Chapter Seven

The Great Basin

Culture Area

Geography: Basin is between Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains and

includes the Snake River Plain, portions of Oregon, Idaho,

Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California

Cultural

configurations

within this area

include the Bannock, the Ute,

the Kawaiisu, and

various groups of Shoshone &,

Paiute.

Most are Numic-speakers, a branch

of the Uto-Aztecan

language family.

Geography and Environment

Highly varied environment -

alpine mountain ranges / high altitudeslow and high desert / dunesValleys and plains / marshlands

Generally, an arid climate -hot summers, cold winters, precipitation in some areas is only a few inches of rain per year, other areas receive runoff from the mountains and have a great deal of surface water.

Paleoindian Period

Earliest evidence of occupation = ~12,000 ya

Few in number, very mobile

Subsistence included big game hunting

Climate relatively wet and cool compared to later.

Spirit Man of Nevada (4 minutes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xppOQnAAIZA&feat

ure=related

9,000 year old Mummy found in cave near Fallon.

One of the oldest remains found in North America.

Surprisingly finely handwoven textiles found with him.

Archaic Period (began 10,000 ya)

Climate changed to warmer, drier conditions around 10,000 years ago and

megafauna went extinct.

Subsistence strategy changed from big game hunting to one adapted to desert

conditions.

In the past, the culture of this area was seen as static and called the “Desert

Culture.” It was thought the area’s typical subsistence pattern was uniform

and unchanged until contact with Europeans.

Today’s assessment has altered this older interpretation. This culture area was

(and still is) highly varied in climate, geography, and resources. Evidence

shows that as people continued to fan out and adapt to specific regions,

their adaptations ongoing, not static.

Now called the “Desert Archaic” adaptation.

Fremont Culture

2000 to 800 BP

Occupied parts of Utah, Nevada, Idaho, and Colorado

Farmed as well as hunted and gathered

Cultivated corn

Gone long before the first Europeans arrived

Other groups practiced an agrarian subsistence strategy

during this period of time.

Then also disappeared by 800 AD

(for instance, the Virgin Anasazi).

Contact Period

Before Europeans entered this culture area, the Utes and Southern Paiutes raided Spanish and Pueblo groups for horses and were responsible for introducing horses to the Plateau and Plains culture areas.

1776: The Spanish entered this culture area.

1805: The Lemhi Shoshone encountered the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

1843: John Fremont traveled through opening the Oregon Trail and California Trail (which became transportation corridors).

Relatively little impact from these encounters.

Negative Impacts of Contact

---The first and most significantly negative impact on this culturearea happened between the 1840s and the 1860s. Events during these decades destroyed the subsistence pattern and the lifestyle of the Native American groups in the Great Basin.

---1840s: The confiscating of land by the incoming Mormons to build their “city in the desert” permanently changed the landscape. At first, Mormons tried to incorporate native people of Salt Lake Valley by declaring them “the Lost Tribe of Israel” but handouts were little consolation for loss of a habitat and violence frequently broke out. The mining craze of this same period only increased the likelihood of violent encounters and habitat destruction.

---1860s: Mormons and non-Mormons covered the land with huge cattle ranches, trampling vast tracts of grain and seed resources, driving away the game, and diverting the water. Such “development” destroyed the resources vital for the Indian subsistence pattern. As the cities and ranches grew, the native people faced starvation.

Negative ImpactsHungry and without access to their former self-supporting lifestyle, American Indians began to raid ranches and farms for food. Frequent conflict between settlers and native people escalated to a new level. People on both sides were killed and Mormons, the ranchers, the businessmen in the cities, and especially the farmers wanted what they called, “the Indian problem,” solved, even if it meant by violent means. They called upon the U.S. Calvary.

The Outcome:The largest one-day massacre of Native Americans in American history took place in 1863 at Bear River in Cache Valley. (This valley was much coveted by the Mormons, the farmers, and the ranchers.)

http://www.lemhi-shoshone.com/bear-river-massacre.html

More Native Americans were murdered by U.S. forces at Bear River than at the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890 or the AIM shootout at Pine Ridge in 1973. A Mormon wrote of his experience walking among the dead a day after the massacre that he counted over 450 Native Americans dead, and more than 200 of the dead were women and children.

The Bear River Massacre is thought to be the turning point for Native Americans in this region because after this horrendous slaughter, the Shoshone never again amassed an organized army to fight the whites. And control of Cache Valley, and all other lands of this territory, passed to the control of the Mormon Church and the U.S. Government.

From then on, Native Americans in this culture area took their “fight” to the public, to the theater houses, to Washington, D.C., and to the courts.

Sarah Winnemucca, Northern Paiute Leader p148-49

A tireless “word warrior,” she used her many skills and talents to bring

issues before the American public and the U.S. Government and tried

throughout her life to get fair treatment for her people.

