PEOPLES OF THE GREAT BASIN The Great Basin region is the traditional homeland of many American Indian nations This map shows the areas where some of them lived before Europeans arrived in the region Shoshone Shoshone Bannock Bannock Paiute Paiute Shoshone Shoshone Ute Ute Shoshone Shoshone Ute Ute Ute Ute Washoe Washoe Paiute Paiute Shoshone Shoshone Gosiute Gosiute Ute Ute Paiute Paiute Shoshone Shoshone Ute Ute CULTURAL AREAS Plateau Northwest Coast California Plains Southwest Great Basin Cultural area border International border State province border Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean Summers in the Great Basin are hot and winters are freezing The landscape is made up of mountains and deserts The Great Basin is one of the hardest environments in North America to live in Many scientists who study the past say that the first people to live on this land spoke a Numic NUHM-ik language These people were made up of many different groups Some of the best-known nations in the Great Basin are the Shoshone sho SHO-nee which includes the Western Eastern Southern and Northern Shoshone the Ute the Paiute PIE-yoot the Gosiute 66
WHAT THE GREAT BASIN NATIONS CALLED THEMSELVES EUROPEAN NAME NATION’S NAME MEANING Bannock Bana’kwut Water people Paiute Shoshone Numa Newe People People Washoe Wašiw The people from here GOH-shoot and the Bannock BAH-nuk These peoples didn’t all speak the exact same language But their languages were all based on the Uto-Aztecan yoo-toh-AZ-teh-kuhn language of Mexico The Washoe WASH-oh another well-known Great Basin nation spoke a Hokan HO-kuhn language The Great Basin area is surrounded by mountains The Sierra Nevada is to the west The Rocky Mountains are to the east The peoples who lived in the Great Basin were isolated from other American Indian nations and even from other Great Basin nations The different Shoshone nations lived in Nevada Utah Idaho Wyoming and Montana The Bannock first lived in southeastern Oregon Eventually they moved to the valleys of 7
the Snake and Lemhi Rivers in Idaho The Ute mostly lived in Utah Colorado and northern New Mexico Parts of California Nevada Oregon Arizona and Utah were all home to the Paiute peoples The areas south and west of Great Salt Lake in Utah were the land of the Gosiute The Washoe land was in Nevada and California around Lake Tahoe Many peoples of the Great Basin had to travel often to find food As the seasons changed groups of people moved from place to place Most of their actions and decisions were focused on survival They were always searching for food They traveled and lived in small groups called bands These bands were made up of thirty to one hundred people These small groups made it easier to travel and to quickly build and take down their shelters Much of the Great Basin landscape is desert The weather here is harsh and resources were often scarce 88
Most of the Great Basin nations traveled on foot But in the seventeenth century Spanish explorers in New Mexico introduced horses to the Southern Ute and the Eastern Shoshone By 1700 these nations used horses to travel hunt trade and go to war They also brought horses to other nations By 1800 the Northern Shoshone Northern Paiute and Northern and Central Ute nations used horses too Other nations began using horses throughout the second half of the nineteenth century The Washoe were the last ones to begin using horses Their isolation meant that the peoples of the Great Basin were among the last of the American Indians to meet Euro-Americans This contact began in the early nineteenth century The lives of Great Basin Indians would be changed forever By the middle of the nineteenth century many nations were being forced to give up their lands and move to reservations Despite this move the Great Basin Indians never lost their connection to the land and their past They continue to live throughout the area and pass their traditions from generation to generation 9
