Koso
The Koso , also Timbisha-Shoshone or Panamint , are the extreme western tribe of the Western Shoshone Indians . They belong to the Shoshone branch of the Uto-Aztec language family . Its southern neighbors are the Chemehuevi , its western neighbors the Tubatulabal , and the northern neighbors the Mono . The meaning of the name Koso is unknown. The name Timbisha means "face painted red like a rock".
language
The Koso language, Timbisha or Panamint , belongs to the central branch of Numic languages , together with Shoshone and Comanche . It is only used by around 20 elderly people, and there are no longer any monolingual speakers.
history
The Koso and related tribes have probably lived in the Death Valley area for about 2000 years. Originally they lived nomadically between the Panamint Mountains , Owens Lake and the Amargosa River . The first whites entered Death Valley in 1849. In 1855 von Schmidt measured the land. Five years later gold was discovered in the Coso Mountains, and borax mining began in 1882 . This changed the living conditions of the Koso. Pine and mesquite bushes were cut down, and white people settled at the important springs. In the 1860s there was therefore repeated fighting between Koso and white settlers, with several dead. This and internal conflicts led to territorial changes among the Indian tribes in the 19th century; the Koso shared the area around the Granite and Providence Mountains with the Serrano and Kawaiisu . They also moved to the area around the gold rush towns, which were quickly established and abandoned again, where they worked as miners, lumberjacks, washers and porters. Some successfully searched for gold and silver. In 1883, in one of these cities, Darwin, Henshaw came across some Koso, according to oral information that they numbered 150 people at the time. In 1912 the Bureau of Indian Affairs set up four Indian reservations in Death Valley on the order of President Theodore Roosevelt , but they were too small to build an independent economy: Lone Pine , Big Pine , Fort Independence and Bishop . Most Koso remained nomadic on the land of the Bureau of Land Management on the border between California and Nevada . In 1933 Death Valley was declared a national park. The National Park Authority built a village for the Koso in Furnace Creek in 1936, which was later enlarged and now has 50-60 residents. In 1983 they were registered as owners of the land under the name Timbisha Shoshone with a number of 300 people. But they were still a landless tribe. That didn't change until November 1, 2000, when the Timbisha Homeland Act granted them 7,700 acres of land mostly in the Lida Township, Nevada area, with the restriction that mining companies must be granted mineral rights in the area. This is the first Indian reservation in the area of a national park.
Culture and way of life
The Koso lived as nomadic hunters and gatherers. At certain times of the year, summer or winter, they set up permanent settlements and storage facilities. These were mostly located near the water and on the edge of bush or woodland. They collected roots, nuts and seeds and hunted land mammals, birds (for example pigeons), reptiles and insects. They developed craftsmanship in weaving baskets that were woven so tightly that water could be transported in them. The art of basket weaving is still practiced by some Koso today. They oriented themselves to places and topographical points that they sang in bird songs . So real "oral maps" were handed down. They revered petroglyphs , which they viewed as a symbol of unearthly help for their shamans, and sources that were ascribed a healing effect were sacred to them. The coyote played an important role in their myths .
Creation myth of Koso
Every day the coyote met a beautiful girl who lived with his mother. He fell in love with her. The mother asked the girl to bring the coyote home so that he could hunt for her. One day she said to him: "Come with me, but let me go ahead a little." She walked a little to the east and stopped. When Coyote came to her, he said, "Here it is". She said, "No, we have to go on" and went first. The next time he reached her and made advances, the game repeated itself. So they gradually came across a high mountain to the house of the girl and her mother. The mother prepared them a good dinner and asked her daughter and coyote to make a bed together in front of the house. However, what Coyote expected did not happen and he was frustrated. The next morning his mother asked him to take her arrows and shoot ducks. He did as he was told, mother and daughter ate the ducks and Coyote watched. The next night his advances were again rejected. The next morning his mother asked him to kill sheep. He went into the mountains, killed a sheep, slaughtered it and cut it in pieces, and kept the strong neck to himself. Then he brought the slaughtered sheep to the hut of the two women. The mother asked him: "Where is the neck?" Coyote said he threw it away. The mother and daughter cooked and ate the meat, and by the time they finished eating it was dark. Coyote and the daughter slept together in front of the hut again. Coyote took the sheep's neck out of hiding and this time was successful with the beautiful daughter and her mother. He lived with them and hunted sheep and ducks for them. One day my mother was weaving a large basket to fetch water. She said to Coyote: "You have to go now. Take the basket with you and only open it when you are in the middle of the country, but not sooner." Coyote started with the basket on his back. But because the basket was too heavy for him, he decided to open it in the Saline Valley. He pounded the clasp open with a stone. Immediately handsome young men and women jumped out. That was the Timbisha Shoshone. When there were only a few people in the basket, Coyote locked it again and went to his home country. Halfway down the Owens River, he set the basket down and opened it again. This time old and inconspicuous people came out: the Northern Paiute , the neighboring tribe of the Koso. Then Coyote threw the basket away.
This is how men and women came into being.
Demographics
| year | source | number | |
| 1700 | NAHDB | 150 | |
| 1800 | NAHDB | 150 | |
| 1883 | Kroeber | 150 | |
| 1891 | Kroeber | 100 | |
| 1900 | NAHDB | 100 | |
| 2000 | NAHDB | 100 | |
NAHDB: Native American Historical Data Base. All numbers are estimates.
See also
literature
- John P. Dayley: Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Grammar. (= University of California Publications in Linguistics. Vol 115). Berkeley 1989, ISBN 0-520-09752-1 .
- John P. Dayley: Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Dictionary. (= University of California Publications in Linguistics. Vol. 116). Berkeley 1989, ISBN 0-520-09754-8 .
- John Mc Laughlin: Timbisha (Panamint). (= Languages of the World / Materials. 453). LINCOM Europe, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-89586-242-8 .
- Warren L. D'Azevedo (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 11: Great Basin . Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington 1986, ISBN 0-16-004581-9 .
Sources and web links
- Homepage of Timbisha / Koso
- Myths of the Western Shoshone
- Indians in Death Valley National Park
- Collection of links to the Koso