The Great Basin Culture Area includes the high desert regions between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains. It is bounded on the north by the Columbia Plateau and on the south by the Colorado Plateau.It includes southern Oregon and Idaho, a small portion of southwestern Montana,western Wyoming, eastern California, all of Nevada and Utah, a portion of northern Arizona, and most of western Colorado. This is an area which is characterized by low rainfall and extremes of temperature. The valleys in the area are 3,000to 6,000 feet in altitude and are separated by mountain ranges running north and south that are 8,000 to 12,000 feet in elevation. The rivers in this region do not flow into the ocean, but simply disappear into the sand.
While some of the tribes of the Great Basin, most notably the Shoshone, are responsible for the spread of the horse into the Plateau and Plains culture areas, not all of the tribes of the area adopted the horse-oriented culture patterns so common in other areas. With regard to the acceptance of the horse, historian John Heaton, in his book The Shoshone-Bannocks: Culture and Commerce at Fort Hall, 1870-1940, reports:
“Many kin groups eagerly embraced horses extensively; others used them on a smaller scale, with fewer modifications to seasonal patterns; and many rejected an equestrian lifestyle altogether.”
The tribes which rejected the horse tended to live in the south and the west. The tribes which had to cross the productive fisheries of the Middle and Lower Snake River and those living in arid lands which were not hospitable to horses tended to remain pedestrian. Some of these tribes, such as the Gosiute and the Northern Paiute of Southern Oregon, were later called “digger Indians” by the Europeans as a derogatory comment on their pedestrian lifestyle.
Adoption of horses changed daily life in many ways. The selection of camp sites, for example, now had to take into account the needs of the horses. In the winter, this often meant that the camps had to be relocated more frequently in order to provide good grazing for the horses.
Anthropologist Julian Steward, in his 1938 Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin Basin-Plateau Aboriginal Sociopolitical Groups, writes:
“The horse revolutionized Shoshoni economy by making it possible to use new methods of hunting which yielded greater wealth in foods and hides and enabled people to live in large and comparatively permanent groups.”
With the horse, foods which previously had to be cached near where they had been obtained, could now be carried to the village.
With the horse, several of the northern Great Basin groups began making regular hunting trips to the Great Plains for buffalo. The Bannock Trail through what is now Yellowstone National Park became one of the regular routes to the buffalo hunting areas. This became more important after the buffalo became extinct in Idaho about 1840. With the horse, the Shoshone and other groups would go to Wyoming and/or the area around Butte, Montana.
Writer Geoffrey O’Gara, in his book What You See in Clear Water: Life on the Wind River Reservation, describes the Shoshone adaptation to horse culture this way:
“With the horse, they bullied old enemies like the Blackfeet and roamed far east of the Rockies, pursuing the great bison herds. Over a system of beliefs and a history rooted in the hardscrabble desert of the Great Basin, they pulled on the flamboyant culture and finery of the Plains tribes.”
For the Ute, the adoption of the horse brought about many changes in their lifestyle. While their food preferences and their migrational patterns remained somewhat the same, with the horse they were able to cover more territory and to be more efficient in the use of the resources of their territory. Historian Richard Young, in his book The Ute Indians of Colorado in the Twentieth Century, reports:
“With increased mobility and the ability to transport food over greater distances, previously disperse family groups now concentrated in large band camps. Hunters ventured far out onto the plains and hunted buffalo much more frequently than in the past; food became more plentiful and hunger less of a concern.”
With the horse also came warfare. Anthropologist Eugene Hunn, in his book Nch’i-Wána, “The Big River”: Mid-Columbia Indians and Their Land, points out:
“The early Bannock penetrated Montana east of the continental divide and harassed Blackfeet and Sioux groups, as yet still foot Indians.”
The northern Shoshone and Bannock also raided the Indian nations in the Plateau area.
In a similar manner, historian Richard Young writes of the Ute:
“During the seventeenth century, the previously peaceful Utes often waged war on their neighbors.”
One of the prime objectives of Ute warfare was to obtain horses as well as other loot. In addition, the Ute warriors would often capture Indian women and children who they could trade with the Spanish and other settlers for horses.
Indians 101
Twice each week Indians 101 explores different American Indian topics. More from this series:
Indians 101: Great Basin Culture Area
Indians 101: The Indian Tribes of the Great Basin Culture Area
Indians 101: Children Among the Great Basin Indian Nations
Indians 101: Marriage Among the Great Basin Indian Nations
Indians 101: A Short Overview of the Ute Indians
Indians 101: Ute Spirituality
Indians 101: Utes Held by Army
Indians 101: The Utes, the Spanish, and Silver