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Paiute

 
Dictionary: Pai·ute  Pi·ute (pī'yūt') pronunciation
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also n., pl., Paiute, or -utes, also Piute or -utes.
  1. Either of two distinct Native American peoples inhabiting parts of the Great Basin, specifically:
    1. A group occupying eastern Oregon, western Nevada, and adjacent areas of northeast California. Also called Northern Paiute.
    2. A group occupying southern Utah and Nevada, northern Arizona, and adjacent areas of southeast California. Also called Southern Paiute.
  2. A member of either of these peoples.
Paiute Pai'ute' adj.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Paiute
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Either of two distinct American Indian groups living mostly in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah, U.S. Their languages belong to the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan family. Their name for themselves is Numa. The Southern Paiute occupied southern Utah, northwestern Arizona, southern Nevada, and southeastern California. The Northern Paiute occupied east-central California, western Nevada, and eastern Oregon. Both groups were primarily food collectors who subsisted on wild plant foods supplemented by small game. They occupied temporary brush shelters, used rabbit-skin clothing, and made baskets for food gathering. Most Paiute were organized in loosely knit bands with fluid membership; those in areas with plentiful water organized more formally. Most Paiute were directed onto reservations in the 19th century. Early 21st-century population estimates indicated approximately 17,000 individuals of Paiute descent. See also Ute; Wovoka.

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US History Encyclopedia: Paiute
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The Northern and Southern Paiute Indians of northern Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Oregon, and eastern California live in the southern and northwestern portions of the Great Basin. They have migrated seasonally throughout these arid lands for thousands of years. The Northern Paiutes speak the Western Numic branch of the Shoshonean division of the Uto-Aztecan language family, while the Southern Paiutes speak the related Southern Numic branch. Organized in small family bands, Paiute communities evolved in intimate contact with the fragile ecologies of the Great Basin. They harvested pine nuts, berries, seeds, and grasses in the spring, summer, and fall, and consumed stored foods with game, fish, and fowl throughout the year. Using the precious resources of the Great Basin for all aspects of their lives, Paiute communities have creatively adapted to their changing environments, imbuing their ecological and human geographies with deep philosophical and spiritual meaning.

Northern and Southern Paiutes numbered approximately eight thousand in the early nineteenth century, when they came into contact with intruding Europeans and other Native groups. Living in northern Arizona and southern Utah, Southern Paiute communities became incorporated into the political economy of colonial New Mexico in the late 1700s. Unlike the Utes to their east, Southern Paiutes had difficulty incorporating horses into their spare ecologies, and when Spanish traders, missionaries, and traders ventured into their territories, they often noted the effects of Ute and Spanish slaving on Paiute communities. Unsure of the exact sociopolitical distinctions among these non-equestrian Paiute bands, Spanish, Mexican, and early American officials often failed to identify them consistently.

Northern Paiutes generally lived in more concentrated communities in California's Owens Valley, Nevada's

Pyramid and Walker Lakes, and along the Humboldt and Truckee Rivers in Nevada. Northern Paiutes also faced the challenges of conquest, but unlike the Southern Paiutes they negotiated treaties that established extensive reservations at Pyramid Lake and Walker River. Many of these treaties came at the end of wars, including the 1860 Paiute War north of Virginia City, Nevada. Smaller Northern Paiute groups in Oregon and California often migrated to neighboring Indian communities for survival, and many Western Shoshone, Wasco, and other Indian groups throughout the region have welcomed Paiute families into their communities. Indeed, throughout the twentieth century Western Shoshones and Northern Paiutes have lived together throughout Nevada, particularly in federally recognized urban Indian communities, known as colonies.

Several prominent Paiute leaders, artists, and intellectuals have achieved worldwide fame. In the nineteenth century, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins compiled her family and communities' struggles in her acclaimed autobiography, Life Among the Piutes, while a Walker River Paiute, Jack Wilson, also known as Wovoka, initiated the pan-Indian spiritual movement known as the Ghost Dance that prophesized the end of white supremacy and the return of Indian lands and the deceased.

Over a dozen Paiute communities with over eleven thousand members in 1990 extend from Warm Springs, Oregon, through northern, central, and southern Nevada, eastern California, and into southern Utah. Several Utah Paiute communities lost federal recognition in the 1950s as part of the federal government's termination program, which "terminated" over a hundred Indian tribes' federally recognized status, handing Indian affairs from the federal to the state government of Utah. This termination policy ended Paiute eligibility for federal funding for education, health care, and governance and was subsequently repealed under the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah Restoration Act of 1980.

Bibliography

Knack, Martha C. Boundaries Between: The Southern Paiutes, 1775–1995. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Knack, Martha C., and Omer C. Stewart, As Long as the River Shall Run: An Ethnohistory of Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation. Reprint, Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1999.

