Shoshone

The Shoshone (Newe, the People) hold the Great Basin and its rims in four divisions: Eastern Shoshone of Wyoming, Northern Shoshone of Idaho, Western Shoshone of Nevada, Utah and California, and the Goshute of the salt desert. They speak Shoshoni, a Numic tongue of the Uto-Aztecan family, and neighbours once called them Snake Indians. Pine-nut harvests, rabbit drives, antelope surrounds and, where water allowed, garden plots fed a culture of small winter camps and great summer gatherings, where the Round Dance and later the Ghost Dance renewed the people. Horses transformed the Eastern and Northern bands into bison hunters feared on the Plains; Sacajawea of the Lemhi guided Lewis and Clark through her homeland. Reservations at Wind River, Duck Valley, Fort Hall and Skull Valley anchor the modern Newe, who defend treaty water, pine-nut woods and burial grounds across the basin, and autumn pine-nut harvests with summer Round Dances still gather the bands.