Shoshone-Goshute Indians and the Deep Creek Region, Utah

Shoshone-Goshute Indians and the Deep Creek Region, Utah

By Albert B. Reagan, Formerly Teacher in Charge of the Goshute Indians

The Deep Creek region lies in the neighborhood of seventy miles south of Wendover, Utah, on both sides of the Utah-Ne- vada state line. It comprises the Deep Creek range of moun- tains and the watershed to the westward drained by Spring and Deep creeks and their tributaries. The mountains are rich in minerals, comprising the Queen of Sheba and Gold Hill (Good- win) mining districts, the latter being one of the largest tung- sten producing districts of the country. The valleys are also among the most fertile in Utah with water sufficient for irriga- tion, while the mountain districts amply take Care of the coun- try's stock. Besides the mining center of Gold Hill (Goodwin), which isconnected by railroad with the Western Pacific, at Wendover, the region contains three thriving centers, Deep Creek (Ibapah), Eight Mile, and the Goshute Indian (Ranch) settlement on the Indian reservation of the same name. The first two are white settlements, and all are in the agricultural district. This region, like most of the west, had its Indian troubles in the old times. Later, there was the Queen of Sheba mining boom, the Johnson Canyon excitement, and the Gold Hill mines, which were of interest in the years ago and which are again looming to the front on account of the discovery of paying tungsten mines in the vicinity, by the Wilson brothers.

Antiquity —Picture Cave The cliff dwellers came this far north, leaving their writings on the rocks and on the walls of their homes, to attest their hav- ing been here. In a cave in yellow limestone in a branch canyon on the west side of the upper headwaters of Choke Cherry creek, a branch of Spring creek in Nevada, there are innumerable picto- graphs of a happier day for that vanished race. The mouth of the cave faces south, is forty feet long and ten feet high, but the roof pitches to the floor twenty feet inward. The draw- ings are on the back, upper wall. They are made in large, wide, heavy lines, blotches, and crude drawings in yellow, blue, and — red apparently of mineral paint, Besides these, the whole

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roof-face is run over in almost all directions by numerous black linesdrawn in a promiscuous manner and apparently without design. The surface on which the drawings are made is much weathered, and some of the pictographs can hardly be made out, or are entirely obliterated.

The Tradition About the Pictographs Jake Antelope, head of the Goshute Indians, gave the writer the following tradition of his tribe about these pictures: "The pictographs are in caves and carved on the canyon walls along Warm Creek, in the Deep Creek range and the hills of Pleasant Valley. They were made by short, heavy-set giants of the long ago. The 'thunder bird' preyed upon this people. Once my grandfather had a dream to cure the sick. What he saw in his dream was his helper in driving sickness away from the afflicted; it was his guiding spirit. At times when looking for this guiding spirit, he would go hunting in the Ibapah peaks of the Deep Creek range. Once while there, fasting and pray- ing, he came along below a ridge on which the 'thunder bird' had its nest. There he saw the bones of the little giants the great bird had discarded and thrown from its nest after it had eaten all the flesh from them. The bones were many in num- ber and awfully heavy." (Petrified. Possibly the bones of some prehistoric animal may be exposed in some of the ledges of these mountains and these are what the medicine man saw.) "These were the bones of the men who made the drawings in the caves and along the canyon walls."

The Shoshone-Goshute Indians When the white man came to this region, he found the Sho- shoni-Goship (Goshute or Ghost Ute) Indians in possession. At that time they dominated Western Utah and Eastern Nevada, south of the Great Salt Lake Desert, far into the south half of these two states. After the discovery of gold in California, the Overland Route was made through the center of their territory within thirteen miles of the present Goshute Indian agency. Following the middle of the last century, these Indians be- gan to commit depredations on the settlers and on the Overland route. The Overland station, just east of the pass, in the Deep Creek range, twenty eight miles east of the present In- dian agency, was captured and burned, and its in- mates were killed. This station was half way between Deep Creek (Ibapah P. O.) and Calleo, eastward on the present Lin- coln Highway. It is now known as "Burned Station," formerly as "Overland Pass." It is alleged that the Indians killed three soldiers and two stock tenders here, and that one soldier got away

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Overland station at Deep Creek (Ibapah), now in ruins

wounded. The bodies of the soldiers were afterwards taken to Camp Douglas to be buried; the civilians were buried near the ruins of the station, and their graves still mark the spot. When attacked, one white man retreated to a stall in the barn and killed several Indians with his knife before he was overcome. After the raid, the station was moved three miles eastward onto a ridge, so the view would be broader. The graves and a part of the rock wall still mark the old station site, to remind one of those early days. Deep Creek station, now Ibapah, fared better, as there were more whites near it; but Eight Mile (or Egan) station, eight miles farther west, on the present Lincoln High- way, while able to withstand the attacks, had many a grim day. At one time on the route from Deep Creek station to Egan, the stage was attacked. The stage driver and the only passenger were both killed, but the team, at a break-neck speed, rushed down the road and through the Eight-Mile station gates with their dead. At about the same time the stage coming from the west to Eigth Mile was attacked and the driver killed, but, as in the previous case, the frantic horses gained the station with the stage and their dead driver. The graves of these slaughtered men are just a little west of the old station house; and the old adobe fort, now the residence of George Etta, has the bullet marks in its walls to remind one of the Indian attacks in those grim old days. To stop the depredations, the war department rounded up the Indians and compelled them to make a treaty with the gov-

