Called the “Snake People” by a few of the Plains Indians, the Shoshone tribe are formerly resided great expanse of lands ranging from the Great Basin to the Great Plains.
Their wide dispersion over the West has made them a significant Native American tribe, which anthropologists categorize into three groups: the Western Shoshone in Nevada, the Northern Shoshone in northern Utah and Idaho, and the Eastern Shoshone in western Wyoming.
How has this tribe maintained a shared cultural trait despite its challenges?
A closer look at the history and culture of the Shoshone tribe will reveal all of this and more.
Shoshone Tribe History
Pre-European Contact
Their Shoshone tribe ancestors, the Numa, are said to have appeared in the southwest region of the Great Basin.
The Shoshonean people are divided into several diverse subgroups.
Although the bands’ members share the same language, they have created distinct lifestyles based on their localities and means of subsistence.
The Shoshone people often interacted with other local indigenous tribes and with one another before encountering European settlers.
They were members of numerous trade networks, just like all Native American tribes.
The Shoshone settled into their new environment nicely.
1500 saw the Shoshone crossing from the Rocky Mountains into the northwest Plains.
By 1700, a group of Shoshones had migrated to the Southern Plains, where they finally established themselves as the Comanches.
European Contact (17th century – 18th century)
The Shoshone started introducing horse riding into their culture in the late 1600s when they first came into contact with European settlers.
Shortly after, Shoshone tribe lands were taken over by Spanish invaders.
A Shoshone woman named Sacagawea from a band of the Northern group called Lemhi joined the expedition of Lewis and Clark.
She was married to a French-Canadian fur trader, and on this expedition, she was able to serve as a guide and translator for Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their journey.
Perhaps the most well-known of all Eastern Shoshone headmen and leaders is Washakie.
Known for his warrior and statesman skill, Washakie was a key figure in the territorial expansion and statehood of Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming.
Along with the well-known mountain man Jim Bridger, he participated in treaty meetings and discussions with Mormon elder Brigham Young.
He helped establish the Wind River Reservation as the Eastern Shoshones’ ancestral home.
When the first Mormon settlers started moving into Northern Utah, there were three main bands of Northwestern Shoshoni.
About 400 members of the “Weber Ute” clan, led by Chief Little Soldier, inhabited Weber Valley until its entrance into the Great Salt Lake.
Chief Pocatello also headed an amount similar to this; they could be found in Grouse Creek in Northwestern Utah eastward through the northern shore of the Great Salt Lake to the Bear River.
Led by Chief Bear Hunter were about 450 members of the third division; they lived in Cache Valley.
When the Eastern and Northwestern tribes gathered for their annual gathering each summer in Round Valley,
Bear Hunter was regarded as the paramount chief of the Northwestern Shoshoni and was recognized by Mormon settlers as the war chief who had equal status with Washakie.
19th century
The majority of Plains Culture had been assimilated in the 1840s by the Northwestern Shoshoni, who relied on horses for transportation and game hunting.
Particularly, Chief Pocatello led his clan on several buffalo hunts in the Wyoming region.
With the colonization of their ancestral lands by Mormon farmers, the Northwestern Shoshoni tragically underwent a terrible metamorphosis into a life of hunger and lack.
By 1862, the white pioneers had occupied Cache Valley, the location of Bear Hunter’s band, after making a gradual northward advance along the eastern shores of Great Salt Lake.
The 1862 finding of gold in Montana increased travel along the route even more.
Beginning in late 1862, the young men of Bear Hunter’s tribe started to fight, robbing Mormon cow herds and attacking mining crews going to and from Montana.
On January 29, 1863, Colonel Patrick Edward Connor, with about 200 California Volunteers, attacked Bear Hunter’s Northwestern group’s 450-person winter camp on Beaver Creek.
In what is now known as the Bear River Massacre, the army slaughtered 250 Shoshoni, including 90 women and children; Bear Hunter also died.
Following his death, the remaining members of his tribe, led by Sagwitch, signed the Treaty of Box Elder at Brigham City, Utah, on July 30, 1863, establishing peace in the Shoshoni territory.
Shoshone Tribe Today
Government representatives tried to persuade all of the Northwestern Shoshoni to relocate to the recently established Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho after the Box Elder agreement was signed.
The Indian bands finally left their homelands in Utah and moved to Fort Hall, where their descendants still reside.
