A Reinterpretation of the Ute-Southern Paiute Classification

Abstract

In anthropological literature a distinction customarily is drawn between Ute and Southern Paiute based on three criteria: linguistic differences, horse nomadism for the Ute, and agriculture for the Southern Paiute. In a reanalysis of the basic data, Julian Steward has suggested that these criteria, properly applied, allow a more realistic interpretation of Ute-Southern Paiute relationships.1 This is an attempt to follow through Dr. Steward's ideas on the subject. So far as we know, around 1700 all of the Ute-Chemehuevi speaking people had the same type of simple culture. Other Shoshoni speakers living in the Intermontane region were distinguishable from Ute-Chemehuevi by language alone. For the entire Intermontane area the subsistence economy was based on the gathering of wild plant foods and the hunting of small game. Fish also were taken wherever available. Food was very scarce, and as one might expect, few food taboos existed. The socio-political organization of the peoples of the Intermontane area around 1700 was determined by the available food supply and the techniques employed in obtaining it. Restricted as these people were by an inhospitable environment and a primitive technology, only rarely was enough food available at one place to permit any larger permanent grouping than the family. The primary exception was the winter camp where a number of families might gather to consume the surplus stored during the gathering or harvesting months. This reconstruction, though inferential, is based on a sound foundation of field data for con-