Paiute

(pī'yūt')

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.

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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.

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