Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and Society

by Robert F. Murphy; Yolanda Murphy

Some locales were known to have a plentiful supply of certain game animals. Caribou County in southeastern Idaho was considered good for deer hunting, while Jackson Hole and Yellowstone Park were noted for elk. The arid highlands of southwestern Wyoming abounded in antelope. Of course, all of these areas contained other types of game, and wild vegetables could be obtained in all.

The fall hunt began at the end of August or in early September when the game was growing fat. Some parties went from Camas Prairie to Jackson Hole and Yellowstone via Idaho Falls and the Snake River. The route used was much the same as that followed by U.S. Highway 26. One informant spoke of Targhee Pass and West Yellowstone, Idaho, as being a point of entry to and departure from the Yellowstone country. The Snake River Trail was more commonly used to enter Jackson and Yellowstone, although West Yellowstone seems to have been more frequently traveled on the homeward journey. The west slope of the Tetons, the area drained by Teton River, was used also by hunting parties.

Other Bannock and Shoshone camp groups went southward through the Portneuf Valley and over to the Bear River at Soda Springs; they followed the Bear River until they bore eastward to Kemmerer, Wyoming. Most camps of the Idaho Indians remained on the west side of the Green River. The chief game of the area was the antelope herds which were found on affluents of the Green River, northeast of Kemmerer. The Idaho Shoshone and Bannock were joined in the antelope hunt by the Eastern Shoshone of Wyoming and by the Ute, some of whom crossed the Uinta Range in early autumn for this purpose. Whether all these people actually combined for communal hunts is uncertain. It is more probable that small groups from each population amalgamated. Another attraction of the Green River country was Fort Bridger, where many of the Indians went for trade.

A few camps might remain to winter in the Green River country, but most of them continued their hunt in other parts while returning to winter quarters. Some camps retraced their outward route, but others traveled northward through Star Valley in western Wyoming and thence up the Snake River to Jackson Hole. It must be kept in mind that there was no central camp group nor were there fixed hunting trails that each group had to follow and that were recognized as their rightful grounds. Camp groups could travel where they pleased and when they pleased. Proprietary rights to hunting grounds were not recognized.

The individual camp groups changed in composition and membership annually. A small camp of only a few tipis might consist of consanguineally and affinally related people, but such association was not a fixed rule. Also, a family could leave one hunting group and join another at will.

The hunting season ended with the advent of winter. Camp groups drifted into the previously described winter quarters and awaited spring, when the cycle would begin again.

LEMHI SHOSHONE

One of the most cohesive of all Shoshone groups lived in the valley of the Lemhi River on the western slope of the Continental Divide. The Lemhi Shoshone were commonly known by the term Agaidika, or "salmon eaters." Like the people of the Fort Hall plains they had fairly large herds of horses, which enabled them to take part in the transmontane buffalo hunt.

Excellent data on the early historic period in Lemhi Valley is found in the journals of Lewis and Clark, who crossed the Continental Divide to the Lemhi River on August 13, 1805. A certain amount of information on the Shoshone penetration of Montana can be derived from this source. Sacajawea, the young Shoshone woman who acted as guide and interpreter for Lewis and Clark, said that she had been kidnaped during an attack upon the Shoshone at a camp at the Three Forks of the Missouri River (Lewis and Clark, 1804-06, 2:283). On their return journey from the Pacific the explorers passed through Big Hole Valley, slightly above the present town of Wisdom, Montana, where it was noted that they were "in the great plain where Shoshonees gather Quawmash and cows etc." (ibid., 5:250-251). The party proceeded westward up the Beaverhead River, where Sacajawea claimed the Shoshone were sometimes found (p. 321) and above Dillon saw one mounted Indian thought to be Shoshone (p. 329). No other Indians were sighted, although there were indications on the upper Beaverhead River that Indians had been digging roots (pp. 332, 334). Apparently the buffalo had been receding to the east even at that early time, for Sacajawea said that they used to come to the very head of the Beaverhead River; apparently they had been hunted out by the Shoshone, who tried to avoid the trip to the plains by killing as many buffalo as possible in the mountains (p. 261). It seems evident that the Indians' acquisition of the horse resulted in some depletion of the buffalo long before the American hide hunters arrived in the West.

The main body of Shoshone was encountered by Lewis and Clark on their westward trip in the Lemhi River Valley. The natives were fishing at the time, and their camps were found scattered along the stream. Camps of seven families and of one family (ibid., 3:6, 11), and another of 25 lodges (ibid., 2:175) serve as examples of the residence units met. Lewis estimated the population of the valley as 100 warriors and 300 women and children (ibid., p. 372). They possessed some 700 mounts, including 40 colts and 20 mules; this, it would seem, was not an adequate number for the needs of extensive buffalo hunting beyond the Continental Divide.