Sturtevant, William C., gen. ed. Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 11, Great Basin. Edited by William L. D'Azevedo. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1986.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: Paiute
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Paiute (pīūt'), two distinct groups of Native North Americans speaking languages belonging to the Shoshonean group of the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). The Northern Paiute ranged over central and E California, W Nevada, and E Oregon. The Southern Paiute occupied NW Arizona, SE California, S Nevada, and S Utah. The Northern Paiute were more warlike than their southern relatives; they fought the miners and the settlers during the 1860s, and a considerable part of them joined the Bannock in the war of 1878. The Southern Paiute are often called the Diggers because they subsisted on root digging. In general the Paiute of the Great Basin area subsisted by hunting, fishing, and digging for roots. They lived in small round huts (wickiups) that were covered with tule rushes. It was among the Paiute that the Ghost Dance religion, which was to be of much significance on the frontier in the 1890s, first appeared (c.1870). The Native American prophet Wovoka was a Paiute. In 1990 there were over 11,000 Paiute in the United States, many of them living on tribal lands in Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah. The name is also spelled Piute.

Bibliography

See J. H. Steward, Ethnography of the Owens Valley Paiute (1933); O. C. Stewart, Northern Paiute Bands (1939); M. M. Wheat, Survival Arts of the Primitive Paiutes (1967).

Wikipedia: Paiute
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"Piute" redirects here. For other uses, see Piute (disambiguation).
Paiute women and children in Yosemite Valley 1891.

Paiute (pronounced /ˈpaɪjuːt/, sometimes written Piute) refers to two related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Nevada and Oregon, and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah. The Northern and Southern Paiute both spoke languages belonging to the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan family of Native American languages.

Usage of the terms Paiute, Northern Paiute and Southern Paiute is most correct when referring to groups of people with similar language and culture and should not be taken to imply a political connection or even an especially close genetic relationship. The Northern Paiute speak the Northern Paiute language, while the Southern Paiute speak the Ute-Southern Paiute language. These languages are not as closely related to each other as they are to other Numic languages.

The Bannock, Mono, Timbisha and Kawaiisu people, who also speak Numic languages and live in adjacent areas are sometimes referred to as Paiute. The Bannock speak a dialect of Northern Paiute, while the other three people speak separate Numic languages, with Mono being more closely related to Northern Paiute, Kawaiisu being more closely related to Ute-Southern Paiute, and Timbisha being more closely related to Shoshone.

The origin of the word Paiute is unclear. Some anthropologists have interpreted it as "Water Ute" or "True Ute." The Northern Paiute call themselves Numa (sometimes written Numu) ; the Southern Paiute call themselves Nuwuvi. Both terms mean "the people." The Northern Paiute are sometimes referred to as Paviotso. Early Spanish explorers called the Southern Paiute "Payuchi" (they did not make contact with the Northern Paiute). Early Euro-American settlers often called both groups of Paiute "Diggers" (presumably because of their practice of digging for roots), although that term is now considered derogatory.

Captain John, Leader of the Yosemite-Mono Lake Paiutes

Contents

Northern Paiute

The Northern Paiute traditionally lived in the Great Basin in eastern California, western Nevada, and southeast Oregon. The Northern Paiute's pre-contact lifestyle was well adapted to the harsh desert environment in which they lived. Each tribe or band occupied a specific territory, generally centered on a lake or wetland that supplied fish and water-fowl. Rabbits and pronghorn were taken from surrounding areas in communal drives, which often involved neighboring bands. Individuals and families appear to have moved freely between bands. Pinyon nuts gathered in the mountains in the fall provided critical winter food. Grass seeds and roots were also important parts of their diet. The name of each band came from a characteristic food source. For example, the people at Pyramid Lake were known as the Cui Ui Ticutta (meaning "Cui-ui eaters"), the people of the Lovelock area were known as the Koop Ticutta (meaning "ground-squirrel eaters") and the people of the Carson Sink were known as the Toi Ticutta (meaning "tule eaters.")

Chief Winnemucca – Chief of the Paiutes. He was also named Poito.

Relations among the Northern Paiute bands and their Shoshone neighbors were generally peaceful. In fact, there is no sharp distinction between the Northern Paiute and western Shoshone. Relations with the Washoe people, who were culturally and linguistically very different, were not so peaceful.

Sarah Winnemucca - Paiute writer and lecturer

Sustained contact between the Northern Paiute and Euro-Americans came in the early 1840s, although the first contact may have occurred as early as the 1820s. Although they had already started using horses, their culture was otherwise largely unaffected by European influences at that point. As Euro-American settlement of the area progressed, several violent incidents occurred, including the Pyramid Lake War of 1860, Owens Valley Indian War 1861-1864[1] and the Bannock War of 1878. These incidents generally began with a disagreement between settlers and Paiutes (singly or in a group) regarding property, retaliation by one group against the other, and finally counter-retaliation by the opposite party, frequently culminating in the armed involvement of the U.S. Army. Many more Paiutes died from introduced diseases such as smallpox. Sarah Winnemucca's book "Life Among the Piutes"[2] gives a first-hand account of this period, although it is not considered to be wholly reliable.

