Shoshone-Bannock Subsistence and Society

by Robert F. Murphy; Yolanda Murphy

IV. ECOLOGY AND SOCIAL SYSTEM

Out of the mass of detailed data presented in the preceding chapters, certain constant features in the life of the buffalo-hunting Shoshone and Bannock may be discerned. First, there is no doubt of the importance of buffalo in the economy of these people. During an early period, when the Shoshone were among the first tribes of the Northern Plains to adopt the horse, they occupied large areas of the Missouri drainage and extensive buffalo herds were also to be found west of the Continental Divide. Even after tribal pressures from the north forced the Shoshone into residence west of the Rockies part of the time, advantage was still taken of the buffalo in that region. And regular sorties were made over the mountains in search of the more abundant herds there. But no sector of the mounted Shoshone population, at least after 1800, was completely dependent upon the buffalo nor were their principal social connections with the east. Rather, their firmest social ties were with their colinguists to the west, and their economy also was strongly oriented in that direction.

This fact has been a major source of difficulty in our attempt to isolate social groupings among the Bannock and Shoshone. The Bannock, usually accompanied by many Idaho Shoshone, ranged east to central Montana, or into the Big Horn Basin, with the Eastern Shoshone. Part of the year, however, saw them in western Idaho and in Oregon, where they visited and intermarried with the Northern Paiute. Although we have no information on persons shifting membership from the Bannock to the Northern Paiute, such relocations no doubt took place, even if only temporarily. There are ample data, however, to document the reverse process, for Northern Paiute were continually joining the Bannock in order to take part in buffalo hunting.

The same fluidity of movement of individuals and families may be noted among the mounted Shoshone of Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming. Those buffalo hunters whom we have somewhat arbitrarily assigned to Idaho customarily wintered on the Portneuf and upper Snake rivers. But they could be found in different seasons and during various years in northern Utah, on the waters of the Bear River and east of Great Salt Lake, and in western Wyoming. Families occasionally went to the Goose Creek Mountains in the fall for pine nuts, and almost all went down the Snake River in spring and early summer to take part in salmon fishing. In all these places they interacted with and could trace kinship bilaterally to the unmounted, more permanent inhabitants.

This is true also for the so-called Eastern Shoshone. We have shown that these mounted people wintered on the Bear and Green rivers until their final establishment on the Wind River Reservation; in fact, the first Eastern Shoshone Agency was at Fort Bridger. Annual trips were made to Salt Lake City, after its settlement by the Mormons, and visits into Idaho were frequent. Moreover, Shoshone not generally associated with Washakie's leadership who possessed horses joined the latter for buffalo hunting. Evidence for this is most clear in the case of Pocatello's followers. This particular band, found at various times buffalo hunting in central Wyoming, wintering in northern Utah or southeastern Idaho, and fishing or raiding on the Snake River, is an excellent example of the social continuity between Plains and Basin-Plateau. That there was such social continuity, merging, and interpenetration indicates a common set of social understandings, of great similarity in social structure. It may be further argued that this continuity and exchange of population served in some degree to preserve a more amorphous Basin-type society among the buffalo hunters.

It is clear that larger political units existed among the mounted Shoshone and Bannock than among their fellows to the east. We believe, however, that it would be erroneous to attribute great stability or cohesiveness to these aggregates, for the seasonal amalgamation and splitting of other Plains populations is even more pronounced among the Shoshone. The reason for this is partly the fact that the Shoshone spent long periods of the year west of the Rockies and within the range itself. Buffalo hunting did unite most of the mounted people every fall and to a lesser extent in the spring. There is considerable variation of evidence on whether the people crossing the Divide from Wyoming and Idaho formed two large parties or several smaller ones. It may be surmised that the large parties were common in earlier times owing to the threat of enemies, but the smaller ones seem to have been more common later in the nineteenth century, especially after the establishment of the Wind River Reservation. The time spent in the buffalo hunt was closely correlated with the distance to the herds. Our fragmentary accounts suggest that in the upper Green and Snake rivers before 1840, smaller groups hunted for shorter periods. The Big Horn Basin, however, is more than 200 miles from the Green River area, and the bands were forced to travel longer distances and to kill their winter meat supply in one prolonged hunt. Although the Wyoming Shoshone usually were able to return for the winter to the Green and Bear rivers, this was not true of those Idaho Shoshone and Bannock who sought buffalo in Montana. The distance from Camas Prairie in Idaho to the buffalo country of Montana was almost 500 miles, making a winter return to Idaho most difficult and aggravating the problem of packing meat. Many of the Idaho people chose not to make this long and difficult journey and found adequate fall hunting in the local mountains. A buffalo party could thus be on the move for a few days or a week, for two months or seven months, depending on the itinerary followed. Cohesion was closest during actual traveling and hunting. Winter camps were not tightly nucleated settlements of an entire buffalo party, for hunting during the winter required some dispersal. This point deserves some elaboration. Shimkin has stressed the inadequacy of buffalo hunting for a complete winter subsistence (Shimkin, 1947a, p. 266) and this is borne out by the testimony of our informants also. Buffalo meat no doubt supplied the margin of survival, but considerable dependence was placed on elk, deer, moose, rabbits, and other animals during the winter. A very large and compact winter camp would soon exhaust the game in its immediate vicinity. Moreover, the winter location had to be in places where these animals could be found. Camps were thus generally [not] located in river valleys, where wood, water, and protection from storms could be found, but in the vicinity of the high mountains inhabited by the game.

Large population concentrations broke down completely during the summer. Buffalo hunting was restricted to strays and to the small timber buffalo. But the principal game was taken in the mountain country west of the Continental Divide. Large camp groups could not be adapted to the scattered resources used during this period, and people gathered mainly for reasons of defense. Summer groupings of a minimum size seem to have been positively preferred by the Shoshone, as our data from the post-reservation period indicate.

This ecological adaptation and mode of social interaction with other groups had a profound effect on the structure of Shoshone society. Shimkin analyzes the fluctuations in economy and local grouping among the Wind River Shoshone and states (1947a, p. 280):

It also strengthened the cross-currents of individualism and collective discipline: individual prestige in war honors and hunting versus united military societies and collective bison hunts.

But the basic structure of Shoshone society remained diffuse and atomistic. Institutions productive of centralization were weak. Lowie, for example, reports on police, or soldier, societies among the Eastern Shoshone (Lowie, 1915, pp. 813-814). There were two such groups, called the Yellow Noses and the Logs. The former used inverted speech and were expected to be more courageous. They accordingly were responsible for leading the band when on the march, while the Logs formed the rear guard. Each of these groups had a headman, but Lowie states that the tribal chief was a member of neither. Membership was attained through the candidate's own initiative or by invitation; purchase and age-grading were not criteria, and societies using such means of recruitment were evidently absent among the Eastern Shoshone. Although Lowie did not report the functions of the police societies in detail, he says that the Yellow Nose society, in addition to its responsibility of protecting the traveling bands and maintaining order among them, also policed the hunt. Lowie further writes that the horse of a deviant hunter would be beaten and that any buffalo hides taken by him would be destroyed.