External links

All links Retrieved November 12, 2007.

• Northern Shoshoni Treaties
• Ely Shoshone
• Goshute Indians
• Reno-Sparks Indian Colony
• Te-Moak Tribe of the Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada
• Timbisha Tribe of the Western Shoshone Nation
• U.S. Treaty with the Western Shoshone 1863, Ruby Valley
• Western Shoshone Defense Project
• Washakie
• Western Shoshone history

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