Shoshone

Shoshone or Shoshoni (shəshō`nē), Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Shoshonean group of the Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). In the early 19th cent. the Shoshone occupied SE California, NW Utah, SW Montana, W Wyoming, S Idaho, and NE Nevada. The Shoshone were traditionally divided into four groups: the Comanche of W Texas, a historically recent subdivision of the Wind River Shoshone of Wyoming; the Northern Shoshone of Idaho and Utah, who had horses and ranged across the Great Plains in search of buffalo; the Western Shoshone, who did not use horses and subsisted mainly on nuts and other wild vegetation; and the Wind River Shoshone of Wyoming. Today the Shoshone live on reservations in California, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. In 1990 there were some 9,500 Shoshone in the United States.

Bibliography

See V. C. Trenholm and M. Carley, The Shoshonis, Sentinels of the Rockies (1964); E. Dorn, The Shoshoneans (1966); J. G. Jorgensen, The Sun Dance Religion (1972).

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Shoshone

Group of closely related North American Indian peoples living in the Great Basin region of the U.S. Their language belongs to the Numic group of the Uto-Aztecan family. The Shoshone are usually divided into four groups: Western (unmounted) Shoshone, centred in eastern Nevada; Northern (mounted) Shoshone of northwestern Utah and southern Idaho; Wind River Shoshone in western Wyoming; and the Comanche, a relatively recent division related to the Wind River peoples, in western Texas. The Western Shoshone traditionally subsisted through hunting and gathering. The Northern Shoshone and Wind River Shoshone probably acquired horses by 1680 and adopted much of Plains Indian culture; they hunted buffalo, used tepees and skin clothing, and warred with other tribes. The Shoshone are closely related to the Ute, Paiute, Gosiute, and Bannock. Early 21st-century population estimates indicated some 19,000 individuals of Comanche descent and an additional 22,000 individuals of Western, Northern, or Wind River Shoshone descent.