BY ROBERT F. and YOLANDA MURPHY   ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS Vol. 16, No. 7 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS Editors (Berkeley): J. H. Rowe (C), R. F. Millon, D. M. Schneider Volume 16, No. 7, pp. 293-338, 1 map Submitted by editors September 4, 1959 Issued November 23, 1960 Price, $1.00 University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles California Cambridge University Press London, England Manufactured in the United States of America...

During the years 1954 to 1957, the authors engaged in ethnographic and historic research on the Shoshone and Bannock Indians under the sponsorship of the Lands Division of the Department of Justice in connection with one of a number of suits brought by Indian tribes for compensation for territory lost to the advancing frontier. The action was brought jointly by the Shoshone Indians of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada, and the Bannock of Idaho; it excluded the Shoshonean speakers of California, a

The Rocky Mountain range was not an insuperable obstacle to communication between the Indian tribes east and west of the Continental Divide. The Arapaho, Cheyenne, Crow, Blackfoot, and other peoples of the Plains often crossed the range for purposes of hunting, warfare, and trade. And the tribes of the Basin-Plateau region also traversed the spine of the continent with much the same ends in mind. But their needs were more urgent, for in the late historic period the western part of the Great Plai

According to Shoshone tradition, the winter camps of the Eastern Shoshone were in the valley of the Wind River, and their hunting territory extended north to Yellowstone Park and Cody and east to the Big Horn Mountains and beyond South Pass. Little is said by informants of excursions west of the Continental Divide, although historical evidence suggests that this was actually once their principal hunting grounds. In partial support of this contention, Shimkin says (1947 a , p. 247): "The historic

Wind River Shoshone informants speak little of activities west of the Continental Divide and tend to place their early economic life almost entirely in the Missouri drainage. This is not surprising when it is considered that eighty-six years had passed between the signing of the Fort Bridger treaty of July 3, 1868, establishing the reservation, and the field work reported here. Almost seventy years had elapsed between that date and Shimkin's 1937-1938 field work. That informants have a one-dimen

Thus far, we have presented the pertinent historical data on Shoshone ecology in Wyoming and adjacent parts of northern Utah and we have described the annual cycle of economic activities during the early reservation period. The following summary of information on Eastern Shoshone territory will consider both kinds of data but will not attempt to delineate the social and political affiliations of the peoples using the lands. This subject, as the previously cited statement by Shimkin suggests (p.

A good deal of Eastern Shoshone social organization has already been described in the section on the subsistence cycle and in the context of historical data. Although the summer was spent in scattered groups, the collective buffalo hunt and the large winter camp made these Shoshone among the best organized of all the Shoshone population. Horses, a richer game supply, and the constant need for protection caused the Eastern Shoshone to travel in much larger groups than those of Nevada and perhaps

All of the groups discussed in this chapter except the Bannock speak the Shoshone-Comanche, or Shoshone, language. While there were only minor differences of dialect between Shoshone speakers, the Bannock language was almost identical with Northern Paiute. Informants found an especially close affinity between Bannock and the language of the Oregon Paiute, who were frequently referred to as "Bannock" also and were sometimes distinguished from the Fort Hall Bannock only by the statement that "they

The following division of the Shoshone-Bannock population of Idaho into six main groups is admittedly arbitrary, although to a certain extent the sectors conform to actual sociopolitical groups or to populations designated by certain characteristics recognized by the Indians themselves. Proceeding from west to east, these are: (1) the population of the Boise and Weiser River valleys; (2) the Shoshone Indians of the middle course of the Snake River between Glenn's Ferry and Shoshone Falls and in

The region of the Boise, Payette, and Weiser rivers and the near-by shores of the Snake River are of considerable importance because of the contiguity of Shoshone and Northern Paiute populations in this area. We will present the historical data pertinent to an understanding of the mode and extent of Shoshone ecology there and will then give the material gathered through recent ethnographic investigation. Our earliest information on this region comes from the Stuart diary of the Astoria party. St

This area includes all of Idaho south of the Sawtooth Mountains between American Falls and the Bruneau River. It has been seen that the area of the Boise, Payette, and Weiser rivers was entered regularly by populations that did not customarily winter there; this is true also of the area of the middle Snake, and to a much greater degree. First, the salmon run did not extend above Shoshone Falls, and the population living upstream from that point resorted regularly to favored fishing places below

All informants agreed that the Sawtooth Mountains west of the Lemhi River and south of the Salmon River were inhabited by a Shoshone population designated as Tukurika (Dukarika and other variants). No Tukurika, or "Sheepeater," informants were interviewed on the Fort Hall Reservation, and we obtained only fragmentary information from Lemhi Shoshone and other Idaho Shoshone and Bannock. Historical information on the Sheepeaters is scanty and mostly concerned with later periods. The earliest refer

There is little historic information on the specific area of Bannock Creek, Idaho. Almost all references to those Shoshone who were later found to have ranged through the area during part of the year is under the heading of Pocatello's band. This band was a hostile group under Chief Pocatello that raided white settlers and emigrants in the late 1850's and early 1860's. Pocatello's followers were mentioned along many points on the Oregon Trail through southern Idaho and were just as frequently re

Above American Falls, the native population consisted of both Shoshone and Bannock Indians who were mounted and seasonally pursued the buffalo. Population aggregations were, in general, considerably larger than in any of the foregoing areas of Idaho. Ogden saw a "Snake" camp of 300 tents, 1,300 people and 3,000 horses on Little Lost River in November, 1827 (Ogden, 1910, p. 364), and Beckwourth claimed that he had met thousands of mounted and hostile Indians at the mouth of the Portneuf River in

One of the most cohesive of all Shoshone groups lived in the valley of the Lemhi River on the western slope of the Continental Divide. The Lemhi Shoshone were commonly known by the term Agaidika, or "salmon eaters." Like the people of the Fort Hall plains they had fairly large herds of horses, which enabled them to take part in the transmontane buffalo hunt. Excellent data on the early historic period in Lemhi Valley is found in the journals of Lewis and Clark, who crossed the Continental Divide

Out of the mass of detailed data presented in the preceding chapters, certain constant features in the life of the buffalo-hunting Shoshone and Bannock may be discerned. First, there is no doubt of the importance of buffalo in the economy of these people. During an early period, when the Shoshone were among the first tribes of the Northern Plains to adopt the horse, they occupied large areas of the Missouri drainage and extensive buffalo herds were also to be found west of the Continental Divide

Abbreviations   Alter, J. Cecil 1925. James Bridger. Salt Lake City, Utah. Ballard, D. W. 1867. RCIA 1866, CD 1284, pp. 190-192. 1869. RCIA 1868, CD 1366, pp. 656-659. Beckwith, Lieut. E. G. 1855. Report of Explorations for a Route for the Pacific Railroad, of the Line of the Forty-First Parallel of North Latitude 1854. CD 792, 1B, 1854-55. Washington. Beckwourth, James P. 1931. The Life and Adventures of J. P. Beckwourth. T. D. Bonner, ed. New York. Blythe, Beatrice 1938. "Northern Paiute Bands