Book Review: The Shoshone People

 The Shoshone People: Native American Cultures by Kristen Rajczak, Garret Stevens Publishing, 2015.

There are three distinct groups of Shoshone.  There are the Northern, Eastern and Western Shoshone.  The Northern and Eastern Shoshone had earlier access to horses.  They hunted buffalo and lived in tepees.  These facilitated their nomadic style.  The Northern Shoshone lived along the Snake River in western Wyoming and Idaho.  They and also ate salmon.  They Eastern Shoshone extended farther into Wyoming in the Green River area.  They would also travel into northern Utah.  The Comanche in Texas were once part of the Shoshone.

The Western Shoshone did not have as meny horses as the Northern and Eastern.  They lived in brush huts called wickiups.  There territory included eastern Utah, Nevada and extended into the Death Valley region of California.  The were gatherers, including pine nuts and roots and seed.  They also hunted small game.  

The book lacks information about specific Shoshone, but it does tell the story of Sacagawea who jioned the Lewis and Clark expedition.  She was Shoshone but living with the Hidatsa as she had been taken slave.  She was able to serve as a guide and help the companhy purchase horses from the Shoshone.

The book also mentions the Bear River Massacre.  In January of 1863 U.S. soldiers attacked them because of issues along the Oregon Trail and attacks on Mormon settlers.  250 Shoshone were killed, including women and children, the largest loss of Native American life in a battle.  

After this defeat the reservation system was established.  Chief Washakie worked with the government to establish the Wind River Reservation in 1868 for Eastern Shoshone.  Also Fort Hall and Lemhi Reservation were established for Northern Shoshone.  However in 1905 those at Lemhi were forced to move to Fort Hall.  There are numerous reservations and colonies that dot Nevada and eastern Utah.  

Very good information but where this bok says it is about the people, I would have liked more information on Shoshone people.

Book Review: The Shoshones by Liz Sonneborn

 The Shoshones by Liz Sonneborn, Native American Histories, Lerner Publications Company, Minneapolis, Minn., 2007.

This book actually gives a very accurate description of the Shoshone.  I like reading about the Shoshone because I lived amongst the Western Shoshone for a couple of years.  The book starts talking of the Western Shoshone but then loses them in the last couple of chapters.  I noticed the consultants for the book were both of the Eastern Shoshone.  

There is a good map that describes the homeland of the Shoshone, the Western Shoshone went from easter Utah, through Nevada and into California.  Northern Shoshone occupied northern Utah and much of southern Idaho.  Their major reservation is now Fort Hall which is shared with the Bannock.  The Eastern Shoshone include most of western Wyoming.  They were granted reservation land along the Wind River under Chief Washakie.  

The western Shoshone traditionally had the harder life.  Food supplies were lest plentiful in the great Basin desert.  There was the possibility of catching large game, but mostly small game such as squirrels and rabbits were most plentiful.  They would also gather pine nuts, and often their winter food supply depended on how much pinyon pine nuts they could find in the autumn.  Beading and basket making were also products which could be traded or enjoyed.  

This book also mentions Sacagawea and the Lewis and Clark expedition.  Sacagawea was from the northern Shoshone groups.  There is the story of the Dann sisters of the Te Moak band of the Western Shoshone.  They were suing the federal government when I lived amongst the Shoshone.  They were trying to pursue grazing rights which was restricted by the BLM.  

Documentary Review: Sacagawea: Heroine of the Lewis and Clark Journey

 

This documentary is available through You Tube.  It presents the life of Sacagawea mostly in the first person.  The actress portraying her tells the story.  Sacagawea was born to the Shoshone people.  When she was a young woman, about twelve, her village at Three Forks on the Snake River (documentary says Snake River, but Three Forks is on the Missouri River headwaters.  )was attacked by a raiding party of the Hidatsu.  The Hidatsu had rifles so the Shoshone were overwhelmed and Sacagawea was taken captive.  She was moved from Western Montana to North Dakota and a new way of life where lodgings that were called earth lodges--logs with earth piled against them.  She was taken into the tribe as a full member.  When she was 16 she was sold to Toussaint Charbonneau, a French trader who took her for a plural wife.

The Corp of Discovery passed through their village headed west to explore.  They were looking for a northwest passage to the Pacific Ocean.  They were headed by Captain Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.  Clark was the first person with red hair Sacagawea had ever seen.  Lewis documented species and wrote extensively.  Clark was more into making maps of their journeys.  Clark is accompanied by his slave or servant, York, of African American descent.  They built a fort in which to winter.