---Author, speaker, dramatist, educator, and interpreter

---First Native American Woman to publish in the U.S.

--- Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims. (published, 1883)

---1885: Founded a school near Lake Pyramid, one of the first attempts

at Indian self-determination in education.

---From Reno, Nevada, daughter of Chief Winnemucca, grand-daughter

of Chief Truckee, who helped John Fremont survive when he crossed

the Great Basin area in 1843.

Access to Water, A long-standing issue for the Great Basin

Many bands relied extensively on abundant fish in lakes, streams,

and rivers. Altering the flow to these resource-laden bodies of water

caused serious consequences for the people of this area.

One example: Derby Dam (and how it affected the Northern

Paiute of Pyramid Lake and Truckee River).

The Derby Dam was constructed across the Truckee River in 1905

---The dam dried up lakes, reduced water level in Pyramid Lake, and

destroyed the resources of Truckee Rivers, killing off fish and

eliminating the game and waterfowl.

Water problem such as this remain a central issue for the Native

Americans of this region even today.

Political Organization (Traditional)Remember: “Political organization” refers to a cultural group’s communal decision-

making customs, their practices related to social control, both internally (crime and punishment) and externally (war and alliances), and customs of leadership.

Typically, the traditional Great Basin Culture Area exhibited the following: Political decisions & actions were organized at the family level, with families handling most decisions by themselves and coming together temporarily about issues that affected them all.

Related families formed a band-like unit on these temporary occasions.Leadership: Each family had a headman, degwani (talker) and these

“talkers” formed a type of informal leadership during communal get-togethers.

Primary responsibilities of leaders: 1.Keep track of plant and animal resources for optimum collection

purposes2. Mediate between parties in disagreement.

Social Organization (Traditional)

Mostly nuclear family configuration / very mobile and efficient for a hunter/gatherer subsistence pattern.

Mainly patrilineal, but no clans or formal lineages were observed.

Families formed temporary bands during fall and winter.

Marriage rule generally observed was to marry outside own band. (exogamous)

Sexual division of labor made marriage an important economic union.

If divorced / widowed, remarriage was very common, very desirable. (if widowed, then after the annual mourning ceremony)

The Traditional Economy: Food-Getting Strategy

Based on hunting and gathering but mostly gathering

Seeds and Nuts - formed staple food

Pinyon nuts - most important

Wild grains/ seeds - very important

Harvesting insects: highly nutritious/good quality protein

crickets, grasshoppers, ants

eaten fresh

ground into flour

put into soups

Game animals, waterfowl, and fish – very important

Some agriculture practiced by

Southern Paiute & Owens Valley Paiute

Economics:

Material Culture and Technology

Basketry: numerous types and styles Some with sap / tree resin to waterproof

Wore little clothing most of the year

Many uses of fiber and wood includingdifferent types of housing (dependedon the time of year)

Bow and arrows: made from straight-grainedtrunk of juniper trees, trees carefully tended and held in family for generations

Read article by Philip Wilke of UC RiversideAbout making bow staves from juniper wood:http://escholarship.org/uc/item/4v5249w9

Pinyon Nuts (pine nuts)

How to harvest pine nuts

http://www.ehow.com/how_5802

276_harvest-pinon-nuts.html

Religion

Focused on subsistence, relatively few ceremonies

Emphasis on individual power / spirit-helper (dreams, vision quests)

Belief in spirits of animals, things, places – sought help from what or where issue centered.

Belief in “water babies” (inhabited all bodies of water, powerful and could cause illness/death if disrespected but could be a good omen, too)

Round Dance: Important ceremony performed for world renewal / giving thanks, honoring nature

Ute performed the Bear Dance – a 10-day dance

The Washoe“In 1846, the Washoe noticed the famed Donner party wagon train because they

had never seen wagons before. The Washoe describe seeing the wagons and

wondering if they were a “monster snake”. In route to California, the Donner party

reached the Sierras late in the year and got trapped in snow for a particularly

harsh winter. The Washoe checked in with the stranded travelers a few times and

brought them food when they could.

Even so, in the face of suffering and starvation, the Donner Party resorted to

cannibalism. When the Washoe witnessed them eating each other they were

shocked and frightened. Although the Washoe faced hard times every winter

and death by starvation sometimes occurred, they were never cannibalistic.

Stories about the situation, some gruesome and some sympathetic, were told for

many generations and are said to add to the general mistrust of the white

people.”

Go here for more info: http://www.native-languages.org/washo-legends.htm

Also has info about Washoe legends including a description of “water babies.”

ReligionSun Dance adopted (ritual piercing, sacrifice)

Peyote religion – ingestion of hallucinogenic (but not narcotic) cactus plant to communicate with the spiritual realm

Native American Church of 1925 (preserved use of peyote) (U.S. laws protect its use by the NAC – read page346 for more info)

Shamans, both male and female

Witchcraft & Sorcery - death was thought to come about due to witchcraft of evil shamans.

