Shoshone

Shoshone beaded moccasins, Wyoming, ca. 1900
Total population
12,300 (2000)
Regions with significant populations
United States ( Idaho, California, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Wyoming)
Languages
Shoshone, English
Religion
Native American Church, Sun Dance, traditional tribal religion, Christianity, Ghost Dance
Related ethnic groups
Bannock, Goshute, Northern Paiute, Comanche

The Shoshone or Shoshoni (/ʃoʊˈʃoʊniː/ ( listen) or /ʃəˈʃoʊniː/ ( listen)) are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern.

They traditionally spoke the Shoshoni language, a part of the Numic languages branch of the large Uto-Aztecan language family. The Shoshone were sometimes called the Snake Indians by early ethnic European trappers, travelers, and settlers.^[1]

The Northern Shoshone are concentrated in eastern Idaho, western Wyoming, and northeastern Utah. The Northern Shoshone would live in teepees, ride horses, and hunt buffalo.

The Eastern Shoshone tribes lived in Wyoming, northern Colorado and Montana. After 1750, warfare and pressure from the Blackfoot, Crow, Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho pushed them south and westward. Some of them moved as far south as Texas, to become the Comanche.

The Western Shoshone tribes lived in Oregon and western Idaho, and ranged from central Idaho, northwestern Utah, central Nevada. Some are also located in California. The Idaho groups of Western Shoshone were called Tukuaduka (sheep eaters), while the Nevada/Utah bands were called the Gosiute or Toi Ticutta (cattail eaters). In California the Timbisha Shoshone (also known as the Death Valley or Panamint Shoshone) have lived for centuries in the Death Valley, Saline Valley, Panamint Valley and surrounding mountains. They have a federally recognized tribal reservation and government at Furnace Creek, California. Shoshone-Paiute have continued to live in the Owens Valley. The Western Shoshone would live in roofless grass huts, hunt birds,fish and rabbits.

The most historically well-known member of the Shoshone tribe may be Sacagawea, of the Lemhi Shoshone band of Northern Shoshone. She accompanied the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and Clark Expedition) with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in their exploration of the Western United States.

History[link]

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"Shoshone at Ft. Washakie, Wyoming Native American reservation. Chief Washakie (at left) extends his right arm." Some of the Shoshones are dancing as the soldiers look on, 1892.

The Shoshone arose out of various cultures of indigenous peoples who had been in the territory for thousands of years. The Shoshone language is one of the Uto-Aztecan languages spoken by numerous peoples ranging from the Great Basin to coastal Southern California in present-day United States, and down through central, western and southern Mexico; into Central America and South America.

As more European-American settlers migrated west, tensions rose with the indigenous people. There were wars throughout the second half of the 19th century. The Northern Shoshone, led by Chief Pocatello, fought during the 1860s with settlers in Idaho (where a city was named for him). As more settlers encroached on Shoshone hunting territory, the natives raided farms and ranches for food, and attacked migrants. The warfare resulted in the Bear River Massacre (1863), when US forces trapped and murdered an estimated 350–500 Northwestern Shoshone, including women and children, who were at their winter encampment. This was the highest number of deaths which the Shoshone suffered by the forces of the United States. Allied with the Bannock, to whom they were related, the Shoshone fought against the United States in the Snake War from 1864–1868. They fought US forces together in 1878 in the Bannock War. In 1876, by contrast, the Shoshone fought alongside the U.S. Army in the Battle of the Rosebud, as it was against their traditional enemies, the Lakota and Cheyenne.

Rabbit-Tail

In 1879 a band of approximately 300 Western Shoshones (known as "Sheepeaters") was involved in the Sheepeater Indian War. It was the last Indian war fought in the Pacific Northwest region of the present-day United States.