Sacagawea's baby, Jean Baptiste or "Pomp" was born in February.  She and her husband had been moved to the fort as they were to become part of the group.  Sacagawea would leave with the Corp of Discovery as her husband had been hired as an interpreter.  Sacagawea would prove a valuable member of the group.  When they met Native American groups, having a woman and child with the group reassured the natives that they were peaceful.  At one point her husband allowed some important papers to escape the canoe.  Sacagawea was able to rescue most of them.  Also Sacagawea was valuable in helping them find the Shoshone; and it happened the chief was her brother.  They were able to trade for horses.   

With horses they were able to travel over mountain passes until the met the Nez Perce.  There they were able to leave their horses, and travel in dugout canoes down the Snake to the Columbia River and there to the ocean.  Here they must decide where to winter.  It is put to a vote.  The voting includes Sacagawea and York, the first time a woman and an African American are allowed to have an equal say.  The build Fort Clatsop south of the river where there is more game for food.

Upon the return trip they visit the Nez Perce and their horses are returned to them.  Sacagawea is useful on the return trip.  They split into two groups.  Sacagawea travels with Captain Clark.  She is able to remember a mountain pass from her youth, which they use to return to the Shoshone tribe.  Charbonneau and Sacajawea leae the company when they return to their village.

Sacagawea had another child, a daughter named Lizette.  Officially Sacagawea died young in 1812 and her children were adopted by Clark.  Sacagawea has been the subject of a many statues (more than any other woman in the U.S.) a coin, and a stamp.  Three mountains were named after her and two lakes.

Sacagawea is portrayed by Melisa King.  

Writer and director is Rolf Forsberg.  Production Company Encounter Video,   July 12, 2003. I watched this on Youtube.

IMD has a review saying there are numerous iaccuracies, especially with costumes.

I say officially she died in 1812.  However others say she returned to the Shoshone in Wyoming and died as an old woman and is buried there.  My father took us to see her grave when we were vacationing in Wyoming.

Native American Biography: Sacagawea

 Sacagawea, 16, Lemhi Shoshone, guided Lewis and Clark and their expedition, while pregnant, to the Pacific ocean.  She traveled with the group from North Dakota and made important cultural contacts with other Native American groups as they traveled west.  Sacagawea was born in the Salmon, Idaho area.  However at about age twelve she was captured by the Hidatsa in a raid, and thus came to be in North Dakota.  The Hidatsa sold her to Toussaint Charbonneau, a trapper from Quebec.  Lewis and Clark hired Charbonneau and Sacagawea to go with them on the expedition to help with translating.  They wintered with the expedition and Sacagawea had her baby, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.  While traveling up the Mississippi Sacagawea rescued papers from the river that included the journal and records of  Lewis and Clark.

When they made contact with a Shoshone tribe, Sacagawea was employed to interpret.  She discovered that the chief was her own brother and reacquainted with many relatives.  The Shoshone bartered horses with the travelers for their overland route which then took them to the Columbia River Basin

Sacagawea continued her journey to the Pacific ocean.  She provided her beaded belt so it could be traded to procure a fur coat to be taken back to President Jefferson.  She was a le to see the carcass of a whale that had beached close to where they camped for the winter.

Sacagawea continued her duties on the return trip.  She provided useful information on a couple of occasions, leading them through Gibbons Pass and through the Bozeman Pass.  Her presence on the journey signaled to those they met of the peaceful intention of the group--a woman and child traveling with them.  

After the trek she and her husband and child remained with the Hidatsa for a few years.  They then, at the invitation of William Clark they relocated to the St. Louis area.  Jean Baptiste was adopted by William Clark.  Sacagawea had a daughter.  However (here the stories vary) she may have passed away at this time, 1812 at the age of 25.  Another story has her returning west and marrying a man of the Comanche and later making it back to her Shoshone people.  She was now known as Porivo.  This woman had more children.  This story has her passing away in 1884 and being buried on the Wind River reservation.  

Sacagawea has been honored with both a postage stamp and also a gold dollar.

