Northern Shoshone

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Northern Shoshone
Native Americans from Southeastern Idaho, Lemhi. Chief. Tindoor - NARA - 519297.jpg
Tindoor, chief of the Lemhi Shoshone and his wife, Idaho, ca. 1897, photograph by Benedicte Wrensted
Regions with significant populations
Flag of the United States.svg  United States (Flag of Idaho.svg  Idaho,Flag of Utah.svg  Utah, Flag of Wyoming.svg  Wyoming)
Languages
Shoshone, [1] English
Religion
Native American Church, Sun Dance,
traditional tribal religion, [2] Christianity, Ghost Dance
Related ethnic groups
other Shoshone people, Bannock
Map of traditional lands of the Northern Shoshone Northern Shoshone map.svg
Map of traditional lands of the Northern Shoshone

Northern Shoshone are Shoshone of the Snake River Plain of southern Idaho and the northeast of the Great Basin where Idaho, Wyoming and Utah meet. They are culturally affiliated with the Bannock people and are in the Great Basin classification of Indigenous People.

Contents

Language

Northern Shoshone is a dialect of the Shoshone language, a Central Numic language in the Uto-Aztecan language family. It is primarily spoken on the Fort Hall and Wind River reservations in Idaho and Wyoming, respectively. [1]

Bands

Bands of Shoshone people were named for their geographic homelands and for their primary foodsources.

Mountain Shoshone bands:

Northwestern Shoshone bands:

  • Kammitikka, Kamu-deka or Kamodika (Jack Rabbit Eaters, Black Tailed Rabbit Eaters, Bannock Creek Shoshone), Snake River, Great Salt Lake [3] living from a base on Bannock Creek and Arbon Valley, they claimed lands extending from Raft River to the Portneuf River and Portneuf Range in northern Utah and southern Idaho. Their territory took in part of the Fort Hall Reservation when it was established in 1867. In 1873, the three major Bannock Creek bands (Chief Pocatello, with 101 people; San Pitch, with 124; and Sagwitch, with 158) moved to the reservation at Fort Hall. A small group went to Wind River; possibly synonymous with Hukundüka or Hukan-deka (Porcupine Grass Seed Eaters, Wild Wheat Eaters). [3]
  • Painkwitikka or Pengwideka (Penkwitikka, Fish Eaters, Bear Lake Shoshone), ranged from McCammon to Bear Lake along the Bear River and Logan River in the border region between Idaho and Utah, and on over to the continental divide, they lived generally north of the Cache Valley Shoshone band.
  • Cache Valley Shoshone ranged into Idaho and Utah with their major base in Cache Valley - called in Shoshone Seuhubeogoi - ″Willow Valley″ - and on the lower reaches of Bear River not far from the later Wyoming border. They were practically wiped out at the Bear River Massacre (Battle of Bear River) (Idaho’s largest Indian battle), January 29, 1863, by Colonel P. E. Connor’s California Volunteers. Followed two months later by a similarly destructive campaign by Jefferson Standifer’s Placerville Volunteers against the Shoshone at Salmon Falls; this fight led to a series of Shoshone and Bannock treaties (Fort Bridger, July 2; Box Elder, July 30; Ruby Valley, October 1; Soda Springs, October 14) affecting Idaho, as well as the Tooele Valley Band of Goshute of the Western Shoshone. The survivors settled on Fort Hall Reservation.
  • Weber Utes, a Shoshone band farther south along the Weber River to the Great Salt Lake in Utah, because having intermarried with neighboring Cumumba Band of Utes, they speak the same dialect as the other Northwestern bands with a slight Ute accent, and were therefore usually called Weber Utes - but they speak Shoshone and are primarily of Shoshone stock; were overlooked in the treaty-making process and never got a reservation, Chief Little Soldier headed the misnamed "Weber Ute" band of about 400 people.

