About the Shoshone Tribe
- The Reservation. The Eastern Shoshone Tribe, now living on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, has been living, some say, in the Wind River mountain range and its environs for ...
- Sacajawea. ...
- Chief Washakie. ...
What are facts about the Shoshone Indians?
- Each of the 15 poles of the teepee have a special meaning.
- Respect-to feel or show regard for
- Humility-an act of showing respect
- Happiness-a condition of being cheerful
- Love-an expression of ones feelings
- Faith-a set of beliefs
- Kinship-a connection by blood
- Cleanliness-the condition of being clean
- Thankfulness-being grateful
- Sharing-an act of participating
What language did the Shoshone Indians speak?
The absolutive suffixes are as follows: : 16
- -pin
- -ppɨh
- -ppɨ
- -pittsih, -pittsɨh
- -mpih
- -pai
- -ttsih
What food did Shoshone Indians eat?
Tools & Weapons of the Shoshone Indians
- Hunting Tools. As skilled huntsmen, bows and arrows were vital to Shoshone survival. ...
- Cooking Utensils. Unlike more stationary tribes, the Shoshone did not farm or store large quantities of food. ...
- Weapons. The Shoshone tribes defended themselves with the same tools used for hunting. ...
- Making Clothing. Shoshone clothing depended on the materials available. ...
What is the history of the Shoshone Indians?
Reservations and Indian colonies
- 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
Where are the Shoshone tribe today?
Today, the Shoshone's approximately 10,000 members primarily live on several reservations in Wyoming, Idaho, and Nevada, the largest of which is the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
Is there a current reservation for the Shoshone tribe?
The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes are located on the Fort Hall Reservation in Southeastern Idaho, between the cities of Pocatello, American Falls, and Blackfoot. The Reservation is divided into five districts: Fort Hall, Lincoln Creek, Ross Fork, Gibson, and Bannock Creek.
Who is the current leader of the Shoshone tribe?
Eastern Shoshone Tribal Leader Ivan Posey: Born To Lead On The Reservation.
What is the population of the Shoshone tribe?
The Tribes are composed of several Shoshone and Bannock bands that were forced to the Fort Hall Reservation, which eventually became the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. There are approximately 5,681 enrolled tribal members with a majority living on or near the Fort Hall Reservation.
How do the Shoshone live today?
Today, they live on the Wind River Indian Reservation with the Northern Arapaho Tribe in central Wyoming. The Eastern Shoshone are known for their Plains horse culture. They acquired the horse in 1700 and it completely changed their lifestyles. They became proficient hunters thus they became fierce warriors.
What does Shoshone mean in English?
Definition of Shoshone 1 : a member of a group of American Indian peoples originally ranging through California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. 2 : the Uto-Aztecan language of the Shoshones.
What language did the Shoshone tribe speak?
Shoshoni, also written as Shoshoni-Gosiute and Shoshone (/ʃoʊˈʃoʊni/; Shoshoni: soni' ta̲i̲kwappe, newe ta̲i̲kwappe or neme ta̲i̲kwappeh) is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, spoken in the Western United States by the Shoshone people.
Who were the Shoshone enemies?
Their enemies were the Blackfeet, Atsani, and the Hidsastas. They had many things that the Shoshone didn't such as rifles. They forced the Shoshone away from the plains and the great buffalo hunting up in the mountains. The Shoshone also was the key to success to the Lewis and Clark expedition.
What was the Shoshone religion?
The Shoshone religion is based on belief in supernatural power (boha) that is acquired primarily through vision quests and dreams.
What tribe was Pocahontas apart of?
The Powhatan Indians called their homeland "Tsenacomoco." As the daughter of the paramount chief Powhatan, custom dictated that Pocahontas would have accompanied her mother, who would have gone to live in another village, after her birth (Powhatan still cared for them).
Are the Shoshone a federally recognized tribe?
On April 29, 1987, the Northwestern Band of Shoshone Nation became a federally recognized tribe, separate from other bands of Shoshones. The Northwestern Band of Shoshone were additional signers to the Treaty of Box Elder of 1863.
