David S Cohen
580 California St., Suite 400
San Francisco, CA, 94104
Tribes of the Columbia Plateau and the Great Basin
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Abstract
Most of the peoples of the Great Basin were Shoshonean-speakers of the Utaztecan language family. In northern and eastern Utah were bands of Utes. Various groups of Shoshonia lived in the north from eastern Oregon to Wyoming’s Wind River, and Northern and Southern Paiutes extended across most of the southern and western parts of the region. By about 9,000 years ago the region was characterized by the Desert Culture, which existed into historic times. The culture included the use of netting, milling stones, scraper and chopping tools, digging sticks and basketry. About 6,000 years ago members of the Utaztecan-speaking group, including the Shoshonean people, migrated south along the west slope of the Rockies and into the Great Basin. Between 4,000 and 2,000 years ago, the some of the Basin peoples began using mortars and pestles instead of milling stones, fishhooks, and even duck decoys. They gathered acorns and pine nuts and began living in wickiups. These were conical structures with a framework of willow or juniper poles covered by brush, bark, or grass matting. In the center was a firepit with a smoke hole in the roof above. Around 1700 some of the eastern band of Shoshone acquired horses, which enabled them to roam into the Great Plains to hunt buffalo. They also began to adopt some of the Great Plains culture, including feathered headdresses. They expanded as far as southern Alberta province in Canada, where the Blackfeet finally drove them out. Another group of Paiute Bannocks migrated into Shoshoni territory in southern Idaho, where they joined the Shoshoni as mounted buffalo hunters. In the northern parts of the Columbia Basin were the Salish-speaking Flatheads. Along the lower Snake River Basin were the Sahaptin-speaking Nez Percés, a dialect of the Penutian language family. Other Penutian-speaking peoples were the Klamaths in south central Oregon, and the Modocs near the Oregon-California border. Like the peoples of the Great Basin, the Plateau people were part of the larger Desert Culture. But about 4,500 years ago, their culture diverged as fishing along the region’s rivers became more dominant. Between 500 and 1000 A.D. as trade increased with the peoples of the Pacific Coast, their social organization became more complex, and shortly before the contact with Whites they too adopted elements of the Great Plains culture. When the White men came to the Plateau region in the early nineteenth century, these peoples were living in small, semi-permanent fishing villages along rivers and streams. Northwestern Shoshone in southern Idaho and northern Utah; the Northern Shoshone in northern Utah and south and central Idaho; the Eastern Shoshone in western Wyoming; the Lemhi Shoshone along the Salmon River in central Idaho; the Gosiute or Western Shoshone in western and northwestern Utah. The Lemhi Shoshones were the northern most of the Northern Shoshone. The Lemhi Shoshone were comprised of several smaller groups, including the Agaidikas (Salmoneaters), Tukudekas (Sheepeaters), and Kucundikas (Buffaloeaters). After the introduction of the horse, some Northern Paiute-speaking Bannocks, who came from eastern Oregon to Fort Hill in the mid-nineteenth century, joined Kukundikas in the Lemhi Valley. The Bannocks were Western-Numic-speaking Northern Paiutes, who migrated from the northern Great Basin in the eighteenth century. They integrated by marriage into the Shoshone of the Portnuef and Snake River valleys. The Nez Percé country encompassed what is today southeastern Washington, northeastern Oregon, and northcentral Idaho. Its eastern boundary was the Bitterroot Mountains and the western boundary was the Blue and Wallow mountain ranges. The principal rivers were the Snake and its tributaries the Clearwater and Salmon rivers. Salmon was their main staple. The northern bands or Upper Nez Percés along the Clearwater River went on annual buffalo hunts on the Great Plains in an alliance with the Crows. The southern bands or Lower Nez Percés along the Snake and Salmon rivers seldom left the Nez Percé homeland. The Southern Ute tribe represents a culturally intermediate position in the evolution of Uto-Aztecan peoples,” writes Marvin K. Opler. The Southern Utes territory was in western Colorado, with the Paiute to the west in Utah, the Northern Shoshones to the north and the Navaho to the south in New Mexico. The Aztecs were further south across the Mexican border (See, Apache and Navaho). The Gunnison River separated the Northern Utes from the Southern Utes. Before the introduction of the horse the Utes were unable to live in agricultural villages, because in the fall and winter, snow in the passes and even the foothills of the Rockies made travel made agriculture impossible. The Southern Utes in the region below the Gunnison River could only settle in large band encampments in the spring and summer. Their traditional houses were wickiups. In the fall and winter they needed to migrate south to the border with the Comanche, Apache, and Navaho.