Fort Hall Shoshone Bands:

Western Bands of Northern Shoshone:

  • Yahandeka or Yahantikka (Yakandika, Groundhog Eaters, grouped into three main geographical groupings of mixed Northern Shoshone-Northern Paiute bands):
    • Boise Shoshone, among the early mounted Shoshone bands, they traveled over a considerable range by the beginning of the nineteenth century, with their main hunting lands along the lower Boise River and Payette River. When Donald MacKenzie developed the Snake country fur trade after 1818, the most prominent of the Boise Shoshone, Peiem (a Shoshoni rendition of “Big Jim”, their leader’s English name), became the most influential leader of the large composite Shoshoni band that white trappers regularly encountered in the Snake country. Peiem served as the most important Shoshone spokesman at MacKenzie’s great peace conference on Little Lost River in 1820, and figured conspicuously in Shoshone affairs when Alexander Ross and Peter Skeene Ogden led the Snake expedition later in the decade. Peiem’s son, and successor, Captain Jim, was a leader of the Boise Shoshone at the time of their removal, March 12-April 13, to the Fort Hall Reservation, which had been established for the Boise and Bruneau Shoshone, June 14, 1867, a mixed Shoshone-Northern Paiute group of Koa'aga'itöka ("Salmon Caught in Traps Eaters") of Northern Paiute and local Northern Shoshone groups.
    • Bruneau Shoshone, were not organized into bands, occupied southwestern Idaho, mainly south of Snake River along the Bruneau River and from Goose Creek to Owyhee River, when the gold rush to Boise Basin brought settlers in after 1862, a mixed Shoshone-Northern Paiute group of Tagötöka/Taga Ticutta ("Root Tuber Eaters") and Wadadökadö/Wadatika (Waadadikady) ("Wada Root and Grass-seed Eaters") of Northern Paiute and local Northern Shoshone groups. After their treaty of April 12, 1866, went unratified, the Fort Hall Reservation was set aside partly for them. Later in 1877, the Duck Valley Reservation was established in their lands.
    • Weiser Shoshone or Shewoki / Sohuwawki Shoshone, lived along the lower Weiser River to New Plymouth, [3] [4] this country was called Shewoki, si.wo.kki?i or Su:woki - "willow-striped" or "Row of Willows" by the Shoshone, some of whom resisted placement on the Malheur Reservation, finally settled at Fort Hall and on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation, a mixed Shoshone-Northern Paiute group of Wadadökadö/Wadatika (Waadadikady) ("Wada Root and Grass-seed Eaters") and Koa'aga'itöka ("Salmon Caught in Traps Eaters") of Northern Paiute and Shoshone groups from Bruneau and Boise Rivers.

Tribes and reservations

The Northern Shoshone have people who are members of three federally recognized tribes in Idaho and Utah:

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Shoshoni." Ethnologue. Retrieved 20 Oct 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 Loether, Christopher. "Shoshones." Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Retrieved 20 Oct 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Murphy and Murphy 306
  4. 1 2 3 Murphy and Murphy 287
  5. Idaho State Historical Society Reference Series: SHOSHONI AND NORTHERN PAIUTE INDIANS IN IDAHO
  6. 1 2 DIVERSITY IN COSMOLOGY: THE CASE OF THE WIND RIVER SHOSHONI
  7. "Eastern Shoshone Working Dictionary" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-09-12. Retrieved 2013-11-04.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lemhi County, Idaho</span> County in Idaho, United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Paiute people</span> Native American tribe in eastern California

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shoshoni language</span> Uto-Aztecan language spoken in western US

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:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Hall</span> Fortification

Fort Hall was a fort in the western United States that was built in 1834 as a fur trading post by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth. It was located on the Snake River in the eastern Oregon Country, now part of present-day Bannock County in southeastern Idaho. Wyeth was an inventor and businessman from Boston, Massachusetts, who also founded a post at Fort William, in present-day Portland, Oregon, as part of a plan for a new trading and fisheries company. Unable to compete with the powerful British Hudson's Bay Company, based at Fort Vancouver, in 1837 Wyeth sold both posts to it. Great Britain and the United States both operated in the Oregon Country in these years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washakie</span> Eastern Shoshone chief