Book Review: Sacagawea: Westward with Lewis and Clark

Sacagawea: Westward with Lewis and Clark, Native American Biographies, Alana J. White, Enslow Publishers, Springfield, NJ, 1997.  In this book we have not only a biography of Sacagawea but also a history of the Lewis and Clark expedition.  Sacagawea was 16 when she joined the expedition.  Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were glad to have her as part of the team called Corp of Discovery because she knew the territory, could serve as interpreter, and also because she could help them negotiate with Indians when they would need to trade for horses.  Even thought she was 16, and had a new born baby to care for, which she carried in his cradle board, she was an important asset.  Sacagawea had been stolen from her people about six years previous.  She then became the husband to a french Canadian, Toussaint Charbonneau who either bought her as a slave, or won her in a poker game.  Whatever he married her.  Sacagawea was not his first wife, but the only wife on the journey with him.  Sacagawea's knowledge of local plants, and which were good for food was invaluable information.  Also she helped with directions and her knowledge of the land.  They did find her people, and Sacagawea was able to help Lewis and Clark purchase horses.  Her brother was the chief.  However Lewis and Clark were not as pleased with Charbonneau.  He let the canoe sink, and did several other things through carelessness.  However the entire family, Sacagawea, Charbonneau and their son Jean Baptiste (nicknamed Pomp by Captain Clark) all made the trek both ways, to the Pacific and back again.  They were exploring the Louisiana Purchase, and trying to determine if there was a water crossing across the continent.  This there was not, but they proved it was possible to cross the continent by overland travel and water.  There were many perilous times on the trek.
William Clark befriended Sacagawea's baby.  He offered to raise him.  It appears Charbonneau and Sacagawea took him up on this.    They traveled to Saint Louis where he lived.  There is an indication that Sacagawea died young.  A note says the wife of Charbonneau had passed away and was buried at Fort Manuel in South Dakota.  However as Charbonneau had more than one wife this is confusing.  The Shoshone have her returning to them and living a long life.  She told of the whale carcass she had seen while along the coast, and many other strange things.  This tradition has Sacagawea passing away in 1884 on the Wind River Reservation.  Since she was 16 when she started the trip with Lewis and Clark in 1804, she would have been well in her 90s when she passed away.  The result is that there are two burial sites for Sacagawea.  Whatever the truth, she was a remarkable woman, and her knowledge and fortitude helped Lewis and Clark return successfully from their mission across the continent.

Book Review: Shoshone by: Barbara A. Gray-Kanatiiosh

Shoshone Barbara A. Gray-Kanatiiosh ABDO publishing Company 2003

This is a short little book, written for a younger age, but gives you an idea of the Shoshone people.  They say is pronounced with two syllables and the last e making the o long.  However I always used three syllables.  The Shoshone people covered a wide area.  The extend all the way into California, Death Valley area, through about half of the state of Nevada, into Idaho, almost to Montana and then into Wyoming and Utah.  There is a map of their traditional area, which I thought was a bit large, as I knew some of the area was Ute territory.  However the book explained that the Shoshone had difficulty getting guns, and therefore their traditional area was greatly reduced.  When the Mormons came to Utah, the Shoshone only extended as far south as Ogden or so, and then the rest was Ute territory.  There was some area which went back and forth, but the Ute Indians dominated the Uintah area. 

Shoshone are a nomadic people.  Tony Baca explained this to me in the Duckwater area where I lived for a couple years.  The traditional people there would live in the valley during the summer, where there was water and grazing land.  However during the summer they would migrate to the mountains where they could keep from the warm sun, and hunt deer and larger animals. 

It talked about gathering nuts, which is something I did with them.  However it did not give a very good explanation.  It said the children would remove the nuts from the cones.  However, the cones often had to be roasted to get the nuts out.  They would place their blankets under a tree.  Then with a long branch with a crook or joint in it at the top, they would shake the tree vigorously so the pine cones would fallout.  I imagine this is something similar to the way the acorns are harvested with the acorn tree shaker.

For food they relied on small animals caught in snares, elk, deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep.  They also would trap fish in nets, using spears or with hook and line.  Women collected pinon nuts, fruits, seeds, berries wild vegetables and camas roots.  They generally had a permanent community with teepees.  However when they were on the move they would sleep in brush shelters or lean-tos. 

Shoshone are very good at crafts.  They women traditionally used porcupine quills to decorate clothing.  After meeting French trappers they traded for beads which they work with needle and rawhide or quills.  They are also very adept at weaving willows from which they make cradle boards for their babies, as well as baskets.  Some so tight they can hold water. 

It mentions two famous Shoshone, both from the eastern Shoshone (Wyoming) area. 

Sacagawea who lead Lewis and Clark, and Chief Washakie.

This book is short, but it gives an interesting look at the Shoshone.

