The Shoshone or Shoshoni (/ʃoʊˈʃoʊniː/ ⓘ or /ʃəˈʃoʊniː/ ⓘ) are a Native American

tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions:

Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming

Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho
Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah
Goshute: western Utah, eastern Nevada
They traditionally speak the Shoshoni language, part of the Numic languages branch
of the large Uto-Aztecan language family. The Shoshone were sometimes called the
Snake Indians by neighboring tribes and early American explorers.[2]

Their peoples have become members of federally recognized tribes throughout their
traditional areas of settlement, often co-located with the Northern Paiute people
of the Great Basin.

Etymology
The name "Shoshone" comes from Sosoni, a Shoshone word for high-growing grasses.
Some neighboring tribes call the Shoshone "Grass House People," based on their
traditional homes made from sosoni. Shoshones call themselves Newe, meaning
"People".[2]

Meriwether Lewis recorded the tribe as the "Sosonees or snake Indians" in 1805.[2]

Language
The Shoshoni language is spoken by approximately 1,000 people today.[1] It belongs
to the Central Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Speakers are
scattered from central Nevada to central Wyoming.[1]

The largest numbers of Shoshoni speakers live on the federally recognized Duck
Valley Indian Reservation, located on the border of Nevada and Idaho; and Goshute
Reservation in Utah. Idaho State University also offers Shoshoni-language classes.
[1]

History

Rabbit-Tail or Moragootch (information varies[3][4]).

A Shoshone encampment in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, photographed by W. H.

Jackson, 1870

Reported picture of Mike Daggett February 26, 1911

Sheriff Charles Ferrel with the surviving members of Mike Daggett's family
(Daggett's daughter Heney (Louise, 17), and two of his grandchildren, Cleveland
(Mosho, 8), and Hattie (Harriet Mosho, 4))

Daggett grandchild Mary Jo Estep (1909 or 1910 – 1992), age 5 in 1916

The Shoshone are a Native American tribe that originated in the western Great Basin
and spread north and east into present-day Idaho and Wyoming. By 1500, some Eastern
Shoshone had crossed the Rocky Mountains into the Great Plains. After 1750, warfare
and pressure from the Blackfoot, Crow, Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho pushed Eastern
Shoshone south and westward. Some of them moved as far south as Texas, emerging as
the Comanche by 1700.[2]

As more European American settlers migrated west, tensions rose with the indigenous
people over competition for territory and resources. Wars occurred throughout the
second half of the 19th century. The Northern Shoshone, led by Chief Pocatello,
fought during the 1860s against settlers in Idaho (where the city Pocatello was
named for him). As more settlers encroached on Shoshone hunting territory, the
natives raided farms and ranches for food and attacked immigrants.

The warfare resulted in the Bear River Massacre (1863) when U.S. forces attacked
and killed an estimated 250 Northwestern Shoshone, who were at their winter
encampment in present-day Franklin County, Idaho. A large number of the dead were
non-combatants, including children, deliberately killed by the soldiers. This was
the highest number of deaths which the Shoshone suffered at the hands of United
States forces. 21 US soldiers were also killed.[5]

During the American Civil War travelers continued to migrate westward along the
Westward Expansion Trails. When the Shoshone, along with the Utes participated in
attacks on the mail route that ran west out of Fort Laramie, the mail route had to
be relocated south of the trail through Wyoming.[6]

Allied with the Bannock, to whom they were related, the Shoshone fought against the
United States in the Snake War from 1864 to 1868. They fought U.S. forces together
in 1878 in the Bannock War. In 1876, by contrast, the Shoshone fought alongside the
U.S. Army in the Battle of the Rosebud against their traditional enemies, the
Lakota and Cheyenne.

In 1879 a band of approximately 300 Eastern Shoshone (known as "Sheepeaters")

became involved in the Sheepeater Indian War. It was the last Indian war fought in
the Pacific Northwest region of the present-day United States.

In 1911 a small group of Bannock under a leader named Mike Daggett, also known as
"Shoshone Mike," killed four ranchers in Washoe County, Nevada.[7] The settlers
formed a posse and went out after the Native Americans. They caught up with the
Bannock band on February 25, 1911, and in a gun battle killed Mike Daggett and
seven members of his band. They lost one man of the posse, Ed Hogle[8] in the
Battle of Kelley Creek. The posse captured a baby, two children and a young woman.
(The three older captives died of diseases within a year; the baby, Mary Jo Estep,
died in 1992).

A rancher donated the partial remains of three adult males, two adult females, two
adolescent males, and three children (believed to be Mike Daggett and his family,
according to contemporary accounts) to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,
D.C., for study. In 1994, the institution repatriated the remains to the Fort Hall
Idaho Shoshone-Bannock Tribe.[9]

In 2008 the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation acquired the site of the Bear
River Massacre and some surrounding land. They wanted to protect the holy land and
to build a memorial to the massacre, the largest their nation had suffered. "In
partnership with the American West Heritage Center and state leaders in Idaho and
Utah, the tribe has developed public/private partnerships to advance tribal
cultural preservation and economic development goals." They have become leaders in
developing tribal renewable energy.[10]

Historical population
In 1845, the estimated population of Northern and Western Shoshone was 4,500, much
reduced after they had suffered infectious disease epidemics and warfare. The
completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 was followed by European-
American immigrants arriving in unprecedented numbers in the territory.

In 1937, the Bureau of Indian Affairs counted 3,650 Northern Shoshone and 1,201
Western Shoshone. As of the 2000 U.S. census, some 12,000 persons identified as
Shoshone.

Bands
Shoshone people are divided into traditional bands based both on their homelands
and primary food sources. These include:

Tindoor, Lemhi Shoshone chief and his wife, ca. 1897, photographed by Benedicte
Wrensted
Eastern Shoshone people:
Guchundeka', Kuccuntikka, Buffalo Eaters[2][11]
Tukkutikka, Tukudeka, Mountain Sheep Eaters, joined the Northern Shoshone[11]
Boho'inee', Pohoini, Pohogwe, Sage Grass people, Sagebrush Butte People[2][11][12]
Northern Shoshone people:
Agaideka, Salmon Eaters, Lemhi, Snake River and Lemhi River Valley[12][13]
Kammedeka, Kammitikka, Jack Rabbit Eaters, Snake River, Great Salt Lake[12]
Hukundüka, Porcupine Grass Seed Eaters, Wild Wheat Eaters