Paiute equipment for life was simple. Clothing consisted of a breechclout for the men, and for women a brief skirt hanging from the waist. These were sometimes supplemented by robes hung from the shoulders for warmth, buckskin moccasins for the feet, and ornaments of various kinds, particularly beads and feathers. They had no regular head dress, but often painted themselves with a special red earth which gave them a weird appearance. Breechclouts, skirts and robes were usually made from rabbit skins. In order to have the fur both inside and out, they would take a strip of fur and roll it in a spiral around a sinew or yucca fiber. Many such strips sewed together with sinew thread made a skin cloth from which clothing could be fashioned.
Hunting equipment consisted principally of the bow and arrow, supplemented by stone skinning knives. Their arrows were shafted with feathers and tipped with hard wood or stone points, small ones for birds and small game and larger ones for war or big game, all held in place by sinews. The shaft of the arrow was made from a straight limb or from reed cane. Sinew was made by shredding the tendons of deer or other large game. If arrows were to be poisoned, a concoction was made by inducing a rattlesnake to bite into a piece of liver, letting it stand a few days and then mixing it with crushed black widow spiders. Arrow tips dipped in this were considered deadly.
The Paiutes used the rock grinder or metate and mano for grinding such foods as corn, mesquite beans, and the coarse grass seed from which they made bread. The meal was mixed with water to make a batter and was cooked on a hot rock in the fire. The rock was first rubbed with clay to keep the meal from sticking. According to one method, the batter was made thin and poured over the rock in a flat cake. The heat from the rock soon set the batter and the rock was then stood upright close to the fire so the cake would bake on both sides. In the other method, the batter was made thicker and put out on the rock in the form of a conical loaf and coals were heaped around it.
Though the Indians raised corn, squash and beans, they lived principally upon fish, birds, wild game, wild fruits, roots and seeds. The principal game was rabbit and deer but occasionally antelope and mountain sheep supplemented their meager fare, and any sort of smaller game was used when obtainable. Hyrum Leany, who settled in Harrisburg in 1862, relates how the Indians used to go hunting lizards and chipmunks (ta-bats pa-shugi). The boys would tuck the heads under their belts and sometimes would come home with a beltful. The chuckwalla lizards were regarded as delicacies and the Indians had learned the art of removing them from the crevices in which they puff themselves up until their sides are pressed tightly against the rock, thus making it difficult to dislodge them. By puncturing the distended lungs with a sharp hooked stick, they were easily extracted.
To cook a small animal, such as rabbit or chipmunk, the Paiutes laid it in the fire without any preliminary preparation other than the removal of the skin, and the hot coals were raked over it. All parts of the body were eaten and nothing edible was missed. Surplus meat was usually dried.
Among the plants, grass seed was a staple article of diet. It could be gathered in those days almost anywhere, though the grass has largely disappeared since the advent of the white man’s horses, cattle and sheep. The fruit of the cactus (tuna or prickly pear) furnished a food mainstay in midsummer. In places where the yant (Agave) was found, the young flower stalks were roasted barbecue fashion. This was a delicacy designated as pe-ya-ga-mint, “a sweet food.”
Sugar was obtained in small quantities from the water willows and from the reed cane (Phragmites) by cutting it when plant lice had been working on it. As it dried, crystals of sugar appeared. This was gathered by shaking off the crystals and using them as a delicacy.
Among the native fruits gathered in season were the wild grapes and the sour squawberries of the stream banks in the valleys, the little red ookie berries of the semi-alkaline flats, the weump berries (Berberis fremonti) of the foothills, the sarvis berries (Amelanchier) of the lower mountain slopes and the choke cherries (Prunus), strawberries, and raspberries (Rubus) of the mountains. Pine nuts obtained from the cones of the pinyon pines were a staple fall crop gathered in large quantities and kept for later use.
It is certain that the Parrusits Indians raised crops by irrigation before the whites appeared among them. Escalante, in 1776, remarked only about corn and squash, but it is believed that they also raised beans and probably melons. Their farms were located on small flats where water could be easily diverted from spring or stream. Farming implements were mainly sticks of various kinds, usually of ash, about three feet long and three or four inches wide toward one end, with the edges sharpened and running to a point. Ditches were hard to make and maintain due to periodic floods. Cultivated areas were usually very small, five acres being the maximum.
An old Kaibabits Indian named George graphically described the farming operations thus: “Kaibab Injuns no raise’m crops. ’nudder Injuns raise’m. No shovel, no hoe. Use’m stick; dig’m ditch; make water come. Dig little hole over here, over there, all around; plant’um corn.”