Southern Paiute is a designation for approximately 16 seminomadic, culturally distinct, and politically autonomous Great Basin groups, such as Kaibab, Kaiparowits, Panguitch, Shivwits, Moapa, Paranigets, and Panaca. Their self-designation was Nuwu, or "Person." The Chemehuevi (see Chapter 1) were originally a Southern Paiute group. "Southern Paiute" is a modern construction and is more a linguistic than a cultural convention. "Paiute" may have meant "True Ute" or "Water Ute" and was applied to the Northern Paiute only after the 1850s. To the north and northeast, some Southern Paiute groups merged with the Western and Southern Ute.
Location Southern Paiutes lived and continue to live in southwest Utah, southern Nevada, northwest Arizona, and southeast California. The San Juan Paiutes lived east of the Colorado River. Southern Paiute territory encompasses a great environmental diversity, including canyons and high deserts of the Colorado Plateau and the Great Basin.
Population The entire early-nineteenth-century Paiute population was roughly 7,500. In 1990, roughly 700 Southern Paiutes lived on reservations.
Language Southern Paiute languages belong to the southern Numic (Shoshonean) branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Their languages were mutually unintelligible with those of the Northern Paiutes.
Historical Information
History Numic-speaking Southern Paiutes came into their historic area around 1000, perhaps from around Death Valley. They gradually replaced Hopis in the south and may have learned agriculture from them. They encountered a Spanish expedition in 1776 but adopted neither horses nor much else of Spanish culture. However, diseases and some material items may have preceded actual contact. Some groups were practicing agriculture before 1800.
By 1830, the trail established by the first Spanish explorers was in heavy use. The increased traffic depleted the area’s natural resources. The trail also facilitated raiding and trading parties by both Indian and non-native peoples. Mounted Utes and Navajos, and later Spanish expeditions and American trappers, were engaged in raiding and trading for Southern Paiute slaves. Starving Southern Paiutes sometimes sold their children for food. One effect of this situation was the Paiutes’ self-removal from areas that were economically productive but close to slave raiders. The loss of a significant percentage of their young also contributed to the population reduction that was well under way by this time.
Mormon settlers arrived in 1847. At first participants in the slave trade, they had it legally abolished by the mid-1850s (although they continued to "adopt" Indian children). However, their practice of establishing settlements and missions on the best land, thereby depleting native resources and squeezing the Indians out, soon left the latter as beggars. Many Mormons alternated between seeing Indians negatively, as did most Americans, and positively, because of a perceived connection to biblical Israelites. About the same time, the Chemehuevi split off and moved down the Colorado River.
Some groups retaliated against whites by raiding their settlements. In a move to head off violence, six Mormon Southern Paiute headmen agreed in 1865 to move their people to the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, the home of their Ute enemies. The treaty remained unratified, however, and was later abandoned. By the 1870s roughly 80 percent of Southern Paiutes had died as a result of starvation and disease (Southern Paiute death rates exceeded birth rates well—in some cases, halfway—into the twentieth century). Survivors had begun the process of acculturation, gathering into larger camps and working in new white towns.
By executive order, a reservation (Moapa) of roughly 3,900 square miles was established in Nevada for the Southern Paiutes in 1872. Although few Indians moved there, it was expanded in 1874 with the idea that Southern Paiutes would be turned into farmers and ranchers. Soon, however, the reservation was greatly reduced in size. When promised federal support was not forthcoming, conditions began rapidly to deteriorate.
Meanwhile, Indians in southern Utah were either seeking wage work or trying desperately to hold on in their traditional locations. In the late 1880s, after a local white rancher persuaded the government to remove the Shivwits from their lands, the Shivwits Reservations was established in southern Utah, Though it was later expanded, the land was never good enough to support the population, even without inevitable conflicts over water and range rights. Many residents eventually moved away. Several small Mormon-affiliated farming communities had also been established by 1885.
Several reservations were created for Southern Paiutes in the twentieth century (although one, the San Juan Paiute Reservation, was returned to the public domain shortly after an oil company expressed an interest in the parcel). In the mid-1950s, the Utah Paiute (Shivwits, Indian Peaks, Koosharem, and Kanosh Bands) were removed from federal control (terminated), although policy dictated that this would not happen until the people were ready and willing to take care of themselves. (The groups were restored in 1980.) The immediate effects of this action included a tremendous loss of the modest land base (through individual allotment sales and nonpayment of taxes), greater impoverishment, exploitative leases to non-Indians, removal of health services, and greatly increased social problems. When people tried to hunt rabbits again for survival, they discovered that many animals had been poisoned by fallout from the Nevada nuclear test site. Perhaps not surprisingly, many people left the reservation during these years.