In 1911 a small group of Bannock under a leader named "Shoshone Mike" killed four ranchers in Washoe County, Nevada.^[2] The settlers formed a posse and went out after the Native Americans. They caught up with the band on February 26, 1911 and killed eight. They lost one man of the posse, Ed Hogle.^[3] The posse captured three children and a woman. The partial remains of three adult males, two adult females, two adolescent males, and three children, believed to be Shoshone Mike and his family, according to contemporary accounts, were donated by a rancher to the Smithsonian Institution for study. In 1994, the institution repatriated the remains to the Fort Hall Idaho Shoshone-Bannock Tribe.^[4]

In 2008, the Northwestern Shoshone acquired the site of the Bear River Massacre and some surrounding land. They wanted to protect the holy land and build a memorial to the massacre, the largest their nation had suffered. "In partnership with the American West Heritage Center and state leaders in Idaho and Utah, the tribe has developed public/private partnerships to advance tribal cultural preservation and economic development goals." They have become a leader in developing tribal renewable energy.^[5]

Historic population[link]

In 1845 the estimated population of Northern and Western Shoshone was 4,500, much reduced after they had suffered infectious disease epidemics and warfare. The completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 was followed by Euro-American immigrants arriving in unprecedented numbers in the territory.

In 1937 the Bureau of Indian Affairs counted 3,650 Northern Shoshone and 1,201 Western Shoshone. As of the 2000 census, there are 12,000 Shoshone.

Reservations and Native American colonies[link]

Shoshoni tipi, c. 1890

• Battle Mountain Reservation, Lander County, Nevada
• Big Pine Reservation, central Owens Valley, Inyo County, California; Owens Valley Paiute Shoshone
• Bishop Community of the Bishop Colony, northern Owens Valley, Inyo County, California;
• Death Valley Indian Community, Furnace Creek, Death Valley National Park, California; Timbisha Shoshone
• Duck Valley Indian Reservation, southern Idaho/northern Nevada, (Western) Shoshone-Paiute Tribes
• Duckwater Indian Reservation, located in Duckwater, Nevada, approximately 75 miles (121 km) from Ely.
• Elko Indian Colony, Elko County, Nevada
• Ely Shoshone Indian Reservation in Ely, Nevada, 111 acres (0.45 km²), 500 members
• Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Reservation near Fallon, Nevada, 8,200 acres (33 km²), 991 members, Western Shoshone and Paiute
• Fort Hall Indian Reservation, 544,000 acres (2,201 km²) in Idaho, Lemhi Shoshone with the Bannock Indians, a Paiute band with which they have merged
• Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation, Nevada and Oregon, Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe
• Goshute Indian Reservation, 111,000 acres (449 km²) in Nevada and Utah, Western Shoshone
• Lemhi Indian Reservation (1875–1907) in Idaho, Lemhi Shoshone, removed to Fort Hall Reservation
• Lone Pine Community of the Lone Pine Reservation, lower Owens Valley, Inyo County, California; Owens Valley Paiute Shoshone
• Nevada Shoshone Indian Reservation, near Carson City, Nevada, 211 members
• Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Nevada, 1988 acres (8 km²), total 481 members of Shoshone, Paiute, and Washoe bands
• Skull Valley Indian Reservation, 18,000 acres (73 km²) in Utah, Western Shoshone
• South Fork Odgers Ranch Indian Colony, Elko County, Nevada
• Wells Indian Colony, Elko County, Nevada
• Wind River Reservation, population 2,650 Eastern Shoshone, 2,268,008 acres (9,178 km²) of reservation in Wyoming are shared with the Northern Arapaho

See also[link]

• Chief Washakie
• Battle of Kelley Creek
• Old Toby
• Bear Hunter
• Mary Dann and Carrie Dann
• Shoshone language
• United States v. Shoshone Tribe of Indians
• Western Shoshone traditional narratives

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Gould, Drusilla & Loether, Christopher (2002). An introduction to the Shoshoni language: dammen da̲igwape. University of Utah Press. ISBN 9780874807295. http://books.google.com/books?id=lJxkAAAAMAAJ. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Shoshoni

The Dann Sisters, Mary Dann (1923-2005) and Carrie Dann (c. 1932- ), are Western Shoshone elders who are spiritual leaders, ranchers, and cultural, spiritual rights and land rights activists. Mary Dann died in 2005.