Fear of being near the dead or anything they owned / touched.

Witchcraft among the Paiute

Go here to learn more (PDF):

http://www.iupui.edu/~anthkb/e445/readings/wh

iting.pdf

“Paiute Sorcery: Sickness and Social Control

by Beatrice Whiting (anthropologist)

Revitalization Movements

Revitalization movements erupt when people are under cultural

duress and need to find some way to stop the pain of the present and

regain the glory days of the past. These movements come about when

people have lost, or are losing, their way of life, and do not clearly see

a future for themselves.

Revitalization movements start with a self-appointed leader who has

had a vision or a dream. He comes back to his people with a plan, a

prescription. He will lead them to a time of goodness and abundance.

But they must do what the vision says to do - exactly.

The plan involves the people performing certain magical rites to bring

about the transformation. It may also provide a moral code for people

to live by. But it’s most salient feature is the emphasis on having

people prove they are “true believers.”

The Ghost Dance (1889)

Wovoka, a Northern Paiute, had a vision and became a prophet. His

vision caused him to advise his people that if they did what the vision

prescribed, they would be reunited with their ancestors, return to their

glory days, and life would be abundantly good.

Wovoka’s vision told people to live in peace and harmony. And that if

they added certain dances and songs to the Round Dance (a world

renewal ceremony already in use), it would become the Ghost Dance,

and through the spiritual powers of the Ghost Dance, their wretched

lives would be transformed into bliss.

There was nothing violent in what Wovoka prescribed. But when the

Ghost Dance diffused into the Plains culture area, it frightened U.S.

military leaders so badly that tragedy, not paradise, resulted.

Today’s Issues45 Reservations, formal tribal governmentsCasinos provide employment

Today’s unresolved issues include:Issues of land ownership Hunting and water rights (still fighting to retain sufficient water flow into Lake Pyramid to maintain fishery)Grazing problem: Gov’t is requiring a fee to graze on lands Indians claim they own

“Chaining”: Gov’t has been stripping areas of pinyon-juniper forests by chaining, and replacing native plants with grasses that only cattle can eat and digest. Large tracts of forest have been destroyed and the Great Basin people are working through legal channels to stop the destruction, buy up as much land as possible and preserve it in its natural state.

Western Shoshone

Educator/author Ned Blackhawk, Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone has an

“Unconventional Outlook” on the historical interpretation of the Great Basin culture area:http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/12/28/unconventional-outlook-ned-blackhawk-offers-a-new-analysis-for-an-ancient-region-68231

Contemporary Issues

On Feb. 24, 2011, Forrest Cuch, Uintah Band member and

long-time head of Utah’s Division of Indian Affairs was fired

abruptly by Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert.

These are some of the issues that the Native American Bands and the state

of Utah are at odds over:

A recent controversy over whether the Uncompahgre band ever

relinquished ownership of a two million acre-tract in the Uintah Basin east

of Salt Lake City;

A controversial Utah Transit Authority proposed substation;

A water rights struggle affecting the Goshute Reservation in western Utah;

Central Utah Project information;

On-reservation business and employment rules.

Read more at:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/02/28/dismissal-may-foretell-anti-indian-stance-20166

Owens Valley, California

What differed between this cultural group and the generalized ethnographic portrait of the entire Great Basin culture area?

Environment: as varied as the rest of the culture area

Language: same as other regions, of Numic origin

History: similar in that cattle ranchers & settlers destroyed much land; In 1933, Los Angeles built an aqueduct and took the water from the Owens Valley, drying up Owens Lake.

Politics: some differences - triblet organization, bands owned and controlled certain areas; “chief” position was hereditary with some discretionary decision-making power & social control

Social Organization: unrelated families formed a village, villages forms a band. “Two-spirits” common; bilateral, no formal lineages, marriage exogamous, usually matrilocal, death and mourning similar to beliefs throughout the culture area.

Owens Valley Paiute

Owens Valley Paiute

Economic Practices: “Incipient agriculture,” (page 162), reciprocity, did not do communal hunt of waterfowl as in other regions, did trade, depended on gathering, pinyon nut collection but also acorns (not used by other groups), did hunting/fishing, and insect harvesting, stone tools, some pottery, used shell money, carried in “treasure baskets.”

Religion and Medicine: Annual mourning ceremony (“the Cry”); two types of shamans, one was “herb doctor” other was“spirit doctor”not hereditary, shamans did not lead communal hunts as in other regions, could be good or evil and there was a belief in witchcraft just as in other regions.

Today: life has improved, some of the reservations have casinos, have self-governance with an elected council; Bishop Reservation holds an annual Pow Wow and has a museum and cultural center; Owens Valley Paiute continue to gather pine nuts and catepillars, and have even been successful in stopping the U.S. Forest Service from spraying the pine forests.