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45-787: The Little Truckee River, like the Truckee River and Upper Truckee River, was named after a Paiute chief known as Truckee , who in 1844 guided the Stephens–Townsend–Murphy Party from the Humboldt Sink in western Nevada to California via the Truckee River, Donner Lake , and Donner Pass . After Congress authorized the Truckee Storage Project in 1935, the United States Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) began construction of Boca Dam on

90-452: A day's work. Production per worker of 22 pounds of unshelled pinyon seeds—more than one-half that in shelled seeds—amounts to nearly 30,000 calories of nutrition. That is a high yield for the effort expended by hunter-gatherers. Moreover, the pinyon seeds are high in fat, often in short supply for hunter-gatherers. The pinyon jay ( Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus ) takes its name from the tree, and pinyon nuts form an important part of its diet. It

135-477: A figure in the eyes of the public by making claims of being a princess and using this attention to advocate for her people. Shamanism is popular among most Native American tribes, including the Northern Paiute people. A shaman is a medicine man called a puhagim by Northern Paiute people. The Northern Paiute believe in a force called puha that gives life to the physical world. It is the power that moves

180-481: A fire and cared for it until the fire grew bigger and bigger. The water from the flood dried, and a man "happened." This man was called Nűműzóho, who was a cannibal. The Cannibals (as he and his kind were called) killed all the Native people, except for a woman who was able to escape. This woman kept herself alive by traveling from place to place in the region, meeting and staying with different characters. She then found

225-596: A fire. The season for story-telling in the American West was during the winter months. The elderly members of the tribe would animatedly and humorously tell the tale from their memory as told to them by previous elders and family members. They were told “as a way to pass on tribal visions of the animal people and the human people, their origins and values, their spiritual and natural environment, and their culture and daily lives.” The stories were often poems that were performed musically, called "song-poems." Members of

270-595: A major source of food. The pinyon has likely been a source of food since the arrival of Homo sapiens in the Great Basin and American Southwest ( Oasisamerica ). In the Great Basin, archaeological evidence indicates that the range of the pinyon pine expanded northward after the Ice Age , reaching its northernmost (and present) limit in southern Idaho about 4000 BCE. Early Native Americans undoubtedly collected

315-455: A man living in the mountains whom she married. They bore four children: two Paiute (one brother, one sister) and two Pit Rivers (one brother, one sister). The two sets of children fought frequently because they were from different tribes. Their father (some think he was a Wolf) threw them in different waters. This caused them to go their separate ways while continuing to fight and quarrel whenever they came in contact with each other again. And thus

360-624: A staple food of Native Americans , and widely eaten as a snack and as an ingredient in New Mexican cuisine . The name comes from the Spanish pino piñonero , a name used for both the American varieties and the stone pine common in Spain, which also produces edible nuts typical of Mediterranean cuisine . Harvesting techniques of the prehistoric American Indians are still used today to collect

405-494: Is now eastern California , western Nevada , and southeast Oregon . The Northern Paiute pre-contact lifestyle was well adapted to the harsh desert environment in which they lived. Each tribe or band occupied a specific territory, generally centered on a lake or wetland that supplied fish and waterfowl. Communal hunt drives, which often involved neighboring bands, would take rabbits and pronghorn from surrounding areas. Individuals and families appear to have moved freely among

450-512: Is reduced because of the unreliability of the harvest. Abundant crops of cones and seeds occur only every two to seven years, averaging a good crop every four years. Years of high production of seed tend to be the same over wide areas of the pinyon range. In 1878, naturalist John Muir described the Indian method of harvesting pinyon seeds in Nevada. In September and October, the harvesters knocked

495-474: Is very important for regeneration of pinyon woods, as it stores large numbers of the seeds in the ground for later use, and excess seeds not used are in an ideal position to grow into new trees. The Mexican jay is also important for the dispersal of some pinyon species, as, less often, is the Clark's nutcracker . Many other species of animal also eat pinyon nuts, without dispersing them. Ips confusus , known as

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540-725: The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, several individual colonies gained federal recognition as independent tribes . Humans have inhabited the area between the West and Northwest of the United States for over 11,000 years. One version of how the Northern Paiute people came to be is that a bird, the Sagehen (also known as the Centrocercus ), was the only bird that survived a massive flood. The Sagehen made

585-578: The Pyramid Lake War of 1860, Owens Valley Indian War 1861–1864, Snake War 1864–1868; and the Bannock War of 1878. These incidents generally began with a disagreement between settlers and the Paiute (singly or in a group) regarding property, retaliation by one group against the other, and finally counter-retaliation by the opposite party, frequently culminating in the armed involvement of

630-454: The Reno area, Washoe people. Later, the government created larger reservations at Pyramid Lake and Duck Valley , Nevada . By that time the pattern of small de facto reservations near cities or farm districts, often with mixed Northern Paiute and Shoshone populations, had been established. Starting in the early 20th century, the federal government began granting land to these colonies. Under

