Shoshone
The Shoshone, also known as the Snakes, are a Native American people originally inhabiting a vast region encompassing Death Valley in California, much of Nevada, northwestern Utah, southern Idaho, and western Wyoming. Culturally and linguistically, they are divided into three primary groups: Western, Northern, and Eastern Shoshones. Historically, these groups were generally peaceful with neighboring tribes but engaged in conflicts with Plains tribes such as the Blackfoot and Sioux over hunting grounds. The Shoshones adapted their lifestyles to the diverse environments they occupied, exhibiting remarkable resourcefulness by migrating in small bands to use available resources sustainably. Their traditional practices involved hunting, gathering, and fishing, with a significant reliance on buffalo hunting among Northern and Eastern Shoshones after the introduction of horses in the 18th century.
Following European American contact, particularly during the westward expansion fueled by gold discoveries, the Shoshones faced displacement and the imposition of reservations, leading to significant loss of land. Today, the Shoshone continue to confront challenges such as poverty, lack of educational opportunities, and cultural preservation. They have actively engaged in legal battles for their rights, including issues related to land, water, and compensation, reflecting their resilience and adaptability in contemporary society.
Shoshone
Category: Tribe
Culture area: Great Basin
Language group: Uto-Aztecan
Primary location: California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming
Population size:7,459 (2021 American Community Survey)
At first European American contact, the Shoshones (also known as the Snakes) occupied the area around Death Valley in California, much of Nevada and northwestern Utah (Western Shoshones, including the Panamint), southern Idaho (Northern Shoshones), and western Wyoming (Eastern Shoshones). Culturally and linguistically, the three groups form a single unit. The Shoshones were generally at peace with their Uto-Aztecan neighbors—the Utes, Paiutes, and Bannocks—but the Northern and Eastern Shoshones often fought the Blackfoot, Sioux, and Cheyennes when they moved onto the Plains to hunt buffalo. They resisted the invasion of their homeland by European Americans but were eventually settled on reservations and in tribal groupings scattered around their original territory.
Early History and Traditional Lifestyle
The origin of the Shoshones and their entry into the Great Basin is not well documented. Prehistoric Indians in the Basin had a lifestyle much like that of the Western Shoshones, but many students of the region believe that the Shoshones did not develop directly from Great Basin ancestors. Instead, they think the Shoshones moved into the Basin from its southwest corner between one thousand and two thousand years ago. They spread north and east, eventually reaching the Great Plains, into which they expanded north into Canada and east beyond the Black Hills. When the Blackfoot, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes moved west from the eastern woodlands, the Shoshones retreated into the region they occupied at the time of contact.
The Shoshones present an excellent example of a people’s versatile and efficient response to their environment. The groups occupying the Great Basin, where no single resource is available in abundance, made use of the many resources that were present in small amounts or were abundant for a time at a particular location. They used plant seeds (grasses, pines) and vegetative parts of plants (especially camas—a type of lily with edible bulbs). They hunted and trapped whatever game, large (bighorn sheep, deer) or small (rabbits, ground squirrels), was available, and they fished when they had the opportunity (migrating salmon). Because the environment could not support large populations, they migrated around the Great Basin in small bands using resources as they became available. Because available forage was insufficient to support large horse herds, they traveled on foot, using dogs as beasts of burden. In winter, several bands gathered near caves, from which food, collected and stored there during the summer, could be retrieved.
In contrast, the Northern and Eastern Shoshones who moved into the Plains responded to the availability of an abundant and versatile resource: the buffalo. Because an efficient buffalo hunt required large numbers of people, the buffalo hunters lived in large groups from the spring to the fall. They too used dogs to carry their belongings until the 1720s, when they obtained horses. The horse made both moving and buffalo hunting more efficient and may have made it possible for some Eastern and Northern Shoshones to continue buffalo hunts in the Plains despite the opposition of Blackfoot, Sioux, and Cheyennes. Smaller extended family groups moved to sheltered valleys in the Rocky Mountain foothills for winter, where enough forage could be found for the horses of a small group, but not for larger herds.
The spiritual and social lives of the plains and Great Basin groups also differed, reflecting different group sizes and environments. Both groups were deeply spiritual, but the Plains Shoshones adopted the complex of dances, warrior societies, and other social and ceremonial activities of the Plains culture. The smaller Great Basin groups had one major ceremonial dance—the round dance—and a less elaborate ceremonial and social structure.
Transition and Contemporary Life
The Shoshones' first contact with Europeans was with Spanish traders to the south, from whom they obtained their horses but not guns. Later, they assisted the Lewis and Clark Expedition—Sacagawea was an Eastern Shoshone woman by birth—in exchange to access to these powerful weapons. Except for the Mormons, however, European Americans initially showed little interest in the barren lands the Shoshones occupied. The discovery of gold and other mineral deposits in the Great Basin eventually brought on the familiar scenario of broken treaties and displaced Indians as European Americans moved westward. In the late nineteenth century, the Shoshones were forced onto reservations, such as the Fort Hall Reservation in Idaho and Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. The Dawes Act of 1888 introduced allotment to the reservations, meaning that lands formerly held in common by the tribes were divided and allotted to individuals and families. As a result of this policy, the Shoshones lost a great deal of reservation land to non-natives through sale or land cessions.
As a result, today the Shoshones struggle with many problems—lack of education, poverty, lack of opportunity, and threats to their culture. They have sued the US federal government over water rights, land ownership, improper compensation for past treaties, and storage of nuclear waste on Shoshone land. They have not always won—the deck is somewhat stacked against any tribe arguing for ownership of a large part of a state (Nevada)—but their ability to function well in such battles is further evidence of Shoshone versatility and bodes well for the future of the tribe.
Bibliography
"About the Shoshone Tribe." Eastern Shoshone Tribe. easternshoshone.org/about/. Accessed 28 Mar. 2023.
Dramer, Kim, and Frank W. Porter. The Shoshone. Chelsea House, 2014.
Hearn, Deanna. "Historic Records Document Decades-Long Struggle for Native Lands by Western Shoshone Tribe." University of Nevada Reno: Nevada Today. 18 Feb. 2015. www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2015/dann-sisters. Accessed 28 Mar. 2023.
"Who We Are: Shoshone-Bannock Tribes." Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, 2023, www.sbtribes.com/about/. Accessed 31 Mar. 2023.
Jager, Rebecca K. Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea: Indian Women as Cultural Intermediaries and National Symbols. U of Oklahoma P, 2015.
"Shoshone Indians." Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery. WGBH, n.d. Web. 30 June 2016.