Shoshone

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Shoshone tipis
Glass bead moccasins of the Shoshone from Wyoming around 1900

The Shoshone or Shoshoni (German: also Schoschonen ) are a people of the Indians of North America , to which three linguistically and culturally closely related groups belong: the Northern Shoshone , the Eastern Shoshone and the Western Shoshone . They are spread over two cultural areas : the Great Basin and, to the east, the north of the Great Plains .

The Shoshone call themselves Nimi , Newe , Neme or Nümü , depending on their dialect , which, as with many Indians, simply means “people” or “people”. The Western Shoshone in California were often called Koso or Panamint , but are now mostly known as Timbisha Shoshone . The groups living in Idaho were called Tukuaduka . The Nevada and Utah-based groups are known as the Gosiute or Toi Ticutta .

The Shoshone ruled vast areas of grazing and hiking in Wyoming , Montana, and parts of Idaho , Utah , Colorado , Nevada , Oregon, and California . They consisted of different tribes (English bands ) or local groups (local bands) , which are generally assigned to either the Northern, Eastern or Western Shoshone, but never developed a political unit or a tribal identity (such as the Cheyenne or Lakota on the plains ).

Originally hunters and gatherers, the Northern and Eastern Shoshone in particular domesticated horses and began hunting bison at the beginning of the 18th century . The gold rush that began in 1849 forced them into protracted resistance. According to a census conducted in 2000, there are currently about 12,000 Shoshone.

language

The Shoshone speak two variants of the Central Numic - the Shoshoni (Sosoni 'da̲i̲gwape or newe da̲i̲gwape) and the Timbisha (Nümü nangkawih or Sosoni nangkawih) - both of which belong to the Numic languages , the northernmost branch of the Uto-Aztec language family . The Shoshoni in turn is divided into the following dialects: Northern Shoshoni, Western Shoshoni, Gosiute and Eastern Shoshoni.

Origin of name and designations

The origin of the tribal name Shoshone is still controversial today. The Cheyenne refer to the Comanche , who once split off from the Shoshone, as Shǐshǐnoats-hitäneo or Šé'šenovotsétaneo'o ("snake people"), but simply called them Sósone'eo'o . This is probably a modification of the Western Shoshone's own name as So-so-goi ("those who wander on foot") or Shoshoko ("someone who finds a horse"); in English these groups were therefore contemptuously and pityingly referred to as Walker Shoshone (“Shoshone walking”).

The Shoshone were known to many neighboring tribes as the grass hut people or as the people of the many grass , as many groups lived mostly or partially in grass huts (wickiups) or mostly fed on different grasses and roots. Therefore, the name Snakes ("snake people") is probably derived from a misunderstanding of the symbol for the Shoshone in the sign language of the tribes on the Great Plains (a snake-like movement of the hand with an outstretched index finger). This hand gesture refers to the weaving of grass mats and the building of grass huts by the Shoshone; they used tall grasses they called soshoni .

Nowadays the term snake is only used for the Yahuskin and Walpapi , one of the northernmost groups of the Northern Paiute . These two groups had their roaming and hunting areas in Oregon, Idaho and Nevada and were often referred to as the Shoshone in the past .

Due to the linguistic and cultural similarity, the geographical proximity and political alliances often based on intertribal marriages, the Western Shoshone, the Panamint (Koso, now Timbisha Shoshone, also Northern Death Valley Shoshone ) and the Gosiute (Central Numic Branch ), as well as the neighboring peoples of the Bannock (Western Numic branch), Kawaiisu (also Southern Death Valley Shoshone ), Chemehuevi and Ute (Southern Numic branch) incorrectly referred to as Paiute .

Famous Shoshone today are the sisters Mary and Carrie Dann , who received the 1993 Right Livelihood Award .

Geographical and cultural division of the Shoshone

Rabbit Tail, Shoshone

The Shoshone are today generally divided into three large geographical-cultural tribal groups based on geography and the associated different adapted way of life and culture of the various bands ; However, this distinction was first made by the European settlers, the Shoshone themselves did not know such a; there is also no clear cultural boundary between the ethnic groups.

  • Northern Shoshone (East Idaho, West Wyoming, Northeast Utah)
    • Northern Shoshone in the narrower sense (hiked and camped in bilingual camps together with the Bannock , a group of the Northern Paiute , around 3400 tribe members)
    • Northwestern Shoshone (tribal groups along the Weber River were also incorrectly referred to as Weber Utes , as there were often marriages between the Northern Ute , around 1500 members, called Cumumba (in Ute: "those who speak differently") )
  • Eastern Shoshone (Wyoming, north of Colorado and Montana; conflicts with Blackfoot, Crow, Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho pushed them south and west into the outskirts of the Plains from 1750, around 2000 members)
  • Western Shoshone (central Idaho, northwest Utah, central Nevada, and all the way to Death Valley and Panamint Valley in California) called themselves So-so-goi - "those who hike on foot" or Shoshoko - "someone who has a horse finds ")

Sometimes the Northwestern Shoshone - especially in the Grouse Creek area - are also counted among the Western Shoshone, as they were culturally closer to them and only took over the horse late; from this point on, however, they often joined other Northern Shoshone and Bannock on bison hunting, and are therefore included in this tribal group. Something similar can be said of the Gosiute and Koso (Panamint) / Timbisha Shoshone, which today are mostly regarded as separate and independent tribes, culturally counted among the Western Shoshone, but not speaking Western Shoshoni , but rather separate dialects; sometimes they are also referred to as the Southern Shoshone.

