Northern Plains Defender

Shoshone Indian

The Shoshone or Shoshoni (/ʃoʊˈʃoʊniː/  or /ʃəˈʃoʊniː/ ) are a Native American tribe in the United States with three large divisions: the Northern, the Western and the Eastern.

They traditionally spoke the Shoshoni language, a part of the large Uto-Aztecan language family. The Shoshone were sometimes called the Snake Indians by early ethnic European trappers, travelers, and settlers.

The Northern Shoshone are concentrated in eastern Idaho, western Wyoming, and northeastern Utah.

The Eastern Shoshone tribes lived in Wyoming, northern Colorado and Montana. After 1750, warfare and pressure from the Blackfoot, Crow, Cheyenne, and Arapaho pushed them south and westward.

The Western Shoshone tribes lived in Oregon and western Idaho, and ranged from central Idaho, northwestern Utah, central Nevada. In California in the Death Valley, Saline Valley, Panamint Valley and surrounding mountains the Timbisha Shoshone (Death Valley or Panamint Shoshone) have lived for centuries, and have a federally recognized tribal reservation at Furnace Creek, California. Also the Owens Valley had and have an ongoing Shoshone-Paiute presence. The Idaho groups of Western Shoshone were called Tukuaduka (sheep eaters), while the Nevada/Utah bands were called the Gosiute or Toi Ticutta (cattail eaters).

The most famous member of the Shoshone tribe may have been Sacagawea, a member of the Lemhi Shoshone band of Northern Shoshone. She accompanied the Corps of Discovery (Lewis and Clark Expedition) with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in their exploration of the Western United States.