Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and SocietyMurphy, Robert F. (Robert Francis)
History
Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and Society
Murphy, Robert F. (Robert Francis)
Bannock Indians; Shoshoni Indians
The Fort Hall Indian Reservation is today effectively divided into two
parts by the Portneuf River and the city of Pocatello. Most of the
population, including the descendents of the Bannock and of the Lemhi,
Fort Hall, Boise-Weiser, and Snake River Shoshone, live on the larger
and more fertile northeastern section. On the southwestern half live
many Shoshone Indians from northern Utah and from the area of Bannock
Creek, which runs through this part of the reservation. The two
populations mix to only a limited degree; each holds its own Sun
Dance, and the people of the northern part of the reservation feel a
true difference between themselves and those of the southern half.
This separateness evidently goes back to pre-reservation times. The
Bannock Creek Shoshone did not merge or interact very closely with the
Shoshone of Fort Hall, and Bannock informants claim that they never
had much to do with the latter.
The Bannock Creek Shoshone, as they are often called today, have been
assigned a number of names. The most common, and the one most
frequently used, is Hukandika or, as Hoebel transcribes it, Hzkandika
(Hoebel, 1938, p. 410). Steward also reported this name for the
Bannock Creek people, but since the Shoshone of Promontory Point were
also so designated, Steward uses the alternate food name of Kumuduka,
or "jackrabbit eaters," for the residents of Bannock Creek (Steward,
1938, p. 217). Other names are Yahandika (also applied to the
salmon-fishing population of the middle Snake River), Yambarika
("yamp-root eaters"), and Sonivedika ("wheat eaters"). This last term
is, of course, post-white and illustrates the adaptability of these
names. Hukandika, or variants thereof, were reported in earlier times,
although as a group living in northern Utah. Dunn wrote of the
"Ho-kan-di-ka" of the Salt Lake Valley and Bear River (Dunn, 1886, p.
277), and Lander reported the "Ho-kanti'-kara, or Diggers on Salt
Lake, Utah" (Wheeler, 1875, p. 409). For purposes of convenience, we
shall refer to these Indians in this report as Bannock Creek Shoshone,
although the range of their activities extended to the south well
beyond this valley and into Utah.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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