The Shoshonee number fourteen tribes regularly organized; the principal, which contains about 12,000 souls, is commanded by Washaki, assisted, as usual, by sub-chiefs, four to six in number. Five bands, numbering near 1000 each, roam about the mountains and kanyons of Great Salt Lake County, Weber, Bear, Cache, and Malad Valleys, extending eighty miles north from the Holy City. These have suffered the most from proximity with the whites, and no longer disdain agriculture. One band, 150 to 180 in number, confines itself to the North Californian Route from Bear and Malad Valleys to the Goose-Creek Mountains. Seven bands roam over the country from the Humboldt River to 100 miles south of it, and extend about 200 miles from east to west: the principal chief, Wanamuka, or “the Giver,” had a band of 155 souls, and lived near the Honey Lake.
The Yuta claim, like the Shoshonee, descent from an ancient people that immigrated into their present seats from the northwest. During the last thirty years they have considerably decreased according to the mountaineers, and have been demoralized mentally and physically by the emigrants: formerly they were friendly, now they are often at war with the intruders. As in Australia, arsenic and corrosive sublimate in springs and provisions have diminished their number. The nation is said to contain a total of 14,000 to 15,000 souls, divided into twenty-seven bands, of which the following are the principal:
The Pá Yuta (Pey Utes) are the most docile, interesting, and powerful, containing twelve bands;[229] those in the west of the Territory, on the Humboldt River, number 6000, and in the south 2200 souls; they extend from forty miles west of Stony Point to the Californian line, and northwest to the Oregon line, and inhabit the valley of the Fenelon River, which, rising from Lake Bigler, empties itself into Pyramid Lake. The term means Water Yuta, that is to say, those who live upon fish which they take from lakes and rivers in wiers and traps of willow, preferring that diet to roots, grass-seed, lizards, and crickets, the food of the other so-called Digger tribes.
[229] These are, 1. Wanamuka’s; 2. San Joaquim, near the forks of that river in Carson Valley, numbering 170; 3. Hadsapoke, or Horse-stopper band, of 110, in Gold Kanyon, on Carson River; 4. Wahi or Fox band, on Big Bend of Carson River, 130 in number; 5. and 6. Odakeo, “Tall-man band,” and Petodseka, “White-Spot band,” round the lakes and sinks of the Carson and Walker Rivers, numbering 484 men, 372 women, and 405 children; 7. Tosarke, “Gray-head band,” their neighbors; 8. Tonoziet, “Woman-helper band,” on the Truckee River, below Big Meadows, numbering 280 souls; 9. Torape, or “Lean-man band,” on the Truckee River, near Lone Crossing, 360 souls; 10. Gonega, the “Dancer band,” 290 souls, near the mouth of the Truckee River; 11. Watsequendo, the “Four Crows,” along the shores of Pyramid Lake, 320 souls; 12. The second Wanamuka’s band, 500 in number, along the shores of the Northern Mud Lake.
THE GOSH YUTA, ETC.Gosh Yuta, or Gosha Ute, is a small band, once protégés of the Shoshonee, who have the same language and limits. Their principal chief died about five years ago, when the tribe was broken up. A body of sixty, under a peaceful leader, were settled permanently on the Indian farm at Deep Creek, and the remainder wandered 40 to 200 miles west of Great Salt Lake City. Through this tribe our road lay; during the late tumults they have lost fifty warriors, and are now reduced to about 200 men. Like the Ghuzw of Arabia, they strengthen themselves by admitting the outcasts of other tribes, and will presently become a mere banditti.
Pavant, or Parovan Yuta, are a distinct and self-organized tribe, under one principal and several sub-chiefs, whose total is set down at 700 souls. Half of them are settled on the Indian farm at Corn Creek; the other wing of the tribe lives along Sevier Lake, and the surrounding country in the northeast extremity of Fillmore Valley, fifty miles from the city, where they join the Gosh Yuta. The Pavants breed horses, wear clothes of various patterns, grow grain, which the Gosh Yutas will not, and are as brave and improvable as their neighbors are mean and vile.
Timpenaguchyă,[230] or Timpana Yuta, corrupted into Tenpenny Utes, who dwell about the kanyon of that name, and on the east of the Sweetwater Lake. Of this tribe was the chief Wakara, who so called himself after Walker, the celebrated trapper; the notorious horse-stealer proved himself a friend to the Latter-Day Saints. He died at Meadow Creek, six miles from Fillmore City, on the 29th of January, 1855, and at his obsequies two squaws, two Pa Yuta children, and fifteen of his best horses composed the “customs.”
[230] In the Yuta language meaning “water among the stones.”
Uinta Yuta, in the mountains south of Fort Bridger, and in the country along the Green River. Of this tribe, which contains a total of 1000, a band of 500, under four chiefs, lately settled on the Indian reservations at Spanish Fork.
Sampichyă, corrupted, to San Pete Utas; about eighty warriors, settled on the Indian farm at San Pete. This and the Spanish-Fork Farm number 900 inhabitants.