Western Shoshone

The Western Shoshone differed from the Northern and Eastern Shoshone in that they did not own horses and therefore did not participate in bison hunting in the Great Plains . Together with the neighboring Bannock and Paiute, they were often contemptuously referred to by the Europeans as diggers ("graves"), as they searched the ground for edible roots , grasses , seeds and animals with a grave stick . Unlike their relatives, the Western Shoshone did not develop a horse-based nomadic plains culture . The western Shoshone mostly lived in simple shrub huts covered with grass, willow and bark mats or animal skins, the so-called wickiups . When traveling, they usually erected simple wind screens (Spanish: ramada ) , if the season and the weather allowed it .

Northern and Eastern Shoshone

The cultural differences between the Northern and Eastern Shoshone were small. The boundary between the two categories is based on geographically different settlements and on the fact that fishing , especially salmon , was much more important for the Northern Shoshone than for the Eastern Shoshone. The fishing and bison hunting were supplemented by the gathering of wild roots and berries as well as deer and antelope hunting. Culturally, the Northern Shoshone were somewhat closer to the Plateau tribes (such as the Flathead , Coeur d'Alene, etc.) than to the Plains culture. In addition, they acted as intermediaries for articles from the mountains and plateaus as well as from the plains. The western tribes of the Northern Shoshone lived like the Western Shoshone in Wickiups, but also used the tipi to hunt bison , whereas the eastern tribes mostly lived in tepees.

The Eastern Shoshone, together with the Northern Shoshone, were the first tribes to breed horses on the northern plains around 1700 and used them in the war against neighboring tribes. The horse made it possible for these Shoshone groups to cover greater distances on the raids and wars than their unmounted enemies, to undertake surprising raids and simply to ride down opposing warriors on the open plains or to catch up with fleeing enemies. They bartered the surplus horses to friendly tribes such as the Absarokee , Flathead, Couer d'Alênes and Nez Percé .

When, from 1750, neighboring tribes, such as the Blackfoot or Sioux (Lakota, Nakota, Dakota), in addition to horses, in contrast to the Shoshone, also had firearms, the balance of power was reversed, and the once powerful, revered as snakes with their neighbors ("Snakes") called Eastern Shoshone had to give up most of the areas on the Plains and retreat to their fringes with the protective Rocky Mountains behind them. For the annual bison hunt, large groups of the Eastern Shoshone always gathered to hunt in the current tribal area of ​​their enemies. Like other Plains tribes, the Eastern Shoshone lived in spacious tipis and lived mainly from bison hunting, supplemented, as with their northern cousins, by hunting and the gathering of roots and grasses.

When the first fair-skinned Americans met groups of the Eastern Shoshone (as well as the Northern Shoshone) around 1800, the old warriors and their relatives could still remember their former homeland east on the Plains.

Reservations

Reservations in the western United States ( Bureau of Indian Affairs map )
  • Battle Mountain Reservation , Lander County , Nevada
  • Big Pine Reservation , central Owens Valley , Inyo County , California ; Owens Valley Paiute Shoshone
  • Bishop Community of the Bishop Colony , northern Owens Valley , Inyo County, California;
  • Death Valley Indian Community , Furnace Creek, Death Valley National Park , California; Timbisha Shoshone
  • Duck Valley Indian Reservation , southern Idaho / northern Nevada, (western) Shoshone-Paiute tribes
  • Duckwater Indian Reservation , in Duckwater , Nevada , approximately 75 miles from Ely.
  • Elko Indian Colony , Elko County , Nevada
  • Ely Shoshone Indian Reservation in Ely , Nevada, 0.45 km², 500 inhabitants
  • Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Reservation near Fallon , Nevada, 33 km², 991 inhabitants, Western Shoshone and Paiute
  • Fort Hall Indian Reservation , 2,201 km² in Idaho , Lemhi Shoshone with the Bannock , a group of the Paiute with whom they united
  • Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation , Nevada and Oregon, Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone
  • Goshute Indian Reservation , 449 km² in Nevada and Utah, Western Shoshone
  • Lemhi Indian Reservation (1875-1907) in Idaho, Lemhi Shoshone, evicted from the Fort Hall Reservation
  • Lone Pine Community of the Lone Pine Reservation , Lower Owens Valley , Inyo County , California; Owens Valley Paiute Shoshone
  • Northwestern Shoshone Indian Reservation , Utah , Northwestern Groups of the Shoshone Nation of Utah (Washakie)
  • Reno-Sparks Indian Colony , Nevada, 8 km², total of 481 Shoshone, Paiute and Washoe groups
  • Skull Valley Indian Reservation 73 km² in Utah, Western Shoshone
  • South Fork Odgers Ranch Indian Colony , Elko County , Nevada
  • Wells Indian Colony , Elko County, Nevada
  • Wind River Reservation , population 2,650 Eastern Shoshone, 9.178 km² of the Wyoming reservation is shared with Northern Arapaho

See also

Web links

Commons : Shoshone  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Other names of the Panamint (Koso) : Kosho, Shikaviyam, Sikiam, Shikaich, Kaich, Kwü, Sosoni or simply Shoshone .
  2. ↑ Shoshone.
  3. ^ Northwestern Band of Shoshone Tribal Profile. ( Memento from April 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: Utah Division of Indian Affairs. Retrieved December 23, 2012.