The Great Basin is an area which 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. As with Indian people in other culture areas, there are many places in the Great Basin—water sources, hot springs, isolated rock formations, rock art sites, mountain peaks, and caves—which the Indian nations of this area consider to be sacred. In her entry on the Great Basin in American Indian Places, Catherine Fowler writes:
“All are respected and approached with care and with requests to the spirits that dwell therein for permission to visit and for special favors. People leave offerings as an additional show of respect.”
The shaded area on the map above shows the Great Basin culture area. This is from a display in the Maryhill Museum of Art near Goldendale, Washington.
One of the continuing problems facing sacred sites in the Great Basin is vandalism and looting by non-Indians. In 2010, the Shoshone-Paiute tribes of the Duck Valley Reservation began flying helicopters to keep watch on important culture sites and to prevent vandalism and looting. The sites include vision quest sites as well as ancient fishing sites, burial grounds, and other sacred areas.
Among the Southern Ute, there are supernatural powers associated with the land. Spiritual leaders for each band would go to specific “power points” to leave offerings and to ask for help on behalf of the band. In their chapter in A History of Utah’s American Indians, Robert McPherson and Mary Jane Yazzie write:
“The location of specific power sites is not general knowledge and should be discussed only with those who have a need to know.”
Knowledge of these sites is to be passed on through oral traditions and should not be transmitted through writing.
Briefly described below are a few of the sacred places in the Great Basin Culture Area.
Water
Water sources, such as springs, are traditionally seen as spiritual places and are often approached with requests to the spirits associated with them. In making these requests, Indian people traditionally leave offerings as a way of showing respect for the spiritual nature of these places.
Jenny Lake in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming is a sacred ceremonial area for the Shoshone. This is an area in which the Shoshone had traditionally held a Sun Dance. In 2000, acknowledging that a Sun Dance had not been held in this sacred location for 132 years, the Shoshone of the Wind River Reservation asked the National Park Service for permission to hold a Sun Dance on this sacred ground. The National Park Service, however, turned down the request, claiming that the ceremony would cause environmental action and that the Park did not have adequate resources for it.
For the Eastern Shoshone in Wyoming, Bull Lake is also a sacred place, for it is the home of monsters and it is the place where ghost people play the hand game. The lake, according to Shoshone tradition, houses a remarkable water buffalo. These are supernatural spirits which look like buffalo but live in the lake. Seeing a water buffalo is considered to be a bad sign.
The Great Basin is a tectonically active region and has a number of hot springs. Hot springs are traditionally seen as a source of healing water and mud which can be used to relieve pain. For traditional Native Americans it is important to leave offerings at these healing waters and not to use them for recreation.
In spite of a century of propaganda to the contrary, there are many sacred places in present-day Yellowstone National Park. The Shoshone, for example, would seek spiritual help from the geysers. Bathing in the waters of the geysers was a way of enhancing one’s spiritual power.
Pagosa Hot Springs in Colorado is sacred to the Ute for its ability to heal the sick. Smoking the sacred pipe at the springs is especially powerful.
Hot Springs in Wyoming is sacred to the Shoshone. According to some oral traditions, the Shoshone were warned to stay away from the springs by the Nimimbe (a race of dwarfish mountain people). The spring, according to the Nimimbe, is home to monstrous serpents.
Rock Art Sites
Rock art sites—places which may include pictographs (paintings on rocks) and/or petroglyphs (images which are carved or pecked into the rock)—are often of great antiquity (perhaps as old as 9000 BCE) and are seen as places of great spiritual power. In the Great Basin Culture Area there are hundreds of rock art sites which represent thousands of years of art.
With regard to interpreting the meaning of the rock art images, Polly Schaafsma, in her chapter on rock art in the Handbook of North American Indians, writes:
“Meaning and symbolic concepts may be communicated through rock art images, but rock art was not intended and cannot be as precise representations of speech; it is not writing.”
In an article in American Antiquity, Angus Quinlan and Alanah Woody report:
“Among the Northern and Eastern Shoshone some rock art seems to have marked places of supernatural power where shamans conducted vision quests.”
Many of the Great Basin rock art sites with pictorial representations of animals, such as mountain sheep, and anthropomorphic figures are felt to be associated with hunting and may be associated with shamanistic hunting rituals.