Movie Review: Ken Burns: The West: The People

This is the first of eight in this series directed by Stephen Ives and produced by Ken Burns.  It was shown on PBS in 1996 and is available through instant Netflix.  This episode presents the Native peoples of the West, and their early contact with White men.  It then concludes with the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  I likes it look at Native Americans.  Native American narrators counter act the idealic myth of Native Americans.  They did some things right, but were often at war with each other.  Many tribes held honor in warlike characteristics, taking coup.  It talks about the introduction of the horse, which only made these conflicts more prevalent.  Now they had something of value to steal, but war parties could roam a greater territory.  The other myth is that the White people purposefully killed the Native Americans with disease.  True that the Native peoples had no resistance to the new germs, resulting in four or five different pandemics amongst the Native people.  However the disease usually traveled from Native American group to another after it was first introduced.  The population of the Native Americans was devastated as a result, even before the arrival of the White people.
The movie portrays the arrival of the Spanish, first from the south.  It was many years after their conquest of Mexico, that the ventured into California with the mission system which got its start in 1776.  There were a series of 14 missions, which not only provided a fort to the Spanish interest, but were used to educate, inculcate and control the Native population.  If the Natives tried to leave, the were hunted by soldiers and brought back.  It was noted that the health of the Native population deteriorated after they became attached to the mission.
The Lewis and Clark expedition was a romantic trip, which almost ended in failure and death of the party, had not they run into the Shoshone brother of Sacagawea.  The were able to obtains horses from him, to make it over the mountains.  They were again almost emaciated, but met the Nez Perce who set them on their way again, allowing them to chop down five trees for canoes, with which they were able to make it to the ocean.

Book Review: Westward America

Driggs, Howard R., Westward America, American Pioneers Trails Association, New York, 1942; water colors by William H. Jackson.

This book is a fascinating read, and  just as fun is to browse the water colors.  The author, as well as the illustrator lived or knew those who had lived the.pioneer trail.  This story tells of U.S. Westward expansion from a 1942 mentality when it was OK to be proud of American accomplishments and manifest destiny. 

This book tells many stories from Lewis and Clark and Sacagawea, to the coming of the railroad and the Golden Spike.  A few samples of the book follow:

Death took its heavy toll during these crowded years.  Thousands of men, women and children, unable to endure the strain, or seized with some dread scourge like the cholera, went into their graves all along the painful way.  Most of their resting places are unmarked, for the simple reason that there were few lasting materials on the prairie lands with which to erect enduring monuments, and precious little time while the trains were in the mountain lands to carve lasting inscriptions on any stone that might be set at a grave.  P 34

Education of a lasting kind was gained through this frontier experience.  The pioneer trail tested the mettle of every one, young or old, that dared to follow it.  It brought out the best and the worst in human nature.  Weaklings usually went down; wickedness was generally brought to swift and certain punishment.  Only strength of body and of character stood the test and came through strengthened and trained for the conquest that lay ahead.  P 35

These were the Mormons—a devout band of Americans—made homeless a second time by an un-American persecution.  Their youthful prophet leader with his brother had been slain two years before in Carthage jail—victims of religious and political intolerance.  P 37

Not all the stories, however, were of trouble and sorrow.  For the younger ones, and for many of their elders, the journey across the plains was one of thrilling adventure.  The prairie lands in spring and summer were bright with blossoms. There was the fun of gathering new flowers, and sometimes wild fruits, along the way.  Prairie dogs barking from their populous villages, buffalo and antelope on nearby hills, wolves and coyotes slinking about, all added to the excitement of travel.  Besides there were the various birds that brought life to the plains—wild geese and ducks, prairie chickens, owls and eagles, and such songsters as the meadowlark and the robin to cheer the way with their songs.

Camping out at night under friendly stars was another rich experience.  Evening stories and songs round the fires, with an occasional dance on the greensward to the tune of fiddle, accordion or banjo, all helped to chase the darker hours away.  Then came the rosy dawn and the great red sun, rising seemingly “right out of the ground,” to light up the old trail for another day’s journey towards a dreamed-of home…   p 67

The first of these bridges, built by a French frontiersman, Reshaw, spanned the river just east of the site of Casper.  It was there in 1857 [6] when the belated Mormon handcart companies trailed by.  Members of those companies have told the writer that they would have used this bridge, but they could not pay the high tolls.  As an alternative they had to pull their cars through the cold stream, which nearly swept some of the women and children down with it.  That same afternoon a bitter wind froze their water-soaked clothing and bedding; and a snowfall at night took a heavy toll of lives.  This was the beginning of one of the major tragedies of the plains.  P. 87

I have thoroughly enjoyed this book.