The Big Pine Band of Owens Valley Paiute Shoshone Indians of the Big Pine Reservation are a federally recognized tribe of Mono and Timbisha Indians in California.
The Big Pine Reservation is located 18 miles (29 km) from Bishop, at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada. The tribal headquarters is in Big Pine, California. [1] The tribe has 462 enrolled members. [1] As of the 2010 Census the reservation had a population of 499. [2]
The Owen Valley Paiutes traditionally spoke a dialect of the Mono language, which is part of the Western Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. [3] : 228 While there are extremely few speakers left, the language is still living today. Their name for themselves in their own language is Numa or "People." [3] : 228 The so-called Shoshone in the community spoke the Timbisha language, which is part of the Central Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family
The Owens Valley Paiute were several Paiute groups that cooperated and lived together in semipermanent camps. They mediated between Californian and Great Basin culture. They irrigated crops along the Owens Valley, a highly arable and ecologically diverse region in the southern Sierra Nevada. Their name for themselves was Numa or "People." [3] : 227
The tribe participated in round dances and held annual harvest festivals. Girls had elaborate puberty ceremonies. Mourning was expressed through a ceremony called, "The Cry," which was Yuman in origin and included ritual face washing after a year of mourning. The tribe had both medicine men and women. Hereditary chiefs led the tribe's communal activities. Irrigator was an elected tribal position. [3] : 228
Indian ricegrass and pine nuts were important crops. Hunting supplemented farming, and the tribe hunted rabbits, quail and deer, especially in the summer. The tribe fished for suckers, minnows, and pupfish, as well as brine shrimp. Caterpillar larvae were eaten after being baked and dried. [3] : 228–9 Wild foods were gathered, such as acorns, cattails, and berries. [3] : 229
Popular traditional games include shinny, the four-stick game, hoop and pole, dice games, and handgame, [3] : 228 the last of which is still very popular today.
In the early 19th century, European-Americans, such as trappers and gold prospectors encountered the Owens Valley Paiute. US military surveyors explored the region in the mid-19th century, planning to establish a reservation for the local Indians. Non-Indians settled in the valley in 1861. Increasing numbers of European-Americans fought with the local tribe for water and farmlands. A military outpost, Camp Independence was built in 1862, and the non-Indians fought with the tribes, destroyed their crops, and were able to seize the best lands. [3] : 228
I have the honor to report to the general commanding the Department of the Pacific that I have been in this valley fifteen days, carrying out my instructions to chastise these Indians, or the Indians of Owens River; that I have killed several, taken eleven prisoners, and destroyed a great many rancherias and a large quantity of seeds, worms, &c., that the Indians had gathered for food.
— GEO. S. EVANS, Lieutenant-Colonel Second Cavalry California Volunteers, Commanding Owens River Expedition, War of the Rebellion: OPERATIONS ON THE PACIFIC COAST. Chapter LXII. [4]
In the early 19th century, the Paiutes numbered 7,500, [3] : 227 with about 1,500 to 2,000 Owens Valley Paiutes. [3] : 228 In the 1990s an estimated 2,500 Owens Valley Paiutes lived on reservations.
Meanwhile, the Timbisha (Panamint or Death Valley Shoshone) Native Americans relocated from ancestral homelands to be with the Owens Valley Northern Paiute. A reservation was not established until 1912. [3] : 228
In order to provide water needs for the growing City of Los Angeles, water was diverted from the Owens River into the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. The Owens River Valley cultures and environments changed substantially. From the 1910s to 1930s the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power purchased much of the valley for water rights and control, effectively destroying the local economy. In the 1940s the US federal government developed the Indian lands with housing and water systems. [3] : 228
The Big Pine Reservation was established in 1912 and is 279 acres (1.13 km2) large, located along US 395 in the high desert town of Big Pine, California. Much of the area houses were built by the Indian Housing Authority. There is a school, with classes from kindergarten to 12th grade adjacent to the reservation. A 1,500-volume public library is located within the school. Tribal members raise horses on the reservation lands. [5]
The Big Pine Band of Owens Valley of Paiute Indians have an elected five Tribal Council that carry out tribal business, oversee financing, provide education, utilities, housing and social services, preserving heritage, and protecting the environment. The listed positions are Cheyenne Stone serving as Chairperson, Deanne Cheshire serving as Vice Chairperson, Tawny Williams serving as Member-At-Large, and Ashlee Dondero serving as Treasurer. [6]
One of many departments the Big Pine Band of Owens Valley of Paiute Indians is the Environmental Department. And its objectives are to maintain an environmental planning program, protect the health and safety of residents and visitors, comply with applicable environmental laws and regulations, and be involved to protect the water, air, and land. The staff of the Environmental Department consists of Sally Manning serving as Environmental Director, Noah Williams serving as Water Program Coordinator, Cynthia Duriscoe serving as Air Program Coordinator, Gregory Spratt serving as Solid Waste Technician, and Joe Miller serving as Community Garden Specialist. [7]
The Big Pine Paiute Development Corporation (BPPDC) is a corporation chartered by the Big Pine Paiute Tribe of the Owens Valley with a five-member board. The corporation is responsible for the development of the tribal economy to be self-sufficient, business development, tribal employment and improve the quality of life of the Big Pine Band of Owens Valley of Paiute tribe's citizens. [8]
The reservation is served by the Big Pine Unified School District.