Where do Shoshone tribes live?
Tribes such as the Shoshone, Paiute, Washo, and Ute live in the Great Basin area, which reaches from the Colorado River Basin north to the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada, and from the Rocky Mountains west to the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Range. Musicians from this region emphasize…
What is the Shoshone tribe?
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Shoshone, also spelled Shoshoni; also called Snake, North American Indian group that occupied the territory from what is now southeastern ...
What is the Shoshone language?
The Shoshone language is a Central Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family. Shoshone dialects were so similar that speakers from the extreme ends of Shoshone territory were mutually intelligible. Heebe-tee-tse, Shoshone Indian, photograph by Rose & Hopkins, c. 1899.
Why were the Comanche bands feared by the Spaniards of the Southwest?
Comanche bands were feared by the Spaniards of the Southwest because they subsisted as much by plunder as by buffalo hunting. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now. Early 21st-century population estimates indicated some 41,000 descendants of the four Shoshone groups.
When did the Shoshone get horses?
The Wind River Shoshone and Northern Shoshone probably acquired horses as early as 1680, before Spanish occupation of their lands.
Who were the first people to get horses?
The Southern Ute and Eastern Shoshone were among the first peoples north of the Spanish settlements of New Mexico to obtain horses, perhaps by the mid-1600s. These bands subsequently acted as middlemen in the transmission of horses and horse culture from New Mexico to the northern Plains. As the Northern….
What tribes were in the Shoshoni?
It is time for Utah historians to make the Shoshoni a prominent part of the state’s history along with the Navajo, Paiute, and Ute tribes. See: Brigham D. Madsen, The Northern Shoshoni (1980), The Shoshoni Frontier and the Bear River Massacre (1985), and Chief Pocatello: The White Plume (1986).
Where did the Shoshoni live?
Chief Pocatello commanded a similar number of Shoshoni, who ranged from Grouse Creek in northwestern Utah eastward along the northern shore of Great Salt Lake to the Bear River. The third division of about 450 people, under Chief Bear Hunter, resided in Cache Valley and along the lower reaches of the Bear River.
How many Shoshoni were there?
The four remaining groups of Shoshoni are usually listed under the general name of the “Northern Shoshoni.”. One of these groups, the Fort Hall Shoshoni of about 1,000 people, lived together with a band of about 800 Northern Paiute known in history as the Bannock at the confluence of the Portneuf and Snake rivers.
How many Shoshoni groups were there in the 1840s?
At the time of major white penetration of the Great Basin and the Snake River areas in the 1840s, there were seven distinct Shoshoni groups. The Eastern Shoshoni, numbering about 2,000 under their famous Chief Washakie, occupied the region from the Wind River Mountains to Fort Bridger and astride the Oregon Trail.
Where did the Northwestern Shoshoni live?
Finally, the fourth and final division of 1,500 people, the Northwestern Shoshoni, resided in the valleys of northern Utah–especially Weber Valley and Cache Valley–and along the eastern and northern shores of Great Salt Lake. There were three major bands of Northwestern Shoshoni at the time the first Mormon pioneers began settling northern Utah.
How many soldiers died in the Bear River massacre?
As a result of the four-hour carnage that ensued, twenty-three soldiers lost their lives and at least 250 Shoshoni were slaughtered by the troops, including ninety women and children in what is now called the Bear River Massacre.
Where is the Shoshone tribe located?
The Fort Hall Reservation of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes is located in southeastern Idaho. Originally encompassing some 1.8 million acres of land, it was later reduced to 544,000 acres. Well over a century later, the Eastern Shoshone and the Shoshone-Bannock have preserved much of their traditional lands and retain their traditional ceremonies, ...
What is the Shoshone tribe?
The Shoshone – Continuing the Traditions of Their Ancestors. The Shoshone tribe often referred to as the Shoshoni or Snake Indians, consists of several distinct groups, of which there are different bands. Originally living in a wide area of the Great Basin and Great Plains and sharing similar Shoshone languages, ...