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eminent, agreeing to cease hostile action in any way. And they have lived up to their side of the agreement. As the deep Creek section of the Ghoshutes began to civil- ize, they were gathered in by the "Mormon" Church at Deep Creek, and for a number of years they were fathered by the Church there. They were moved up to the site of the present reserve, and the "Mormon" Church bought them a little tract of land there and also acquired a right to certain water for irriga- tion purposes. The Church held the title to this land for a while, then deeded it over to the Indians. Soon, then, white

The now adobe closed gate of the old Eight Mile (Egan) overland station through which the frantic horses rushed with the stage when their drivers had been killed by the Indians in the grim old days.

men began to encroach upon the Indians' water rights. This led to a lengthy litigation in which the Indians, through gen- erous help of the officers of the Church, won a third of all the water of the entire watershed and still hold it with their newly constituted reserve. To make the Indians more secure, the Hon. Woodrow Wilson, by executive order of March 23, 1914, set apart one and three-fourths townships of land surrounding their former holdings as a reservation for these Indians. The Deep Creek division of Goshutes now number about 130, and are the healthiest Indians the writer has met within seventeen years in the Indian Service.

The Bear Dance The Goshutes have two dances of the old type which are They are as follows: occasionally indulged in.

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An Indian House on the Deep Creek Indian Reservation The performers in this dance are arranged like the spokes of a wheel. The women face inward toward the hub, while the partner of each respective woman faces her as they hold each other's right hand or place the right hand on the partner's right shoulder. The writer has seen a similar dance where the dancers danced only in parallel form on one side of the central fire. The dance is simply a backward and forward movement along the spoke-line. The woman advances five steps and her partner retrogrades; then vice versa. A set lasts throughout the chanting of a single song. The men then take their seats and the squaws choose their partners for the next set. In doing this they simply go where the men are grouped and tap the — one of their choice with the hand: and sometimes they "get left" and have to dance a set alone. The hub is occupied by the central fire, around which the chanters and musicians squat. As an accompaniment to the singing, an inverted tub is used as a drum, across the edges of which are drawn notched hardwood sticks. The noise thus produced is a rumbling, terri- ble sound to a white man, but music to the Indian. The dance begins at evening and lasts throughout the night.

The Round Dance This dance is very similar to the Shoshone "Dragging Dance," and also resembles the Sioux Ghost dance of 1889. It differs, however, in this, that no drum is used, and in the fact that it is a choosing-partner dance. The women choose their partners by going to the circle and forcing themselves between

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their choice and the next dancer in the circle and locking arms with each. Sometimes the squaw is rejected and is ejected from the circle as she is jeered by the spectators. When all is ready, some time after darkness has closed over the land on the night chosen for the dance, the leaders walk out to the dancing place and, facing inward, join hands so as to form a small circle; all these first actors are men. Then, with- out moving from their places, they sing the opening song in a sort of undertone. Having sung it through once, they raise their voices to their full strength and repeat it, this time slowly circling around in the dance. The step is very simple. The dancers move from right to left, following the course of the sun, advancing the left foot and following it with the right, hardly lifting the feet from the ground. Various songs are sung, all adapted to the simple measure of the dance step. As the song rises and swells, the people come singly and in groups from the several houses and tepees and one after another join in the circle until any number, from fifty to one hundred, are in the dance. When the circle is small, each song is repeated through a number of times. If large, it is repeated only through one circuit, measured by the return of the leaders to the start- ing point. Each song is started in a smiliar manner, first in an undertone, while the singers stand still in their places, and then with the full voice-song the dancers begin to circle around. When once begun, the dance lasts throughout the remainder of the night. It leads toward the hypnotic, and is vigorously per- formed.

Games At the present time only one of the old time games is played. It is given below and is called the Ni-ay-way, or Tivo- Stick Game of the Goshute Indians. When playing this game, all squat, Indian style, on the ground, and the playing side pounds chunks or boards with long stick-like clubs to make the most noise possible. And when winning, they pound the more vigorously and sing with greater accent. In the game, two sticks, about three inches long and one- eighth of an inch in diameter, and some tally sticks are used. One of the game sticks has a thread or buckskin band around its center. When playing, the player holds one of the game sticks

in each hand. These he changes from hand to hand behind his

back, under a blanket or behind an apron (if the player be a of the guesser, his woman), or at any other place out of sight opponent, though he faces his opponent in the open throughout the whole time he is playing. The players are two in number

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and sit opposite and about six feet from each other, though each set may be joined by many helpers and each may repre- sent a whole tribe or clan. The player, having changed the game sticks to suit himself, brings his hands before him and swings them back and forth from left to right and the reverse as he changes the sticks in sight or out of sight (concealed) from hand to hand by slight-of-hand performance to discon- cert his opponent, as his colleagues sing a vigorous song in a monotonous minor key. A "good" player will change the sticks after the guess is made. As the player is thus acting, the gues- ser is preparing to make his guess. He makes false motions with his hands, points to this hand and thefi,;^hat hand, of his op- ponent, while he argues and jokes to see if he can decide from his actions where the valuable stick is, in which hand it is held. Having decided, he makes his guess (calls it) by slapping his hands together in a vigorous manner and then pointing his right hand toward the hand he has decided holds the mystic, winning stick. If he looses, his opponents begin the vigorous song of triumph and begin to hide the sticks again. If he wins, the sticks are turned over to him. Below are the rules for playing the game: 1. The unmarked stick is the winning stick. 2. the guesser guesses in which hand the unmarked If stick is, he gets the game sticks, but no tally. And the other side begins to guess. 3. The tallies are kept by an agreed number of tally sticks, each side at the beginning of the game having the same num- ber. 4. For every time a guesser misses, he losses a tally and a tally stick of his passes over to the winner and is placed with his pile of tally sticks. 5. When all the tally sticks have passed to the possession of either of the contestants, that side has won the game. Kayenta, Arizona