At Dinwoody Canyon on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming there are hundreds of pictographs which have been drawn over a long period of time. The Dinwoody images portray a wide variety of spirit beings: there are several large panels which have representations of the Water Ghost Beings and the Rock Ghost Beings. In their report Crow Rock Art in the Bighorn Basin: Petroglyphs at No Water, Wyoming, James Keyser and George Poetschat write:
“Primarily resembling human figures in form, many of these anthropomorphic beings show odd combinations of human shape and posture with animal attributes such as wings, claws, hooves, and antlers. Others have smaller anthropomorphic spirit beings carved inside or emerging from their body or head. Sometimes such other beings are connected to the primary figures by wavy lines or a tether. Frequently the figures are surrounded by wavy lines or lines of dots, and often the bodies are filled with lines, dots, circles, and other geometric forms.”
Some of the figures are obviously female, showing breasts and pubic fringe. The figures show that the spirit world includes female figures.
Parowan Gap in southern Utah is sacred to the Paiute. The gap was used as a solar calendar to mark the beginnings of the seasons. Petroglyphs etched into the rocks around the gap convey the spiritual significance of the area.
At Pahranagat Lake in southern Nevada (archaeological site NV-li-7) there are petroglyphs showing mountain sheep and anthropomorphic figures which have been described as “hunters”. Polly Schaafsma writes:
“These ‘hunters’ are basically rectangular designs sometimes filled with dots or simple motifs, and they are sometimes fringed at the base. They have short arms and hold atlatls.”
At Medicine Butte and Cedar Butte in Wyoming there are pictographs which are sacred to the Shoshone.
At Big Spring in the Big Lost River Range of Idaho, the Shoshone have several pictographic panels which designate this as a sacred site. The area includes a water fall and the pictographs are selectively placed to focus on the sacred geography of the place. Some of the pictographic figures seem to indicate contact with the southwest, perhaps with the Hopi.
At Mono Craters in California, there are petroglyphs carved in high relief at the summit of a volcanic cone. The vulva forms represent female genitalia and were made as a part of girls’ adolescence ceremonies.
Mountains and Rock Formations
Throughout North America, Indian people have considered mountain peaks and unusual rock formations as sacred areas, often associated with creation stores. With regard to the Great Basin Catherine Fowler writes:
“Mountain peaks and other rock formations, which are often places of origin, are sacred. They are named and become the focus of prayers as people move across the landscape.”
Unlike the European fashion for naming mountains, American Indians rarely name geological features after famous people.
Mount Newberry in Nevada is called Avi Kwa Me or Spirit Mountain by the Mohave. According to writer Philip Klasky, in an article in News from Native California:
“Spirit Mountain is the residence of the spirit-mentors, Mutavilya and Mastahmo, who instructed the Mohave people to be the caretakers of the river and the land.”
For the Northern Paiute, Job’s Peak in the Stillwater Range in Nevada was traditionally viewed as the center of the world.
Crowheart Butte in Wyoming is a spiritual place for the Shoshone. There are lots of good guardian spirits here. In 1866, the Shoshone and the Bannock fought a battle against the Crow here.
Yucca Mountain in Nevada is sacred to the Shoshone. In 2002, it was designated as the site of a storage facility for dangerous nuclear waste. In making the decision to use this site the tribe was not consulted by the U.S. government. The plan for the nuclear waste repository was scrapped in 2010. Under the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley, the Shoshone still claim ownership of this sacred site.
Old Man Mountain is an isolated rock formation in Colorado. This is a vision quest site that has been used for more than 3,000 years.
Caves and Rock Shelters
Catherine Fowler writes:
“Caves and rock shelters are often places of supernatural power; where a person might seek the power to doctor the sick or perform other tasks or to request special favors or contact spirit helpers.”
Cave Rock near Lake Tahoe in Nevada is sacred to the Washo. In 2000, the Forest Service began to allow rock climbing on this sacred formation.
South Fork Canyon of the Little Wind River contains a deep cave where the Shoshone traditionally buried their dead.
Stone Circles
The Ute often used stone circles as a part of their ceremonies. In his chapter on the Northern Utes in A History of Utah’s American Indians, Clifford Duncan reports:
“These stone circles are individual ritual sites and are still considered sacred today.”
There was not a standardized way of using these stone circles. Each of the spiritual leaders had their own ceremonies.
Indians 101/201
Twice each week this series examines various American Indian topics. Indians 201 is an expansion of an earlier essay. More about the Great Basin from this series:
Indians 101: Great Basin Culture Area
Indians 101: The Horse and the Great Basin Indians
Indians 101: The Indian Tribes of the Great Basin Culture Area
Indians 101: Marriage Among the Great Basin Indian Nations
Indians 101: Children Among the Great Basin Indian Nations
Indians 101: Ute Spirituality
