Native Peoples of the Great Basin

Native Peoples of the Great Basin — page 1 — N O R T H W E S T P ARCTI C S U B A R C T I C C O A S T C A L I F O R N I A L A T E A U G R E A T B A SIN ST E W H T U O S P L A I N S T S A E T H S NORT A E H SOUT GREAT BASIN REGION OF NORTH AMERICA CULTURAL REGIONS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA Plateau Northwest Coast California Plains Southeast Southwest Great Basin Northeast Subarctic Arctic Other Cultural area border International border State province border

Native Peoples of the Great Basin — page 2 — INTRODUCTION L ong ago only Sinawav the creator and Coyote lived on Earth When it was time to create more people Sinawav gave Coyote a bag of sticks and told him to carry it to the sacred grounds He would not tell Coyote what was in the bag But Coyote was curious As he traveled he decided to look into the bag He opened the bag and people came rushing out They spoke languages Coyote did not understand He tried to catch them But they ran away Coyote continued to the sacred grounds and let the few people left out of the bag These people were the Ute YOOT Coyote went back to Sinawav The creator put a curse on him but said that the Ute would be brave and mighty This is the story the Ute tell about how they came to live in the Great Basin The Great Basin is a giant bowl-shaped area made by valleys and mountains in the western United States It includes most of Nevada and Utah and large parts of Oregon Idaho Wyoming and Colorado Small parts of Arizona Montana and California are in the Great Basin too Rain and snow collect in this area just like water fills a basin or sink This is because there are no rivers or streams leading out of the Great Basin into the 5

Native Peoples of the Great Basin — page 3 — 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

Native Peoples of the Great Basin — page 4 — 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

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