675-632: The U.S. Army . Fatalities were much higher among the Paiute due to newly introduced Eurasian infectious diseases , such as smallpox , which were endemic among the Europeans. The Natives had no acquired immunity . Sarah Winnemucca 's book Life Among the Piutes (1883) gives a first-hand account of this period. The US government first established the Malheur Reservation for the Northern Paiute in eastern Oregon. It intended to concentrate

720-517: The 1770 population of the Northern Paiute within California was 500. He estimated their population in 1910 as 300. Others put the total Northern Paiute population in 1859 at about 6,000. Pinyon pine See text. The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in southwestern North America, especially in New Mexico , Colorado, Arizona, and Utah. The trees yield edible nuts , which are

765-436: The 20th century, gender roles began to shift. Men worked in seasonal jobs and the women mainly worked in laundry and medicine. The shift happened because the men that worked seasonal jobs would not have work at the end of a given season, while women had consistent work. This made women a major provider in the family. Another shift came in the shape of politics. While some women disrupted tribe meetings, Sarah Winnemucca became

810-588: The Cannibal who kills almost all of the Indians but not the woman; Coyote is "the one who fixed things," mentioned briefly in many of the origin stories; a man and a woman who meet and bear four children; the four children who are paired off into different tribes and quarrel with the other pair. The creativity in which the stories were told is part of the reason for such an array of versions. These epic stories were first told long ago to large groups gathered around

855-748: The Interior (then James G. Watt ) under the Endangered Species Act took precedence over his authority to contract for delivery of water for irrigation and municipal (M&I) uses. The judgement required all storage in Stampede Reservoir to be used to provide water for the threatened and endangered Pyramid Lake cui-ui ( Chasmistes cujus ) and Lahontan cutthroat trout ( Oncorhynchus clarkii henshawii ) fishes. The Little Truckee River watershed drains 172 square miles (450 km). The Little Truckee River initially flows north on

900-803: The Little Truckee River. The dam is operated by the Washoe County Water Conservation District and was completed in 1939. After Congressional authorization of the Washoe Project in 1958, the BOR completed the Stampede Dam in 1970. As a result of litigation in 1982 (Carson-Truckee Water Conservancy District v. Watt), a Federal court upheld a determination that the obligations of the Secretary of

945-708: The Nevada/California area in which they currently reside. They also may have overthrown and destroyed other Indian tribes in order to inhabit their current lands. For example, the Paiute were almost "continually at war" with the Klamath south and west of them. "The Achomawi, south of the Klamath, also were enemies of the Northern Paiute, (so much so that) the earliest wars related in Achomawi oral tradition were (with) Northern Paiute". Sustained contact between

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990-443: The Northern Paiute and European Americans began in the early 1840s, although the first contact may have occurred as early as the 1820s. Although the Paiute had adopted the use of horses from other Great Plains tribes, their culture was otherwise then largely unaffected by European influences. As Euro-American settlement of the area progressed, competition for scarce resources increased. Several violent confrontations took place, including

1035-440: The Northern Paiute community. The Northern Paiute believe that doctors/shaman retrieve the souls of those who have committed wrongdoings and re-establish them in to Native American society. They are the intermediaries between the evil acts of the sick and the goodness of the healthy tribe. For this reason, Northern Paiute do not perceive white doctors as capable of fully healing those in need because although they may be able to cure

1080-546: The Northern Paiute there, but its strategy did not work. Because of the distance of the reservation from the traditional areas of most of the bands, and because of its poor environmental conditions, many Northern Paiute refused to go there. Those that did, soon left. They clung to their traditional lifestyle as long as possible. When environmental degradation of their lands made that impossible, they sought jobs on white farms, ranches or in cities. They established small Indian colonies , where they were joined by many Shoshone and, in

1125-402: The Paiute were created and their homes established in Nevada, California, and Oregon. Another version of the creation story tells of a man and a woman who heard a voice from within a bottle. They dumped the contents of the bottle out, and four beings dropped out: two boys and two girls. The 4 people were divided by good and evil. The two good people (Paiute) were to be protected and cared for by

1170-404: The bands. Northern Paiute originally lived a seminomadic lifestyle, moving from place to place following animal migration patterns and seasonal foods. They lived in small, independent groups that consisted of a handful or so of different family units. Upon arrival of foreigners into western Nevada, the Northern Paiute became sedentary in order to protect themselves and handle negotiations with

1215-442: The brushwood fire. Both the above accounts described a method of extracting the seeds from the green cones. Another method is to leave the cones on the trees until they are dry and brown, then beat the cones with a stick, knocking the cones loose or the seeds loose from the cones which then fall to the ground where they can be collected. The nomadic hunter-gathering people of the Great Basin usually consumed their pinyon seeds during

