Fort Hall and Fort Hall Replica

The Fort Hall Replica is in Pocatello in upper Ross Park.  It is about thirty miles fro the location of the original Fort Hall.  In fact the town of Fort Hall which is on the Indian reservation is about 11 miles east of the original Fort Hall and trading post.  Fort Hall was first established in 1834 as a trading post for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company by Nathaniel Wyeth and named for an investor in his trading enterprise.  When the Oregon Trail became popular Fort Hall was the only fort along the trail after Fort Laramie.  The Army was assigned to protect the trail.  With the Civil War emigrant traffic lessened and the fort was abandoned.  It was washed out by flood waters from the Snake River in 1863.  Another Fort Hall was built and manned from 1870 to 1883.  This fort was further east.  After its use was discontinued for the army it was used as a school for Native Americans.  Later the buildings were moved to the Shoshone Bannock reservation.  Today, neither fort still stands.  

In the 1960s the replica fort was built in Pocatello.  It is used as part of the Bannock County Museum and is open in the summer.

Book Review: Moho Wat: Sheepeater Boy Attempts a Rescue

Moho Wat: Sheepeater Boy Attempts a Rescue, Kenneth Thomasma, illustrations by Jack Brouwer, Grandview Publishing Company, Jackson, WY, 1994.  With this book I am introduced to a new author.  This author writes children's books, based on Indian stories.  Many of these stories are passed down verbally.  This story is very old, in the 1700s.  It tells the story of the Shoshone Indians who were living in Yellowstone at the time.  The were known as the Sheepeater people.  This is a fascinating story about a boy, and is father.  Moho Wat discovers a sheep in a hot spring of Yellowstone.  The hot water has changed the ram's horn, making it into a material which would be very good for a bow.  That is what they do, they fashion a bow for his father and one for himself.  They now have bows superior to that of those around them.
However, just as things are going well, tragedy strikes.  A mountain lion gets Moho Wat, as he comes to close to her den.  It grabs his hand, and although his father saves him with the new bow, he does not save his hand.  It is indeed a tragedy to not have a hand, and at first Moho Wat reacts this way, his life is done.  However he begins to see that there are ways to overcome this.  He learns to shoot his bow with his feet.  He is convinced he can provide for a wife.
At the religious ceremony, held at the sacred medicine wheel, in the big Horn Mountains, far from their native, a young woman is kidnapped.  Moho Wat had seen her, and was stricken by her beauty.  He goes after her to rescue her.  This effort is very complicated.  He follows them many miles.  He finally develops a plan, and it works.  However he is now pursued.  They make their escape, and at one point a flash flood would have taken Moho Wat except for the girl hangs from a tree branch and saves him.  She is injured in the rescue, but heals quickly.  How surprised the family of both individual is when they finally arrive home.  
Aside from the story, the cultural information provided about the Sheepeater people is incredible.  They were a mountain people, who rarely traveled to the valley.  Their method of hunting as a team, the grieving for a brother, and other details of family life were insightful.  The are now mixed with the Shoshone of Fort Hall.
My only complaint about this book is the pictures make the couple look too Caucasion rather than Indian.  I really enjoyed the story.

Native American Biography: Tendoy: Shoshone Bannock

Tendoy (Tin Doi)

Tendoy was a Lemhi Bannock chief.  He was of Bannock and Shoshone heritage.  Through his mother he was related to Washakie, and maintained a close relationship with him.  Through his father, who was killed in combat with the Blackfoot, he inherited the leadership of the Bannock band in the Lemhi pass area in Idaho.  He was a contemporary of Bear Hunter, who was killed at the Bear River Massacre.  However he and his people had a different attitude toward change.  He always maintained a peaceful relationship with encroaching white settlers.  They avoided economic hardship by trading and having business interaction with the whites.  Even during the Nez Perce War he taught his people to be accommodating rather than confront the new settlers.  This allowed them to maintain a stance of neutrality.  He was rewarded by President Grant who issued an order that the Lemhi Bannocks could remain in their ancestral area.  Tendoy traveled to Washington on several occasions and was finally convinced to sign away their land in Lemhi valley and move to the reservation at Fort Hall.  His people still resisted and this move did not take place until shortly before his death in 1907.  Tendoy was honored by the State of Montana .  "The Society of Montana Pioneers paid tribute to Tendoy in recognition of his long association with early settlers. The skillfulness with which he had guided his people for 43 years through the labyrinth of Washington indifference, settler hostility and agency neglect, while holding patiently, but firmly to the course he had set for himself and his tribe."  http://www.montanacowboyfame.com/151001/381902.html