Lifeways

The Paiute as a whole are considered part of the Great Basin Culture Area (see GREAT BASIN INDIANS). Nomadic Paiute bands wandered the rugged and arid Great Basin in search of whatever small game and wild plant life they could find, sometimes venturing into the highlands surrounding the desert lowlands—roughly the Rocky Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevada to the west, the Columbia Plateau to the north, and the Colorado Plateau to the south.

For the Paiute bands, their activities and whereabouts in the course of a year were dictated by the availability of food. They traveled a great deal, constructing temporary huts of brush and reeds strewn over willow poles, known as wickiups, which were similar to APACHE dwellings. The first plant food available in the springtime was the cattail, growing in marsh ponds. The shoots were eaten raw. Other wild plant foods—roots and greens—soon followed. Spring was also a good time to hunt ducks in ponds on the birds’ migration northward, and, in the highlands to the north of the Great Basin, to fish the rivers and streams during annual spawning runs.

In summertime, many more wild plant foods ripened, such as berries and rice grass. The Paiute ground the seeds of the latter into meal. In the autumn, the primary food was pine nuts. The Paiute collected them from pinon trees growing on the hills and plateaus rising above the Great Basin. In the late fall, the Paiute returned to the desert lowlands to hunt game throughout the winter, especially rabbits. Year-round, they ate whatever else they could forage, such as lizards, grubs, and insects. The Paiute, along with other Great Basin tribes, have been called “Digger Indians” by non-Indians because they dug for many of their foods.

The concept of hupa was central to Paiute religion. Loosely translated as “power,” hupa was acquired in

Paiute wickiup

Dreams or from sacred sites and gave the individual strength, success, and, in some cases, the ability to heal others.