What is the Shoshone religion?
The basis of the Shoshone religion was a belief in dreams, visions, and a Creator; and fostered individual self-reliance, courage, and the wisdom to meet life’s problems in a difficult environment. Most of the Shoshone ceremonies are dances ...
Where did the Shoshone settle?
After several years, most of the Shoshone finally gave up roaming their homelands in Utah and settled on the reservation, where their descendants continue to live today.
How many men and women were in the Cache Valley?
Encamped at the confluence of Bear River and Bear Creek in the Cache Valley were about 450 men, women, and children. The troops approached in the early morning darkness around 6:00 a.m.
When did the Shoshone tribe move to the Great Basin?
By the time the Europeans began to move into the Great Basin and Snake River areas in the 1840s , there were seven distinct groups of Shoshone, with very few seen east of the Continental Divide. By that time the tribe limited their excursions east only to hunt buffalo, limiting their stays to short periods.
Where was the Bear River massacre?
Bear River Massacre in Idaho. The Shoshone aggression ended in what has become known as the Bear River Massacre on January 29, 1863. On that morning, Colonel Patrick Edward Connor led about 200 California volunteers from Camp Douglas in Salt Lake City to assault the winter camp of Chief Bear Hunter. Encamped at the confluence of Bear River and Bear ...
The Reservation
The Eastern Shoshone Tribe, now living on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, has been living, some say, in the Wind River mountain range and its environs for some 12,000 years.
Sacajawea
In 1805, the Shoshones encountered and then directed the Lewis and Clark expedition towards their goal of finding a waterway to the Pacific Ocean. In fact, without the guarantee of safe passage from the Eastern Shoshone, the Lewis and Clark expedition would have never succeeded.
Chief Washakie
In 1840, a young man named Washakie became the principal Chief of the Eastern Shoshone, a role he would fill until his death over 60 years later.

Overview
The Shoshone or Shoshoni are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions:
• Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming
• Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho
• Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah
Etymology
The name "Shoshone" comes from Sosoni, a Shoshone word for high-growing grasses. Some neighboring tribes call the Shoshone "Grass House People," based on their traditional homes made from sosoni. Shoshones call themselves Newe, meaning "People."
Meriwether Lewis recorded the tribe as the "Sosonees or snake Indians" in 1805.
Language
The Shoshoni language is spoken by approximately 1,000 people today. It belongs to the Central Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Speakers are scattered from central Nevada to central Wyoming.
The largest numbers of Shoshoni speakers live on the federally recognized Duck Valley Indian Reservation, located on the border of Nevada and Idaho; and Goshute Reservation in Utah. Idaho …
History
The Shoshone are a Native American tribe, who originated in the western Great Basin and spread north and east into present-day Idaho and Wyoming. By 1500, some Eastern Shoshone had crossed the Rocky Mountains into the Great Plains. After 1750, warfare and pressure from the Blackfoot, Crow, Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho pushed Eastern Shoshone south and westward. Some of them move…
Historical population
In 1845 the estimated population of Northern and Western Shoshone was 4,500, much reduced after they had suffered infectious disease epidemics and warfare. The completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 was followed by European-American immigrants arriving in unprecedented numbers in the territory.
In 1937 the Bureau of Indian Affairs counted 3,650 Northern Shoshone and 1,201 Western Shosh…
Bands
Shoshone people are divided into traditional bands based both on their homelands and primary food sources. These include:
• Eastern Shoshone people:
Guchundeka', Kuccuntikka, Buffalo Eaters Tukkutikka, Tukudeka, Mountain Sheep Eaters, joined the Northern Shoshone Boho'inee', Pohoini, Pohogwe, Sag…
Reservations and Indian colonies
• Battle Mountain Reservation, Lander County, Nevada. Current reservation population is 165 and total tribal enrollment is 516.
• 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;
Notable people
• Sacagawea (1788–1812), Lemhi Shoshone guide of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
• Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (1805–1866) son of Sacagawea, explorer, guide, military scout
• Cameahwait, chief in the early 19th century