Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and SocietyMurphy, Robert F. (Robert Francis)
History
Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and Society
Murphy, Robert F. (Robert Francis)
Bannock Indians; Shoshoni Indians
In later years, other bands are reported in southwestern Idaho.
Governor Caleb Lyon made a treaty with "San-to-me-co and the headmen
of the Boise Shoshonees" on October 10, 1864 (Lyon, 1866, p. 418) and
in the following year placed some 115 "Boise Shoshone" at Fort Boise
(Lyon, 1867, p. 187). Special Indian Agent Hough mentioned Boise,
Bruneau, and Kammas bands of Shoshone in 1866 and commented: "The
Bruneau and Boise are so intermarried that they are in fact all one
people and are closely connected by blood, visiting each other as
frequently as they dare pass over the country" (Hough, 1867, p. 189).
Governor Ballard, in the same year, reported that the "Boise
Shoshones" numbered 200; insecurity due to Indian-white hostilities
kept them from camas-root digging during the summer (Ballard, 1867, p.
190). In 1867 many Shoshone of the Boise and Bruneau rivers and a
group of Bannock were placed temporarily on the Boise River, some
thirty miles upstream from Boise (Powell, 1868, p. 252). The Bannock
were said to have been under the leadership of a chief named "Bannock
John"; the report, dated July 31, 1867, also mentioned that these
Bannock engaged in salmon fishing in the Boise River and camas
collection on Camas Prairie during the summer, but intended to go east
for the buffalo hunt in the fall. That the above Bannock were mounted
buffalo hunters rather than Oregon Paiute seems manifest from this
statement. This was not the only Bannock band, however, for on July
15, 1867, Agent Mann of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, reported a conversation
with "Tahjee, the chief of the Bannacks" in which he learned that
"there does exist a very large band of Bannacks, numbering more than
100 lodges" (Mann, 1868, p. 189). Mann stated that 50 lodges of these
Indians were present that year. This and other references to the
diverse, but simultaneous, locations of the Bannock suggest that they
were not a unitary political entity.
References to the Bannock and to the Shoshone on the Boise and Bruneau
rivers continue during the next two years. Powell gave their numbers
in 1868 as 100, 283, and 300, respectively, and stated (C. F. Powell,
1869, p. 662):
... [the Bannock] remained under my charge for several months,
when they were permitted to go on their regular buffalo hunt,
their country ranging through eastern Idaho and Montana. When
through their hunt they return to the Boise and Bruneau camp;
they and the Boise and Bruneau are on the best of terms, all
being more or less intermarried.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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