At the conclusion of the root-collecting season at Camas Prairie, the inhabitants of the Boise and Weiser region wandered back to their customary area and set out upon their late summer and fall activities. Fish were taken during the fall run and dried for winter provisions, but the chief activity was hunting. Both hunting and fishing could be pursued at the same time in the upper waters of the Boise and Payette rivers, although salmon did not ascend far up the Weiser. Hunting was done by small camp groups of 3 to 4 lodges, and the population scattered throughout the mountain country surrounding the river valleys. The principal game taken was deer, elk, bear, and some bighorn sheep. None required the collective efforts of a large number of men, and all were found throughout the mountain area. The small camp group was, therefore, the most effective social unit for the fall hunt, as it was for the summer wanderings of the Wyoming Shoshone.
The hunters ranged up the Boise and Payette valleys into the Sawtooth Mountains as far as the beginnings of the Salmon River watershed. Though the Salmon River country was entered, the hunting parties did not penetrate very far. A favored hunting territory was in the Stanley Basin, at the headwaters of the Salmon River and in the vicinity of the present-day village of Stanley. The kill of game was dried in the mountains and packed down to the winter quarters in the valleys of the Boise, Payette, and Weiser rivers.
In general, it is difficult to define the social organization of the Boise-Weiser Shoshone. While Shoshone social organization is characteristically amorphous, some groups developed a closer integration owing to such factors as warfare and collective economic activities, which demanded leadership. But warfare was rare in this region, and hunting and root-and berry-collecting were essentially carried on by families. The building and operation of fish traps and the distribution of the catch undoubtedly called forth some leadership functions, but not on the band level. Also, the presence of other groups which fished the same streams during the appropriate seasons seems to argue against the consolidation of either the Boise or Weiser people into territorially delimited bands. It was impossible to elicit exact information from informants on the functions of leaders, and it can only be inferred that they probably served as intermediaries with the whites or were simply local men enjoying some prestige as dance directors or leaders of winter villages.
The Shoshone of this area were poorer in horses than the buffalo hunters, but they did possess some. The valleys of the Boise, Payette, and Weiser evidently afforded adequate grazing for small herds, and the natives enjoyed a greater mobility than did their neighbors to the northeast and southeast. The resulting ease of communication would perhaps be conducive to band organization, but neither living informants nor historical sources offer any confirmation of this. That such sociopolitical groups did exist is suggested by mention of chiefs, but the groups did not have clearly defined territories which excluded other peoples, and they could only have been most loosely organized.
THE MIDDLE SNAKE RIVER
This area includes all of Idaho south of the Sawtooth Mountains between American Falls and the Bruneau River. It has been seen that the area of the Boise, Payette, and Weiser rivers was entered regularly by populations that did not customarily winter there; this is true also of the area of the middle Snake, and to a much greater degree. First, the salmon run did not extend above Shoshone Falls, and the population living upstream from that point resorted regularly to favored fishing places below the Falls. Second, the prairies about the locale of present-day Fairfield, Idaho, were the richest camas-root grounds in this section of the Basin-Plateau area and large numbers of Indians convened every summer to gather the roots. Historical sources testify to the numbers of Indians found in the area during certain times of the year, but it is usually impossible to determine the geographical locus of these people during the remainder of the year.
Travelers observed small, impoverished groups of Indians and also larger camps of mounted people. Near Glenn's Ferry, Idaho, Stuart on August 23, 1812, noted (1935, p. 108):
... a few Shoshonie (or Snake) Camps were passed today, who have to struggle hard for a livelihood, even though it is the prime of the fishing season in the Country.
Stuart encountered some 100 lodges of Shoshone fishing at Salmon Falls (p. 109). In 1826 Peter Skene Ogden met a camp of 200 "Snakes" bearing 60 firearms and a quantity of ammunition at Raft River, above the limit of the salmon run (Ogden, 1909, p. 357). In October of the following year he visited Camas Prairie, the camas grounds in the vicinity of Fairfield, and noted a pattern of movement that is still reported by informants (p. 263):
It is from near this point the Snakes form into a body prior to their starting point for buffalo; they collect camasse for the journey across the mountains. Their camp is 300 tents. In Spring they scattered from this place for the salmon and horse thieving expeditions.