Lifeways

It is difficult to place the Shoshone groups culturally. As a whole, they are placed by scholars in the Great Basin Culture Area (see GREAT BASIN INDIANS). The Great Basin is the vast, cupped desert area lying west of the Rocky Mountains and east of the Sierra Nevada, broken up by intermittent highlands. Native Americans living in this arid and barren environment foraged for scarce food, such as roots, nuts, seeds, lizards, insects, squirrels, and rabbits.

This foraging way of life was especially true of the Western Shoshone, who lived in primitive brush shelters, open at one end. The Goshute, or Gosiute, a band of Shoshone living along the desolate shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, were typical of this group. Their name indicates the ancestral relationship among the Shoshone, UTE, and PAIUTE. The Panamint (or Koso) Shoshone band in eastern California, living in one of the most extreme environments in all of North America—the Panamint Mountains and Death Valley—also were typical foragers.

The Northern Shoshone shared cultural traits with the PLATEAU INDIANS to their north, fishing in the

Snake and other rivers for salmon and collecting wild roots.

The Eastern Shoshone hunted game on the forested slopes of the Grand Teton and Wind River Mountains, part of the Rocky Mountain chain in present-day Wyoming. And with the acquisition of the horse in the late 1600s, the Eastern Shoshone gained greater mobility in their hunting. The pronghorn antelope was a favorite game for meat and hides, as was the buffalo. The Eastern Shoshone came to live in tipis like the PLAINS INDIANS east of the Rocky Mountains. They were traditional enemies of the ARAPAHO and BLACKFEET, living to their east.