Despite considerable confusion about the role of the subchiefs, or lesser chiefs, they appear to have been men of prestige who had their own small following, although they recognized the personal influence of Washakie during large gatherings and general band endeavors. When not on the buffalo hunt or in winter camp these smaller groups of families, led by one or two of the minor leaders, functioned autonomously. Their itineraries and activities have already been described.
The small band was undoubtedly a much more basic unit in Eastern Shoshone society than the "tribe" as a whole. Intermarriage linked the small camp groups, although one could marry into his own unit if incest rules, as determined by kinship bonds, were not violated. There was no obligatory rule of residence, but the couple more frequently resided after marriage with the bride's family. This was not necessarily a permanent arrangement, and visits were made to the families of either mate for extended periods. This, combined with individual freedom of choice of band membership, caused affiliations to be shifting and fluid. Ultimately these Shoshone were bilocal and neolocal. As has been said, the bands were not territory-owning units, and their chief functions were to provide economic coöperation and defense against enemies.
Leadership was an attained status and was not transmitted by descent. Raynolds, however, refers to Cut-Nose as being the "hereditary chief of the Snakes," according to information received from Jim Bridger (Raynolds, 1868, p. 95), and the reservation chieftaincy passed patrilineally in Washakie's family until the Reorganization Act established the tribal council. However, all informants agreed that one became a chief owing to merit—primarily through renown as a warrior. That the chieftaincy was neither inherited nor permanent is indicated by the proliferation of chiefs' names in historical sources. Except for such figures as Washakie and Pocatello, a chief is rarely mentioned twice, and it can be hypothesized that many were the leaders of ephemeral predatory bands that arose for specific purposes of defense or agression against the whites and dissolved shortly after the period of emergency passed. Finally, any man who had achieved renown and prestige or was the leader of a camp group, was known as a "chief," for the lack of institutionalization and formalization of the office made its tenure most nebulous.
It was not even necessary that a Shoshone chief be a Shoshone. During 1858, we hear of a Delaware Indian named Ben Simons, undoubtedly a former fur trapper, who was at the head of some 150-400 Shoshone on the upper Bear River (Gove, 1928, pp. 133, 146, 277). And Washakie, himself, was born into the Flathead tribe. Washakie's Flathead father was killed by the Blackfoot, and his mother sought refuge with the Lemhi River Shoshone of Idaho. He eventually gained renown in the Green and Bear River country as a warrior and attained his final position as a successful mediator with the whites.
Finally, Washakie's career gives additional evidence that there were no hard and fast lines between the so-called "Eastern Shoshone" and other Shoshone groups. Washakie's wanderings, according to Wilson, took him into Utah, Idaho, and Montana (E. N. Wilson, 1926, pp. 68-73). This was consistent with the general Shoshone pattern of visiting between areas for short or extended periods. The unique character of Washakie's leadership can best be explained in terms of contact with the whites and the Shoshones' need to expand into the buffalo grounds east of the Rocky Mountains. First, Washakie united and represented all those Shoshone who did not choose to join their fellows in northern Utah and southern Idaho in hostilities against the whites. Second, Washakie was an able and vigorous war leader under whom the embattled Shoshone could rally. Although at no time a separate, territorially distinct and exclusive group, the Eastern Shoshone evidently became somewhat differentiated from their people to the west by the latter's long distance from the shrinking buffalo grounds and by their distaste for the warlike activities of their Utah and Idaho fellows. The Eastern Shoshone, however, did not attempt to maintain the area over which they roamed to the exclusion of other Shoshone and of the Bannock. Their neighbors and colinguists to the west, if they were properly mounted, could and did join with them in buffalo hunting.
III. THE SHOSHONE AND BANNOCK OF IDAHO
The Shoshone of western Wyoming were a mobile population whose primary subsistence was provided by buffalo herds. The Shoshone of Idaho showed no such unity of ecological adaptation, for the region was inhabited by mounted buffalo hunters and by less prosperous Shoshone who fished and gathered wild vegetables for a livelihood. While the buffalo hunters tended to be located in the southeastern part of Idaho and the fishing and gathering peoples in the southwestern, the mounted hunters traveled throughout the southern part of the state and, at certain times of the year, mingled with the poorer, footgoing Indians.
Because of this diversity we have divided Idaho into six subregions and present the historical and ethnographic data pertinent to each area under a separate heading. Indians mentioned in the historical sources are not always easily identifiable as Shoshone, Bannock, or Northern Paiute, and a great deal of confusion between the last two is inherent in their linguistic bond. We shall use the name Bannock in its most common sense to designate the mounted, buffalo-hunting Mono-Bannock speakers of Idaho; Northern Paiute refers specifically to the Mono-Bannock population to the west of the Shoshone. In many instances we cannot be certain that the Indians encountered by one or another traveler were permanent residents of the area. Permanency, in any event, is a rather doubtful attribute of this highly nomadic people; the term cannot be used except as a designation for the people who customarily spend the winter in a certain area, and even with this limitation it must be used with caution.