Southern Paiute

• CATEGORY: Tribe
• CULTURE AREA: Southwest
• LANGUAGE GROUP: Uto-Aztecan
• PRIMARY LOCATION: Northwestern Arizona, southern Nevada, southwestern Utah
• POPULATION SIZE: 3,673 (Paiute-Shoshone tribal grouping population, 2010 US Census); 7,883 Paiute (2021 American Community Survey)
• • 424 Paiute Reservation Utah
  • 249 Kaibab Indian Reservation, Arizona
  • 1,531 Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation, Nevada

The Southern Paiute, sometimes called Nuwuvi, are part of the Numic-speaking group of the Shoshonean branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. They call themselves Nuwu, meaning “the people.” The Paiute people spread across the Great Basin into the northern portion of the southwestern United States around 1000 CE, replacing prehistoric Pueblo peoples who had inhabited the region. Similarities in agricultural production and pottery making indicate that the Southern Paiute must have learned much from the Pueblo people they replaced. Defensive structures and artifacts dated to the mid-twelfth century suggest that strife may have existed between the groups, causing the Pueblo to flee the region and allowing the Paiute to expand their territory eastward. By the eighteenth century, the Paiute were living in a great crescentic region from southeastern Utah to northeastern Arizona to the deserts of Southern California and Nevada.

Aboriginal Paiute Culture

The Paiute were primarily gatherers of wild plants, roots, berries, and seeds, supplemented by some hunting of rabbits, deer, mountain sheep, and some insects and lizards. Farming was severely limited and included only corn, beans, and squash. In their early history, the Paiute people traded with nearby Indigenous Nations, including the Hopi, Havasupai, Walapai, and Mojave. Some evidence suggests that these groups peacefully co-existed peaceably.

It is doubtful that the Paiute had any tribal or political organization binding them during their early history. Shortages of food and water forced the dispersion of the Paiute into small family groups. Occasionally, larger social groups came together to harvest piñon nuts or to hunt for rabbits; however, these groups remained together only until the task was completed, then dispersed again. Political or social leadership is evident in the form of praise given to a respected person, a good hunter, or a great dance leader. Religious and other cultural developments were severely limited among the Paiute because they spent virtually all of their time searching for food and pursuing other necessities for survival.

Their tools included bows and arrows, hunting nets, seed beaters, gathering baskets, flint knives, digging sticks, and flat grinding stones. Their clothes consisted of rabbit-skin robes, bark or hide aprons, and sandals or moccasins. Their dwellings were rudimentary, constructed mainly of grass, sticks, and mud. Every aspect of their development manifests of the Paiute people's marginal subsistence pattern.

European Contact

The Southern Paiute, historically, was one of the last Indigenous groups to have sustained contact with White people. While other southwestern groups experienced early contact with the Spanish, the Paiute people's first contact was with the Dominguez-Escalante expedition of 1776. The Spanish explorers described the Paiute as the lowliest of peoples, destitute and degraded. The Spanish had several significant effects on the Paiute people. The spread of horses to neighboring Indigenous groups facilitated trade with such Nations as the Ute and Navajo. The most devastating effect was the beginning of slave trading in the Southwest. Small Paiute bands were prey to Ute and Navajo raiding parties in which they would steal children, especially young girls, and trade them to the Spanish for goods. In some instances, the Paiute would trade their own children to the Ute for horses (which they would later kill and use for food) or other necessary goods. This slave trade led to a severe depopulation of the Paiute but also led to their acquisition of material goods such as horses, guns, knives, tipis, kettles, and dogs. This trade persisted well into the nineteenth century, when the Mormons, under Brigham Young, caused it to end.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, the Paiute also came into contact with fur trappers and explorers because of their position along the Old Spanish Trail. Notable among these were Jedediah Smith, Peter Skene Ogden, James Ohio Pattie, and John C. Frémont. These men, too, were critical of Paiute culture and wrote degradingly of them as savages. Indigenous-White contacts intensified greatly when the Mormons began to settle in southern Utah in 1850. John D. Lee was the church’s recorder and wrote extensively about the Paiute people. He seemed much less critical of their nature than were the Spaniards or the trappers. Relations between Paiute and Mormon people were generally peaceful and respectful. Although the Mormons subscribed to many of the stereotypes of Indigenous Americans as lazy, thieving, and savage because of their theological beliefs, they also believed that they had the responsibility to teach the Paiute to be civilized. The Mormons taught the Paiute farming and other useful skills. Because of their ever-increasing contact with White people and their low immunity to European diseases, the Paiute were struck heavily by measles and smallpox. A smallpox epidemic in which hundreds died was recorded in 1877.