Washakie was a prominent leader of the Shoshone people during the mid-19th century. He was first mentioned 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. In 1979, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Hall Indian Reservation</span> Indian reservation in United States, Shoshone-Bannock

The Fort Hall Reservation is a Native American reservation of the federally recognized Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in the U.S. state of Idaho. This is one of five federally recognized tribes in the state. The reservation is located in southeastern Idaho on the Snake River Plain about 20 miles (32 km) north and west of Pocatello. It comprises 814.874 sq mi (2,110.51 km2) of land area in four counties: Bingham, Power, Bannock, and Caribou. To the east is the 60-mile-long (97 km) Portneuf Range; both Mount Putnam and South Putnam Mountain are located on the Fort Hall Reservation.

The Bannock War of 1878 was an armed conflict between the U.S. military and Bannock and Paiute warriors in Idaho and northeastern Oregon from June to August 1878. The Bannock totaled about 600 to 800 in 1870 because of other Shoshone peoples being included with Bannock numbers. they were led by Chief Buffalo Horn, who was killed in action on June 8, 1878. After his death, Chief Egan led the Bannocks. He and some of his warriors were killed in July by a Umatilla party that entered his camp in subterfuge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Numic languages</span> Uto-Aztecan language branch of US

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bannock people</span> Indigenous people of North America

The Bannock tribe were originally Northern Paiute but are more culturally affiliated with the Northern Shoshone. They are in the Great Basin classification of Indigenous People. Their traditional lands include northern Nevada, southeastern Oregon, southern Idaho, and western Wyoming. Today they are enrolled in the federally recognized Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation of Idaho, located on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Shoshone</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Winnemucca (Paiute leader)</span> Native American Northern Paiute war chief (c. 1820–1882)

Winnemucca was a Northern Paiute war chief. He was born a Shoshone around 1820 in what would later become the Oregon Territory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duck Valley Indian Reservation</span> Indian reservation in United States, Shoshone-Paiute

The Duck Valley Indian Reservation was established in the 19th century for the federally recognized Shoshone-Paiute Tribe. It is isolated in the high desert of the western United States, and lies on the state line, the 42nd parallel, between Idaho and Nevada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Idaho Territory in the American Civil War</span>

The history of Idaho in the American Civil War is atypical, as the territory was far from the battlefields.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tukudeka</span>

The Tukudeka or Mountain Sheepeaters are a band of Shoshone within the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Shoshone. Before the reservation era, they traditionally lived in the central Sawtooth Range of Idaho and the mountains of what is now northwest Wyoming. Bands were very fluid and nomadic, and they often interacted with and intermarried other bands of Shoshone. Today the Tukudeka are enrolled in the federally recognized Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation of Idaho and the Eastern Shoshone of the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastern Shoshone</span>

Eastern Shoshone are Shoshone who primarily live in Wyoming and in the northeast corner of the Great Basin where Utah, Idaho and Wyoming meet and are in the Great Basin classification of Indigenous People. They lived in the Rocky Mountains during the 1805 Lewis and Clark Expedition and adopted Plains horse culture in contrast to Western Shoshone that maintained a Great Basin culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lemhi Shoshone</span> Tribe of Northern Shoshone

The Lemhi Shoshone are a tribe of Northern Shoshone, also called the Akaitikka, Agaidika, or "Eaters of Salmon". The name "Lemhi" comes from Fort Lemhi, a Mormon mission to this group. They traditionally lived in the Lemhi River Valley and along the upper Salmon River in Idaho. Bands were very fluid and nomadic, and they often interacted with and intermarried other bands of Shoshone and other tribes, such as the Bannock. Today most of them are enrolled in the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of the Fort Hall Reservation of Idaho.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lemhi Reservation</span>

The Lemhi Reservation was a United States Indian Reservation for the Lemhi Shoshone from 1875 to 1907. During almost all this time their main chief was Tendoy.

References

Further reading