Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and Society

by Robert F. Murphy; Yolanda Murphy

The identity of the above-mentioned Bannock is somewhat doubtful. Farnham met a number of Shoshone Indians engaged in fishing the Boise River in September, 1839 (Farnham, 1843, pp. 75-76). Some thirty traveling miles downstream from Boise, however, he noted in apparent contradiction of Townsend, that there were no more "Shoshonie," for "they dare not pass the boundary line between themselves and the Bonacks." The Bannock are described as a "fierce, warlike, and athletic tribe inhabiting that part of Saptin or Snake River which lies between the mouth of Boisais or Reed's River and the Blue Mountains." The question arises whether the Bannock mentioned in the sources were the buffalo-hunting Mono-Bannock speakers who regularly inhabited the upper Snake River or whether they followed the fishing and seed-collecting pattern of the Mono-Bannock speakers of Oregon. Townsend's report of their use of willow lodges suggests that they were Mono-Bannock, but Farnham observed that the Bannock found on the Snake River made war on the Crow and Blackfoot (p. 76). This would definitely suggest life during part of the year in southeastern Idaho and, also, the pursuit of the buffalo. Later historical data and the testimony of contemporary informants suggest that both the Oregon and eastern Idaho populations of Mono-Bannock speakers fished on the Snake River and in the lower reaches of the Boise and Weiser rivers. There was no clear boundary between the Shoshone and the Oregon people termed Northern Paiute, and the mounted buffalo-hunting Bannock also visited western Idaho to fish for salmon. It is thus doubtful whether the ambiguities of the historical sources will ever be resolved.

The subsequent historical references to the native population of this region cover the outbreak of hostilities against the white emigrants on the Oregon Trail and the subsequent attempts to establish peace with the Indians and place them on reservations. In 1862 Special Indian Agent Kirkpatrick surveyed the southwestern Idaho Indians and reported: "The Winnas band of Snakes inhabit the country north of Snake river, and are found principally on the Bayette, Boise and Sickley Rivers" (Kirkpatrick, 1863, p. 412). He reported them as warlike and numbering some 700 to 800 people. Kirkpatrick's "Winnas band" probably corresponds to the designation of the "Wihinasht" in the Handbook of American Indians; these are said to be "a division of Shoshoni, formerly in western Idaho, north of Snake River and in the vicinity of Boise City" (Hodge, 1910, 2:951). During our field work, we found that the term "Wihinait" was often applied generically to the Shoshone population of Fort Hall Reservation.

In later years, other bands are reported in southwestern Idaho. Governor Caleb Lyon made a treaty with "San-to-me-co and the headmen of the Boise Shoshonees" on October 10, 1864 (Lyon, 1866, p. 418) and in the following year placed some 115 "Boise Shoshone" at Fort Boise (Lyon, 1867, p. 187). Special Indian Agent Hough mentioned Boise, Bruneau, and Kammas bands of Shoshone in 1866 and commented: "The Bruneau and Boise are so intermarried that they are in fact all one people and are closely connected by blood, visiting each other as frequently as they dare pass over the country" (Hough, 1867, p. 189). Governor Ballard, in the same year, reported that the "Boise Shoshones" numbered 200; insecurity due to Indian-white hostilities kept them from camas-root digging during the summer (Ballard, 1867, p. 190). In 1867 many Shoshone of the Boise and Bruneau rivers and a group of Bannock were placed temporarily on the Boise River, some thirty miles upstream from Boise (Powell, 1868, p. 252). The Bannock were said to have been under the leadership of a chief named "Bannock John"; the report, dated July 31, 1867, also mentioned that these Bannock engaged in salmon fishing in the Boise River and camas collection on Camas Prairie during the summer, but intended to go east for the buffalo hunt in the fall. That the above Bannock were mounted buffalo hunters rather than Oregon Paiute seems manifest from this statement. This was not the only Bannock band, however, for on July 15, 1867, Agent Mann of Fort Bridger, Wyoming, reported a conversation with "Tahjee, the chief of the Bannacks" in which he learned that "there does exist a very large band of Bannacks, numbering more than 100 lodges" (Mann, 1868, p. 189). Mann stated that 50 lodges of these Indians were present that year. This and other references to the diverse, but simultaneous, locations of the Bannock suggest that they were not a unitary political entity.

References to the Bannock and to the Shoshone on the Boise and Bruneau rivers continue during the next two years. Powell gave their numbers in 1868 as 100, 283, and 300, respectively, and stated (C. F. Powell, 1869, p. 662):

... [the Bannock] remained under my charge for several months, when they were permitted to go on their regular buffalo hunt, their country ranging through eastern Idaho and Montana. When through their hunt they return to the Boise and Bruneau camp; they and the Boise and Bruneau are on the best of terms, all being more or less intermarried.

Ballard reported that on August 26, 1867, a treaty was signed by Tygee, Peter, To-so-copy-natey, Pah Vissigin, McKay, and Jim, in which the Bannock agreed to settle on Fort Hall (Ballard, 1869, p. 658); the Bannock and also the Bruneau and Boise Shoshone were removed from the Boise Valley on December 2, 1868, and brought to Fort Hall (C. F. Powell, 1870, p. 728). They were joined there by 500 Bannock under Tygee, who had just returned from a joint buffalo hunt with the Eastern Shoshone in Wind River Valley (p. 729). Indian Agent Danilson of Fort Hall wrote that in 1869 there were 600 Bannock, 200 Boise Shoshone, 100 Bruneau Shoshone, and 200 Western Shoshone on the reservation (Danilson, 1870, p. 729). The beginning of the reservation period marks the effective end of the independent occupancy of the Idaho area by the Shoshone and Bannock. The rest of this section deals with ethnographic data. In regard to extent of Shoshone settlement, Omer Stewart has reported that eastern Oregon, about the mouths of the Malheur and Owyhee rivers, and southwest Idaho as far east as a line well past Boise, were the territory of a Northern Paiute band called the Koa'agaitoka (Stewart, 1939, p. 133). Blythe places a Northern Paiute band called "Yapa Eaters" in the Boise River Valley (Blythe, 1938, p. 396) and mentions data given by one informant to the effect that a mixed band of Paiute and Shoshone called "People Eaters" lived to the north of the Yapa Eaters (p. 404). Neither historical research nor ethnographic investigation among the Shoshone confirms the existence of such bands in the area described. On the contrary, Steward writes (1938, p. 172):

Shoshone seem to have extended westward about to the Snake River which forms the boundary between Idaho and Oregon. They also occupied the Boise River Valley and probably to some extent the valleys of the Payette and Weiser Rivers. They probably never penetrated Oregon beyond the Blue Mountains.

But the area nearer the Snake River was not occupied exclusively by Shoshone, for Steward continues (ibid.):

This population was neither well defined politically nor territorially. It was scattered in small independent villages of varying prosperity and tribal composition. Along the lower Snake, Boise, and Payette Rivers Shoshone were intermixed with Northern Paiute who extended westward through the greater portion of southern and eastern Oregon. Slightly to the north they were probably mixed somewhat with their Nez Percé neighbors.

Our own field work, as presented below, tends to confirm Steward's data on most points and is in accord with historical information.