In 1993 the Dann sisters received the Right Livelihood Award.^[1]

History[link]

In 1863 the US made the peace Treaty of Ruby Valley with the Western Shoshone, which was to allow US citizens safe passage through their territory and permit mining for gold on their land. It defined their territory as what is now a large portion of Nevada and four other states, as well as the underlying mineral rights, and said the Shoshone would never have to give up their land.^[2] Over the ensuing decades, the US acquired much of the Western Shoshone land, largely by Congressional legislation. Most of the land is now publicly held by federal agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the Department of Interior and the Department of Energy (DOE). It used some of the land for nuclear testing, and has conducted more than 100 atmospheric tests, "more than anywhere else in the world." DOE has detonated nearly 1000 bombs.^[3]

The Western Shoshone filed suit decades ago to try to reclaim their land. In 1962 the now defunct Indian Claims Court ruled the Shoshone had lost control of their land due to settler encroachment and were not entitled to any claim from the US government.^[4] As the case proceeded, in 1979 the Indian Claims Commission awarded a $26 million land claim settlement to the Western Shoshone. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1985 that the Shoshone land claims were extinguished by the financial settlement. The Shoshone refused to take the money, which is earning interest. Eighty percent of the Shoshone who voted on the issue were against accepting the financial settlement; instead, they asked the US to respect the terms of the 1863 treaty. Some Shoshone have wanted the tribe to take the money and distribute and invest it for the welfare of the tribe.^[4]

Since 1973, the Dann sisters conducted civil protest by ranching and refusing to pay grazing fees to BLM to run their cattle on what was former Shoshone land.^[4] They contended the US had taken the land illegally and not abided by the terms of its treaty. In 1982 some tribal members organized the Western Shoshone National Council as a governmental group; they elected Raymond Yowell as chief. It is an alternative to what they call the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) governments of the Duckwater and Yomba reservations, which are federally recognized tribes. Yowell has worked to ensure the tribes do not accept the settlement money (up to $100 million in 1998) because that would extinguish their claims to their former territory.^[2]

In 1998 BLM issued trespass notices to the Danns and Raymond Yowell, chief of the Western Shoshone Nation, ordering their removal of hundreds of cows and horses from public lands in Eureka County, Nevada.^[2] Carrie and Mary Dann filed a request for urgent action with the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. They had been active in the movement to recover millions of acres of land in Nevada and bordering states that originally belonged to the Western Shoshone tribe.

The Dann sisters persuaded the UN of their case. It ordered the US government to halt all actions against the Western Shoshone people, a mandate which was mostly ignored.^[4]

Mary Dann[link]

Mary Dann (January 2, 1923 – April 22, 2005) was a Native American activist. She died from an accident on her ranch in central Nevada on April 22, 2005.^[5][6]

Carrie Dann[link]

Carrie Dann (c. 1932- ) is a Western Shoshone spiritual elder and activist for land and tribal rights.

On April 1, 2007, Carrie Dann was arrested with 38 other activists for trespassing at the Nevada Test Site at a Nevada Desert Experience event protesting governmental programs at the site.^[7][8] She has continued with activities to try to end nuclear testing and programs at the site.

In November 2008 Dann, with members of the Western Shoshone Defense Project and four other tribal and public interest groups, sued in federal court against the US and Canadian Barrick Gold, seeking an injunction to stop the "largest open pit cyanide heap leach gold mines in the United States - the Cortez Hills Expansion Project on Mt. Tenabo," which the Western Shoshone consider sacred land. In addition to spiritual concerns, tribal and other groups are concerned about the proposed project's environmental impact on water, air and ground quality.^[1]

References[link]

External Links[link]

• Photographs of the Dann sisters by Ilka Hartmann
• Treaty of Ruby Valley (1863)
• Western Shoshone Defense Project

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