Southern Paiute
The Southern Paiute were found in a large arc that extended west from southern Utah, across southern Nevada and northern Arizona, all the way to California. This environment includes not only the Great Basin but also parts of the Colorado Plateau and Mojave Desert. The Paiute have been further divided into fifteen sub-groups (Kelly, 1934).
They lived as foragers utilizing pinyon nuts, mesquite, and many varieties of berries and seeds. They hunted many small mammals, such as rabbits and squirrels, and larger animals, such as deer. Some of the Southern Paiute sub-groups also practiced some agriculture, raising maize, squash and beans and in some locations making use of irrigation.
They lived in patterns similar to those of the Northern Paiute. The main social grouping is the nuclear family and families would come together and separate based on seasonal mobility patterns. The largest grouping of the year was during the pinyon nut harvest season (Kelly and Fowler, 1986).
The Paiute were also involved in the Ghost Dance movement. For the Paiute this movement was about the charisma and personality of its leader (Jack Wilson) and not a source of ferment. The Paiute were not concentrated on reservations, were not dependent on government rations, and still maintained their subsistence strategy of foraging for seeds and pinyon nuts, and hunting small game (Logan, 1980).
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References Cited
Kelly, Isabel T.
1934 Southern Paiute Bands. American Anthropologist, New Series 36(4):548-560
Kelly, Isabel T., and Catherine S. Fowler
1986 Southern Paiute, Handbook of North American Indians. 11: 368-397.
Logan, Brad
1980 The Ghost Dance among the Paiute: An Ethnohistorical View of the Documentary Evidence 1889-1893. Ethnohistory 27(3):267-288.