In 1965, Southern Paiutes were awarded $8,250,000 ($0.27 an acre) as official compensation for their aboriginal land. The bands used their shares in different ways, but nearly all provided for some direct per capita payments as well as long-term concerns. New federal programs during this time also helped lift many Indians out of dire poverty and provide them with decent housing. During the 1960s, many people were poisoned with the insecticide DDT as a result of government and farmer spraying. Women basket makers, who pulled willow twigs through their teeth, were especially hard hit.
Religion Shamans provided religious leadership; they cured and conducted ceremonies such as the girls’ puberty rite. They could be men or women, although women were more often considered evil. Power dreams, perhaps dreamed in a special cave, also provided instructions and songs.
Disease was attributed to sorcerers, a ghost-inspired poisonous object (necessitating the removal of the object by sucking), or soul loss (cured by the shaman’s recapturing the soul). The mourning ceremony, or cry, was undertaken by wealthy relatives of a recently (three months to a year) deceased person so they could eat and sleep well. It was a feast at which many items were destroyed.
In general, groups came together for singing (men) and round dancing on occasions such as the harvest and before a war. Some groups danced the 1890 Ghost Dance.
Government Camp groups were composed of between 1 to 10 or 15 households, many of whom were related. They were led by a headman as well as the best hunters and gatherers. Headmen served in an advisory capacity. This position tended to remain in the family and among men but did not necessarily pass from father to son (except for the Chemehuevi and Las Vegas).
Customs The basic unit was the nuclear family. Each group generally gathered food, hunted, and camped together. Each was associated with a specific though nonexclusive geographic territory.
People married early; girls might be pre- or post pubescent. Most marriages were monogamous. Gender-determined rituals over infants’ navel stumps underscored the priority placed on hunting for men and industry in domestic chores for women. Both new parents observed postpartum behavior and food restrictions.
Meat that a boy killed was given away to the elderly until he reached puberty. Puberty rites for both sexes included bathing, body painting, hair trimming, and physical endurance. Relatives prepared a corpse, then underwent behavior and food restrictions. Most groups cremated their dead. The dead person’s possessions were burned or buried, and his or her house was torn down and moved. Some groups occasionally killed a relative as company for the deceased. There was a permanent taboo on using the name of the dead.
Springs were considered inheritable private property. People commonly gambled on hand and other games such as shinny, four-stick, hoop and pole, and target. Other games included ring and pin as well as athletic contests.
Dwellings Type of residence varied with season and locale. Winter dwellings included caves; conical houses of cedar bark, rushes, or grass over a tree limb framework; and gabled houses of willow and earth over pole frames. Most summer houses were brush shelters, shades, and windbreaks. Canvas or skin tipis were adapted from the Ute beginning in the mid-nineteenth century.
Diet Southern Paiutes migrated seasonally, following the food supply. Their diet was based on hunting, gathering, and some agriculture (mostly corn, beans, and squash, using floodplain or ditch irrigation). Tobacco patches and grasslands were burned to encourage growth.
Women gathered wild plants, including goldenrod and grass seeds, roots, pine nuts, yucca dates, cactus fruit, agave, nuts, juniper berries, mesquite, and screwbean. Grasshoppers, caterpillars, ant larvae, and insect grubs were also eaten. Seeds were parched, ground, and eaten as mush or as bread. Men hunted small game, the major source of protein, with the assistance of spirits and/or shamans. Rabbits were especially important. They were hunted individually or driven communally into 100-yard-long nets. Big game included deer, antelope, and mountain sheep. Some groups fished occasionally.
The Southern Paiutes migrated seasonally, following the food supply. Most summer houses were brush shelters, such as the ones depicted in this photograph of a Paiute village encampment.
Key Technology Fire-hardened sticks were used to dig roots. Bows were made of cedar, locust, or mountain sheep horn. Basketry was a major craft. Coiled and twined baskets were used for winnowing and parching trays, hats, cradles, burden baskets, and containers. Twined seed beaters were an important gathering implement. Men made nets for hunting and carrying burdens. They also tanned hides, scraping with a sharp bone and rubbing with brain and bone marrow. Some pottery also existed.
Trade Southern Paiutes mainly traded with each other, although there was some intergroup trade as well as intermarriage and economic and ceremonial cooperation with Western Shoshone groups. The Chemehuevi and Las Vegas people were in direct contact with Indians of southern California, partly in connection with the trade in Pacific Coast haliotis shells. Both, but especially the Chemehuevi, took on the Mojave culture in the nineteenth century. They also hunted in Yavapai and Hualapai territory and intermarried with the former.
Other groups traded buckskins, hides, robes, blankets, and other items to Utes, Navajos, and Hopis for items such as blankets, maize, and beads. The Kaibabs traded buckskins and other items to other Paiute groups for agricultural products, horses, dogs, pipes, robes, beads, and other items.
Notable Arts Many Southern Paiutes, especially the Moapa and the Kaibab, made fine baskets. Songs and narratives were also aesthetic arts. Most songs were derived from dreams and sung without accompaniment. Men told tales in winter, including songs and some theater. Local rock art is at least several thousand years old. Art objects were made from a variety of materials, including stone, wood, and clay.