Shoshone Tribe Culture
Culture is an important part of Shoshone living, and despite the different bands strewn across, culture has always been put at the forefront.
The Northern and Eastern tribes embraced a nomadic lifestyle and hunted and gathered where resources were abundant.
Once they had horses late in the seventeenth century, they could hunt buffalo more easily and soon after that.
Language
The Shoshone tribes speak Shoshoni.
The Uto-Aztecan language family, which consists of more than thirty diverse languages, contains this complicated language.
Speakers of one dialect may understand speakers of another since the dialects are similar enough.
People who speak Shoshoni have been gradually declining in number over the past few decades.
There are only a few hundred native speakers left today, and the majority are over fifty.
Belief
The supernatural forces that frequently manifested as animals and other mythical beings were the sources of the Shoshone tribes’ religious beliefs.
Visions and dreams from the spirit world were the foundation of the Shoshones’ religion.
Some of these dreams were called for quests where a particular animal spirit would grant the person—typically young males—powers and provide advice.
With differences between tribes, some of the most popular characters in these stories were coyotes.
The medicine men, also known as Shamans (Sha-man), had a significant role in the Shoshone religious tradition.
They were asked to execute rituals for ceremonies, bless the hunt, treat the ill, aid in prayer for spirit quests, and resolve spiritual issues in the community.
They were the believers in the faith.
Norms And Values
The Shoshone places a strong emphasis on family.
They share a home with their immediate family and their grandparents, aunts, and uncles in their extended families.
The grandparents and parents of the Shoshone people tell their grandchildren and future generations stories about their heritage and culture.
The Shoshone tribe followed the animals and the food source when traveling by season.
They were sometimes known as the “valley people” because they camped in valleys.
They were frugal and made good use of everything they could.
Animals were used for clothing, food, and other purposes, and all of their parts were utilized.
They never killed anything they weren’t going to use entirely.
Clothing
The Shoshone used organic materials to make their clothing.
The women wore long deerskin gowns with wide sleeves, and the males wore shirts made of buckskin.
They frequently adorned their clothing with beads and porcupine quills, and their footwear was a pair of moccasins.
Food
Foraging for berries, nuts, seeds, and roots was a major source of income for Shoshone bands.
They frequently moved in search of regions with the most edible plants. In contrast to the Eastern Shoshone, the Western Shoshone pursued small animals, including antelope, rabbits, and rodents.
The Northern and Eastern Shoshone bands adopted a nomadic way of life where their primary sources of sustenance were buffalo, sheep, and antelope.
Their food source depended on the nature of the area the tribe resided.
Societal Structure
The chief and shaman, who ruled over the group’s decisions on war, marches, and hunts, were at the top of the social hierarchy.
They are often elderly or middle-aged men.
The trading partners, foreigners with whom they exchanged goods, occupied the middle socioeconomic class.
The lowest socioeconomic class was that of the servants, who provided services to those in higher positions.
Women were coerced into marriage because they were not permitted to remain unmarried.
Women were entitled to their husband’s positions; if they became widows, they lost both.
Cooking, cleaning, caring for the children, and other responsibilities fell to women.
Hunting, becoming a warrior, and other duties fell to the men.
Shoshone Tribe Facts
- The Hidatsa Indians abducted Sacagawea and brought her up.
- The interaction between the Shoshone Indians and Lewis and Clark involved the use of four languages; Shoshone Hidatsa, French English.
- Pocatello and Bear Hunter were the names of two well-known Shoshone leaders.
- Sacagawea was the most well-known member of the Northern Shoshone tribe.
- When European settlers first came to Utah, they mistook the northwestern Shoshone for Ute Indians.
- The Eastern Shoshones’ current home is in central Wyoming due to a bloody conflict with the Blackfeet, Crows, and Assiniboines that lasted from 1780 to 1825.
- The Eastern Shoshones are separated into two divisions because of their geographic location and main food source. “The Buffalo Eaters” were a group of Shoshoni people that lived in the Wyoming basins of the Green and Wind rivers, while the second division was referred to as “sheep-eaters” they occupied the Rocky Mountains and Lake Yellowstone.
Conclusion
Though the Shoshone tribe no longer reside on their ancestral land, the tribe has held on to notable aspects of their cultural heritage and still continue to transmit and hold on to their cultural ideals.
