Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and SocietyMurphy, Robert F. (Robert Francis)
History
Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and Society
Murphy, Robert F. (Robert Francis)
Bannock Indians; Shoshoni Indians
They inhabit, during about six months in each year, the valleys
of the Ogden, Weber, and Bear rivers, in this territory. A
considerable portion of their numbers remain there also during
the whole year, while others accompany the Eastern Shoshone to
the Wind River valley to hunt buffalo. They claim as their
country also a portion of southern Idaho, and often visit that
region, but game being there scarce and the country mostly
barren, their favorite haunts are as before stated.
According to Steward, Pocatello's band was an innovation in Bannock
Creek (1938, p. 217):
Apparently there were several independent villages in this
district in aboriginal days, but when the people acquired many
horses and the white man entered the country they began to
consolidate under Pocatello, whose authority was extended over
people at Goose Creek to the west and probably at Grouse Creek
[Utah].
Actual war parties were led by Pocatello and numbered only ten to
twenty men, according to one informant. Hostile activities were
conducted especially on the Oregon Trail, which ran through southern
Idaho, and his band was responsible also for the attack at Massacre
Rocks (near the Snake River) and for various raids in northern Utah.
When not on the warpath, the Bannock Creek Shoshone followed a more
prosaic round of native subsistence activities. Information on the
winter quarters of the Bannock Creek people is uncertain. There were
some winter camps on Bannock Creek, and one informant reported that
Pocatello also wintered on the Portneuf River between Pocatello and
McCammon. Others said that Pocatello wintered at times on the Bear
River near the Utah-Idaho line.
Pocatello was not the only chief among the Bannock Creek people. Two
others were named Pete and Tom Pocatello, although their relation to
Pocatello himself was doubtful. These chiefs had their own followers,
who were nonetheless known as Hukandika by informants. Tom Pocatello
remained in the general area of Malade City, Idaho, and Washakie,
Utah, and wintered on the Bear River.
When they were not engaged in or threatened by hostilities, the
Bannock Creek Shoshone split into small camp groups much as they did
in pre-white days. At least part of the band went to Glenn's Ferry on
the Snake River in the springtime, where they remained throughout the
salmon run. Similarly, many went--probably as individual families and
camp groups--to Camas Prairie for summer root digging. Others might
travel into the Bear River and Bear Lake country, while still others
journeyed to Nevada to visit or to be present for the September
pine-nut harvests. Those who were mounted even traveled into Wyoming
and visited and hunted buffalo with the Eastern Shoshone.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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