Paiute refers to three non-contiguous groups of indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three languages do not form a single subgroup and they are no more closely related to each than they are to the Central Numic languages which are spoken between them. The term "Paiute" does not refer to a single, unique, unified group of Great Basin tribes, but is a historical label comprising:
Owens Valley is an arid valley of the Owens River in eastern California in the United States. It is located to the east of the Sierra Nevada, west of the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains, and is split between the Great Basin Desert and the Mojave Desert. The mountain peaks on the West side reach above 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in elevation, while the floor of the Owens Valley is about 4,000 feet (1,200 m), making the valley the deepest in the United States. The Sierra Nevada casts the valley in a rain shadow, which makes Owens Valley "the Land of Little Rain". The bed of Owens Lake, now a predominantly dry endorheic alkali flat, sits on the southern end of the valley.
The Northern Paiute people are a Numic tribe that has traditionally lived in the Great Basin region of the United States in what is now eastern California, western Nevada, and southeast Oregon. The Northern Paiutes' pre-contact lifestyle was well adapted to the harsh desert environment in which they lived. Each tribe or band occupied a specific territory, generally centered on a lake or wetland that supplied fish and waterfowl. Communal hunt drives, which often involved neighboring bands, would take rabbits and pronghorn from surrounding areas. Individuals and families appear to have moved freely among the bands.
Shoshoni, also written as Shoshoni-Gosiute and Shoshone, is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken in the Western United States by the Shoshone people. Shoshoni is primarily spoken in the Great Basin, in areas of Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and Idaho.
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions:
The Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin are Native Americans of the northern Great Basin, Snake River Plain, and upper Colorado River basin. The "Great Basin" is a cultural classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas and a cultural region located between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, in what is now Nevada, and parts of Oregon, California, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. The Great Basin region at the time of European contact was ~400,000 sq mi (1,000,000 km2). There is very little precipitation in the Great Basin area which affects the lifestyles and cultures of the inhabitants.
Timbisha (Tümpisa) or Panamint is the language of the Native American people who have inhabited the region in and around Death Valley, California, and the southern Owens Valley since late prehistoric times. There are a few elderly individuals who can speak the language in California and Nevada, but none are monolingual, and all use English regularly in their daily lives. Until the late 20th century, the people called themselves and their language "Shoshone." The tribe then achieved federal recognition under the name Death Valley Timbisha Shoshone Band of California. This is an Anglicized spelling of the native name of Death Valley, tümpisa, pronounced, which means "rock paint" and refers to the rich sources of red ochre in the valley. Timbisha is also the language of the so-called "Shoshone" groups at Bishop, Big Pine, Darwin, Independence, and Lone Pine communities in California and the Beatty community in Nevada. It was also the language spoken at the former Indian Ranch reservation in Panamint Valley.
Numic is the northernmost branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. It includes seven languages spoken by Native American peoples traditionally living in the Great Basin, Colorado River basin, Snake River basin, and southern Great Plains. The word Numic comes from the cognate word in all Numic languages for “person”, which reconstructs to Proto-Numic as. For example, in the three Central Numic languages and the two Western Numic languages it is. In Kawaiisu it is and in Colorado River, and.
Western Shoshone comprise several Shoshone tribes that are indigenous to the Great Basin and have lands identified in the Treaty of Ruby Valley 1863. They resided in Idaho, Nevada, California, and Utah. The tribes are very closely related culturally to the Paiute, Goshute, Bannock, Ute, and Timbisha tribes.
The Mono are a Native American people who traditionally live in the central Sierra Nevada, the Eastern Sierra, the Mono Basin, and adjacent areas of the Great Basin. They are often grouped under the historical label "Paiute" together with the Northern Paiute and Southern Paiute – but these three groups, although related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, do not form a single, unique, unified group of Great Basin tribes.
The Kawaiisu are a Native Californian ethnic group in the United States who live in the Tehachapi Valley and to the north across the Tehachapi Pass in the southern Sierra Nevada, toward Lake Isabella and Walker Pass. Historically, the Kawaiisu also traveled eastward on food-gathering trips to areas in the northern Mojave Desert, to the north and northeast of the Antelope Valley, Searles Valley, as far east as the Panamint Valley, the Panamint Mountains, and the western edge of Death Valley. Today, some Kawaiisu people are enrolled in the Tule River Indian Tribe.
The Timbisha are a Native American tribe federally recognized as the Death Valley Timbisha Shoshone Band of California. They are known as the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and are located in south central California, near the Nevada border. As of the 2010 Census the population of the Village was 124. The older members still speak the ancestral language, also called Timbisha.
The Tübatulabal are an indigenous people of Kern River Valley in the Sierra Nevada range of California. They may have been the first people to make this area their permanent home. Today many of them are enrolled in the Tule River Indian Tribe. They are descendants of the people of the Uto-Aztecan language group, separating from Shoshone people about 3000 years ago.
The Cold Springs Rancheria of Mono Indians of California is a federally recognized tribe of Mono Native Americans. Cold Springs Rancheria is the tribe's reservation, which is located in Fresno County, California. As of the 2010 Census the population was 184.
The Bridgeport Indian Colony of California, formerly known as the "Bridgeport Paiute Indian Colony of California", is a federally recognized tribe of Northern Paiute Indians in Mono County, California, United States.
The Fort Bidwell Indian Community of the Fort Bidwell Reservation of California is a federally recognized tribe of Northern Paiute Indians in Modoc County in the northeast corner of California.
The Bishop Paiute Tribe, formerly known as the Paiute-Shoshone Indians of the Bishop Community of the Bishop Colony is a federally recognized tribe of Mono and Timbisha Indians of the Owens Valley, in Inyo County of eastern California. As of 2022, the United States census showed the Bishop Paiute Tribe's population at 1,914.
The Paiute-Shoshone Indians of the Lone Pine Community of the Lone Pine Reservation is a federally recognized tribe of Mono and Timbisha Native American Indians near Lone Pine in Inyo County, California. They are related to the Owens Valley Paiute.
The XL Ranch is an Indian reservation located in Modoc County, north of Burney, California.
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