Transportation Women carried burdens in baskets with head tumplines; men used net and chest tumplines. Southern Paiutes traveled widely for subsistence, trade, and pleasure. Like the Mojave, the Chemehuevi used log rafts and reed balsas.
Dress Although dress varied with location and available materials, women tended to wear double aprons of skin or vegetable fiber and basket caps. Men wore skin breechclouts, if anything, and skin caps. In colder weather, people wore woven rabbit-fur robes, which also served as bedding, as well as twined-bark leggings.
People generally went barefoot or wore bark or yucca sandals. Hunters used snowshoes in winter. Red body paint was used against the sun and also as decoration for life-cycle occasions. Both sexes tattooed their faces. Pierced ears were decorated with stick, stone, and shell earrings.
War and Weapons The Southern Paiutes were generally on friendly terms with each other and with neighboring groups. In early historical times, Utes, Navajos, and non-native New Mexicans aggressively raided Southern Paiutes for slaves. The Chemehuevi-Las Vegas were more warlike. They exterminated the desert Mojave in the late eighteenth century, and the Chemehuevi moved into their territory. Weapons were mostly clubs.
Contemporary Information
Government/Reservations The following colonies and reservations have significant numbers of Southern Paiutes:
Las Vegas Indian Colony, Clark County, Nevada (1911): roughly 3,850 acres; 52 resident Indians (1992); 71 enrolled members (1992); seven-member tribal council.
Moapa River Reservation, Clark County, Nevada (1875): 71,955 acres; 190 resident Indians (1990); 273 enrolled members (1992); six-member business council.
Paiute of Utah Reservation, Iron, Millard, Sevier, and Washington Counties, Utah (1972; Cedar City, Indian Peaks, Kanosh, Koosharem, and Shivwits Bands): 32,458 acres; 323 resident Indians (1990); 609 enrolled members (1992); six-member tribal council.
Kaibab Reservation, Mohave County, Arizona (1913): 120,413 acres; 102 resident Indians (1990);212 enrolled members (1992); seven-member tribal council.
San Juan Paiute, Arizona and Utah: no reservation currently; 115 Indians live on traditional land (1992); 221 enrolled members (1992); eight-member tribal council.
Pahrump Band of Paiute Indians, Nevada: no reservation currently; 50 Indians live on traditional lands (1992); 70 enrolled members (1992); five-member tribal council.
Although these communities all have constitutions and by-laws, a more traditional decision-making process generally occurs in practice.
Economy Various economic activities on the different reservations and colonies include a cooperative farm, a gift shop, a minimart, a sand and gravel company, and a fireworks and smoke shop at Moapa. The unemployment rate there approaches 90 percent. Promised jobs at a nearby power plant have failed to materialize. Moapa was granted an additional 70,000 acres in the 1980s.
Las Vegas Colony boasts relatively low unemployment, thanks largely to employment in the city as well as a tribal smoke shop and minimart. They received an additional 3,700 acres northwest of the city in 1983, slated for commercial, industrial, recreational, and residential development.
There is a cattle cooperative and tourist center at Kaibab. The Utah Paiutes were granted 4,770 additional acres of land in 1984, plus a multimillion-dollar trust fund. Activities there include farming, mining leases, cattle leases, and cut-and-sew operations. The San Juan Paiutes have revived their traditional excellence in basket making.
Legal Status The following Paiute bands, locations, and peoples are federally recognized tribal entities: Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, Las Vegas Tribe of Paiute Indians, Moapa Band of Paiute Indians, Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, and San Juan Paiute Tribe. The Pahrump Band of Paiutes has applied for federal recognition.
Daily Life Although the past remains palpable, many traditional practices have disappeared. Some groups maintain the cry, combining it with funerals, as well as traditional storytelling, the girls’ puberty and first child rituals, and some traditional games. A few people still obtain part of their diet from traditional sources. The kinship system remains strong. Except at San Juan, few but the elderly still speak the languages, although there are tribal programs aimed at increasing native language proficiency. Major festive occasions are the Bear Dance, the Ute Sun Dance, and rodeos. Many Kaibabs have been converted to Mormonism. The Utah Paiute endure very high unemployment and many health-related problems, including high cancer rates likely caused by living downwind from the Nevada (nuclear) test site. Most communities have some form of local health care as well as special assistance programs for the elderly.
The San Juan Paiutes struggled for over 100 years with the Navajo and with white authorities over possession of parts of northern Arizona. For much of this period, they were largely forgotten or counted as Navajos, although the people themselves retained their identities. After the death in 1969 of their longtime chief tribal elder, Alfred Lehi, they began taking action to regain their official status. They received federal recognition in 1989 and continue to work for formal landholdings. This community remains relatively traditional.
