Thus far, we have presented the pertinent historical data on Shoshone
ecology in Wyoming and adjacent parts of northern Utah and we have
described the annual cycle of economic activities during the early
reservation period. The following summary of information on Eastern
Shoshone territory will consider both kinds of data but will not
attempt to delineate the social and political affiliations of the
peoples using the lands. This subject, as the previously cited
statement by Shimkin suggests (p. 300), is extremely complex and will
be reserved for further discussion.
The most perplexing problem presented by the Eastern Shoshone is the
extent of their penetration into the Missouri River waters. Although
the Shoshone evidently undertook forays at least as far east as Fort
Laramie, contemporary informants and historical sources agree that
their main hunting grounds extended no farther east than the
Sweetwater and other headwaters of the North Platte River. We have no
certain information of Shoshone use of lands east of the upper
Sweetwater River, and informants gave no data on this sector.
Wind River Shoshone informants relate the itineraries of
buffalo-hunting parties northward into the Big Horn Basin. The fall
and spring buffalo hunts were said to have taken place in the region
of Thermopolis, Wyoming, and as far north as Cody and Greybull,
Wyoming. The region east of the Big Horn Mountains was thought by
informants to have been occasionally visited, but was acknowledged as
the hunting grounds of hostile tribes. The presence of a "mixed party
of Shoshone and Flatheads" in the Big Horn Mountains was noted by the
westward-bound Astoria party in 1811 (Irving, 1890, p. 196) and
indicates some early penetration of the area, although the presence of
Flathead Indians suggests that the party had entered the area via
Idaho and Montana and not from Green River. However, pre-reservation
historical data show that before the 1840's the Eastern Shoshone
largely restricted their buffalo hunting to the region west of the
Continental Divide and sporadically penetrated the Wind River and Big
Horn basins only after the buffalo disappeared from the country beyond
the Rockies. Their entry into the eastern buffalo range became more
frequent in the 1850's, but it by no means constituted an exclusive
monopoly on lands there. They depended upon their numbers for
protection and were forced to compete with other tribes for the right
to hunt on the land. Their hunting excursions were in the nature of
forays and were unsuccessful in some years. They enjoyed security and
some assurance of success in the hunt only after they had been placed
under the protection of Federal troops and the Crow had been placed on
reservations. That the center of Shoshone occupancy lay west of the
Continental Divide was affirmed by Chief Washakie. Agent Head wrote in
1867 (1868, p. 186):
Washakee said that the country east from the Wind river
mountains, to the settled portions of eastern Nebraska and
Kansas, had always been claimed by four principal Indian
tribes--the Sioux, Arapahoes, Cheyennes, and Crows.
Further evidence that the valleys of the Big Horn and Wind rivers were
used only for buffalo hunting and not stably occupied in the
pre-reservation period is indicated by the Shoshones' ignorance of the
hunting grounds in the surrounding mountains. Captain Jones used
Shoshone guides from Camp Brown on the new Wind River Reservation when
he undertook his exploration of Yellowstone Park in 1873. The captain
and his party penetrated the Owl Creek Range, north of the reservation
and found at the head of Owl Creek a lovely park (Jones, 1875, p.
54):
This park bears many evidences of having been used as a hiding
place. Our Indians knew nothing of it, and yet there are all
through it numerous trails, old lodge poles, bleached bones of
game, and old camps of Cheyennes and Arapahoes.
Shimkin (1947_a_, p. 248) notes that this park was one of the "foci"
of Shoshone nomadic activity, a place to which Wind River people
repaired for summer hunting. Although this is true for later times, it
certainly was not so in the pre-reservation period when hunts on the
Missouri waters were conducted only for limited periods and in the
plains and valleys where buffalo were to be found.
Until the late 1860's the Wind River Valley and the Big Horn Basin and
Mountains were zones of penetration rather than occupation of the
Eastern Shoshone. Another such zone is in the Tetons and Yellowstone.
This is confirmed by the journal of Captain Jones, who commented upon
the unfamiliarity of his Shoshone guides with the country around
Yellowstone Lake (Jones, 1875, p. 23). He wrote (p. 34):
... the Indians have failed to find the trail back to
Yellowstone Lake.... The explanation of this is that they are
"Plains Indians," and are wholly unaccustomed to travel among
forests like these.
Later, the exploring party reached the upper Yellowstone River, above
the lake, where Jones commented (p. 39):
We have now reached a country from which one of our Indians
says he knows the way back to Camp Brown by the head of Wind
River. He belongs to a band of Shoshones called "Sheepeaters,"
who have been forced to live for a number of years in the
mountains away from the tribe.
The Yellowstone area was frequently entered by the Crow and was
evidently not a Shoshone hunting territory, except for the
Sheepeaters. Jackson Hole is more commonly mentioned by informants as
a place of summer hunting activity, but the above information from
Jones would suggest that parties entered it from the Green River
country rather than from Wind River. The Eastern Shoshone apparently
did not move west of the Tetons except when visiting the Shoshone and
Bannock of Idaho. It should be mentioned at this point that the
Shoshone and Bannock also hunted in the Jackson Hole and Yellowstone
country, probably to a greater extent than did the Eastern Shoshone,
and the frequent mention of parties of Blackfoot and other hostiles in
the country both east and west of the Teton Range indicates that the
weaker Shoshone experienced no little danger there.
The valley of the Salt River in western Wyoming was used by both Idaho
and Wyoming Shoshone. Idaho Shoshone and Bannock frequently entered
the valleys of the Green River and its tributaries to hunt antelope in
the fall. These people apparently mixed so frequently with the Eastern
Shoshone in this area that it is most expedient to differentiate the
respective populations according to where they wintered. On the west,
Wind River Shoshone informants now make little mention of any use of
the Bear River and Bear Lake country, despite the apparent
interchangeability of population in the pre-reservation period; again,
it must be assumed that informant data does not much antedate the
move to Wind River.
The southern and southeastern limits of the Shoshone range in Wyoming
are most vague. They probably extended as far south as the Yampa River
in Colorado and the Uinta Range in Utah; Lander places their southern
limits at Brown's Hole, in northwestern Colorado on the Green River
(Lander, 1860, p. 121).
It is doubtful whether the country as far east as the North Platte and
south to the Yampa was intensively exploited. Informants knew of no
significant activities which went on in those areas, although they
thought that antelope were occasionally hunted there. Most agreed that
the Sweetwater River and Rawlins, Wyoming, were in Shoshone country,
but Casper, Wyoming, and the Medicine Bow Mountains were excluded.
Shimkin's map shows no regular utilization of the southeastern corner
of Shoshone country (Shimkin, 1947_a_, map 1, p. 249), although my
informants spoke of antelope hunts on the south side of South Pass. We
can conclude that this whole area was, like many other sections, an
area of occasional penetration. It is doubtful whether the poorly
watered country between the Green and North Platte rivers was
intensively used by any Indian group.