The first reservation established for the Northern Paiute was the Malheur Reservation in Oregon. The federal government's intention was to concentrate the Northern Paiute there, but its strategy did not work. Because of the distance of that reservation from the traditional areas of most of the bands, and because of the poor conditions on that reservation, many Northern Paiute refused to go there, and those that did soon left. Instead they clung to the traditional lifestyle as long as possible, and when environmental degradation made that impossible, they sought jobs on white farms, ranches or cities and established small Indian colonies, where they were joined by many Shoshone and, in the Reno area, Washoe people. Later, large reservations were created at Pyramid Lake and Duck Valley, but by that time the pattern of small de facto reservations near cities or farm districts often with mixed Northern Paiute and Shoshone populations had been established. Starting in the early 20th century the federal government began granting land to these colonies, and under the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 these colonies gained recognition as independent tribes.

Wovoka – Paiute spiritual leader and creator of the Ghost Dance

Tribes

These are federally-recognized tribes with significant Northern Paiute populations:

Famous Northern Paiutes

Population

Further information: Population of Native California

Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber thought that the 1770 population of the Northern Paiute within California was 500. He estimated their population in 1910 as 300.[3] Others [4] put the total Northern Paiute population in 1859 at about 6,000.

Southern Paiute

Southern Paiutes – Moapa - Las Vegas Paiutes wearing traditional Paiute basket hats. Paiute cradleboard and rabbit robe

The Southern Paiute traditionally lived in the Colorado River basin and Mojave Desert in northern Arizona and southeastern California including Owens Valley,[5] southern Nevada and southern Utah. The Utah Paiutes were terminated in 1954 and regained federal recognition in 1980. Many of these Paiutes traded with coastal tribes; for example. tribes of the Owens Valley have been proven to trade with the Chumash of the Central Coast, based upon archaeological recovery at Morro Creek.[6] A band of Southern Paiutes at Willow Springs and Navajo Mountain, south of the Grand Canyon, reside inside the Navajo Indian Reservation. These "San Juan" Paiutes were recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1980.

First European contact with the Southern Paiutes occurred in 1776 when Fathers Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez chanced upon them during their failed attempt to find an overland route to the missions of California. Even before this date, the Southern Paiute suffered from slave raids by the Navajo and the Utes, but the introduction of Spanish and later Euroamerican explorers into their territory exacerbated the practice. In 1851, Mormon settlers strategically occupied Paiute water sources, which created a dependency relationship. However, the Mormon presence soon ended the slave raids, and relations between the Paiutes and the Mormons were basically peaceful. This was largely because of the diplomacy efforts of Mormon missionary Jacob Hamblin. But there is no doubt that the introduction of European settlers and agricultural practices (most especially large herds of cattle) made it difficult for the Southern Paiutes to continue their traditional lifestyle.

Southern Paiute communities are located at Las Vegas, Pahrump, and Moapa, in Nevada; Cedar City, Kanosh, Koosharem, Shivwits, and Indian Peaks, in Utah; at Kaibab and Willow Springs, in Arizona; Death Valley and at the Chemehuevi Indian Reservation and on the Colorado River Indian Reservation in California. Some would include the 29 Palms Reservation in Riverside County, California.

Tribes

Pah Ute War

Numaga, chief of the Paiutes during the Pyramid Lake Paiute War. He was named the “Peace Chief”.
Further information: Paiute War

The Pah Ute War, also known as the Paiute War, was a minor series of raids and ambushes initiated by the Paiute and which had an effect on the development of the Pony Express. It took place from May through June 1860, though sporadic violence continued for a period afterwards.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The California Military Museum; California and the Indian Wars, The Owens Valley Indian War, 1861-1865
  2. ^ Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, 1883
  3. ^ Kroeber, p.883
  4. ^ Fowler and Liljeblad, p.457
  5. ^ W.C. Sturtevant, 1964
  6. ^ C.M. Hogan, 2008

References

  • Catherine S. Fowler and Sven Liljeblad (1978) Northern Paiute. In Great Basin, edited by Warren L. d'Azevedo, pp. 435-465. Handbook of North American Indians, William C. Sturtevant, general editor, vol. 11. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
  • C.Michael Hogan (2008) Morro Creek, ed. by A. Burnham [1]
  • A. L. Kroeber (1925) Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin No. 78. Washington, D.C.
  • William C. Sturtevant (1964) Handbook of North American Indians, Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Govt. Printing Office, Washington DC

External links

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
US History Encyclopedia. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Paiute".  Read more