Modern Movements and Civilization

In 1873, the Bureau of Indian Affairs sent a special commission, headed by John Wesley Powell, to Utah to suggest the removal of the Southern Paiute from the White settlements. They had recommended the removal of the Paiute to the Uintah reservation in northeastern Utah, but because of the Paiute people's animosity with the Ute people, it was decided to create the Moapa Reservation in Nevada. Many groups resisted and tried to subsist in their old ways, but the expansion of White farming and grazing made this impossible. The bureau’s concern for Paiute welfare also expanded into issuing cattle to the Indigenous people because they could not survive solely on farming. The Paiute subsequently became fine ranchers.

Other reservations, closer to their traditional lands, were later created by the Bureau of Indian Affairs; among them were the Shivwits reserve in 1891, near Santa Clara, Utah, and the Kaibab reserve in northern Arizona, near Fredonia, in 1907. Many Paiute, however, unaided by the federal government, were given assistance and protection by nearby Mormon settlements. Drastic changes were taking place among the Paiute in different degrees depending on contact with White individuals. Some adopted White culture readily, while others resisted and became hostile. Many smaller family groups formed large bands for the first time in an effort to stop the White intrusion. The Kaibab, Moapa, and Shivwits were among the most notable of these newly formed bands.

Southern Paiute children began attending federal day schools in the 1890s, and some have attended colleges and universities in Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and California. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Paiute existed simply and continued to be dependent on the charity of the Mormons and others around them; however, three pivotal events occurred that improved the circumstances of the Paiute. In 1946, the Paiute filed suit against the federal government for their lands that had been unlawfully taken. The issue was hotly debated, and finally, in 1970, the Paiute were awarded a settlement, bringing needed money into the reservations. Second, in 1951, the Paiute established their official constitution and bylaws “to improve our civilization.” This allowed them to elect a Tribal Council and to have a more secure land base. Finally, in 1957, the Southern Paiute were voluntarily terminated from federal control. In these reforms, the Kaibab band has been the most progressive.

Income-producing opportunities were scarce on Paiute reservations in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The Tribal Chairman was the only paid employee, and the federal government employed only a few people for maintenance. Most obtained part-time work at local White-owned ranches. Most of the cultural traditions of the early periods are remembered only by a few older individuals, and the majority of the children do not hear their native language spoken at home. Nevertheless, the Paiute people's continued survival is a direct result of their successful attempt to join their voices and fight for survival. The Tribal Heritage Grant Program began efforts to help the Southern Paiute people restore and conserve their cultural heritage in 2016. Funds have been distributed to Paiute people in several states to aid in oral history interviews with elders, produce books, and take ethnographic surveys of sacred Paiute sites.

Bibliography

"About the Southern Paiute." National Park Service, 18 May 2021, www.nps.gov/articles/about-the-southern-paiute.htm. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.

Dutton, Bertha P. The Rancheria, Ute, and Southern Paiute Peoples. Prentice, 1977.

Euler, Robert C. The Paiute People. Indian Tribal Series, 1972.

Fowler, Catherine S., and Don D. Fowler. “Notes on the History of the Southern Paiutes and Western Shoshonis.” Utah Historical Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 2, 1971, pp. 95–113, doi.org/10.2307/45059596. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.

Hebner, Logan, and Michael Plyler. Southern Paiute: A Portrait. Utah State UP, 2010.

"History: The Paiutes." Utah American Indian Digital Archive, utahindians.org/archives/paiutes/history.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.

Kelly, Isabel Truesdell. Southern Paiute Ethnography. U of Utah P, 1964.

Knack, Martha C. Life Is with People: Household Organization of the Contemporary Southern Paiute Indians. Ballena, 1980.

Manners, Robert A. Southern Paiute and Chemehuevi: An Ethnohistorical Report. Garland, 1974.

Martineau, LeVan. The Southern Paiutes: Legends, Lore, Language, and Lineage. KC, 1992.