Research Items

Abstract

Northern Paiute Bands THE Northern Paiute, once occupying parts of Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and California, belong to the Mono-Paviots dialect of the Plateau Shoshonean language. Although almost everyone writing about these Indians has testified to the existence of bands among them, no one has troubled to ascertain systematically their number, names, or territorial extent. So long ago as 1870, the difficulty of dealing with the Paiutes was recognized by the authorities of the United States as due to the fact that they had no tribal organization, but were divided up into bands of from 50 to 200, each under the nominal leadership of individuals elected by themselves, each band acting independently, although they recognized that they were linguistically and culturally related, and considered themselves as all members of one tribe. The basic unity of the Northern Paiute appears from the fact that they pictured exact boundaries dividing themselves from surrounding tribes, whereas interband divisions were often vague and indefinite. Band territories consisted of a relatively productivo area and its environs. In spite of some laxness, the bands had recognized possession of certain tracts, piñon ranges, lakes, streams and hunting grounds. If other Paiutes obtained food there, it was understood that they did so as visitors. Claimed lands seldom overlapped, except where two adjacent bands recognized mutual use of a district. Bands in arid areas travelled more, and spent several months each year as visitors of their friends living in more productive areas. Detailed information concerning each one of the twenty-one bands of the Northern Paiute has been collected in field work and from the literature by Omer C. Stewart (Univ. California: Anthropological Records, 2:3, 1939) from which has emerged much evidence bearing upon problems of traditional migrations and Paiute affinities.