1260-400: The cones off the pinyon trees with poles, stacked the cones into a pile, put brushwood on top, lit it, and lightly scorched the pinyon cones with fire. The scorching burned off the sticky resin coating the cones and loosened the seeds. The cones were then dried in the sun until the seeds could be easily extracted. Muir said the Indians closely watched the pinyon trees year-round and could predict

1305-399: The edible seeds, but, at least in some areas, evidence of large quantities of pinyon nut harvesting does not appear until about 600 CE. Increased use of pinyon nuts was possibly related to a population increase of humans and a decline in the number of game animals, thereby forcing the Great Basin inhabitants to seek additional sources of food. The suitability of pinyon seeds as a staple food

1350-422: The elements, plants, and animals that are a part of that physical realm. Humans are seen to be very much a part of that world, not superior or inferior, simply another component. The Northern Paiute people believe that "matter and places are pregnant in form, meaning, and relations to natural and human phenomena." This belief gave credibility and placed necessity in shamans, as it does today. In order to draw upon

1395-550: The high mountains of the southwestern United States, and the lacebark pines of Asia are closely related to the pinyon pines. The seeds of the pinyon pine, known as " pine nuts " or "piñóns", are an important food for American Indians living in the mountains of the North American Southwest . All species of pine produce edible seeds, but in North America only pinyon produces seeds large enough to be

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1440-610: The mountains in the fall as a critical winter food source. Women also gathered grass seeds and roots as important parts of their diet. The name of each band was derived from a characteristic food source. For example, the people at Pyramid Lake were known as the Cui Ui Ticutta (meaning " Cui-ui eaters", or trout eaters). The people of the Lovelock area were known as the Koop Ticutta , meaning "ground-squirrel eaters" and

1485-453: The new settlers. Because of their change from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle , women were relied upon more heavily for both their full-time employment and at-home work. In some modern Northern Paiute tribes, men work in "seasonal jobs on the ranches, in the mines, and as caretakers in the nearby motels" and women work "in the laundry, the bakery, in homes and motels as domestics, and in the country hospital". They gathered Pinyon nuts in

1530-486: The outer shell, the inner shell will decay and be lost, leaving the person dead in reality. A shaman, however, would take an ill person (physically or spiritually ill) and use the power from the universe to heal him. In many cases, a shaman will utilize various mediums, such as a rattle, smoke, and songs, to incite the power of the universe. Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber thought that

1575-769: The people of the Carson Sink were known as the Toi Ticutta meaning " tule eaters". The Kucadikadi of Mono County, California are the " brine fly eaters". Relations among the Northern Paiute and their Shoshone neighbors were generally peaceful. There is no sharp distinction between the Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone or Sosone . Relations with the Waasseoo or Washoe people, who were culturally and linguistically very different, were not so peaceful. These differences in lifestyle and language could be because Northern Paiute may have moved from southern regions to

1620-476: The pinyon seeds for personal use or for commercialization. The pinyon nut or seed is high in fats and calories. In the western United States, pinyon pines are often found in pinyon–juniper woodlands . Pinyon wood, especially when burned, has a distinctive fragrance, making it a common wood to burn in chimeneas . Pinyon pine trees are also known to influence the soil in which they grow by increasing concentrations of both macronutrients and micronutrients. Some of

1665-556: The powers of nature and the universe, shamans would frequently visit sacred sites. These sites can be found throughout the Great Basin and the American West. They include "mountains, caves, waterways, and unique geological formations." One such site is called the Parowan Gap and is sacred to the Paiute (see image). These sacred sites are where shamans performed many of their duties, including curing, rainmaking , warfare, fighting, or sorcery ." Shamans were and are an integral part of

1710-411: The river. The dominant species in the river are non-native brown trout ( Salmo trutta ) and rainbow trout ( Oncorhynchus mykiss ) and in the reservoirs, Kokanee salmon ( Oncorhynchus nerka ) and Mackinaw trout ( Salvelinus namaycush ). Northern Paiute The Northern Paiute people are a Numic people that has traditionally lived in the Great Basin region of the United States in what

1755-530: The scarcity or abundance of the crop months before harvest time. In 1891, B. H. Dutcher observed the harvesting of pinyon seeds by the Panamint Indians ( Timbisha people) in the Panamint Range overlooking Death Valley , California. The harvesting method was similar to that observed by Muir in Nevada, except that the pinyon seeds were extracted immediately after the cones had been scorched in

1800-703: The species are known to hybridize, the most notable ones being P. quadrifolia with P. monophylla , and P. edulis with P. monophylla . The two-needle piñon ( Pinus edulis ) is the official state tree of New Mexico . The evolutionary origins of the piñons appear to coincide with the Laramide Orogeny . Genetic differentiation in the pinyon pine has been observed associated to insect herbivory and environmental stress. There are eight species of true pinyon ( Pinus subsection Cembroides ): These additional Mexican species are also related, and mostly called pinyons: The three bristlecone pine species of

1845-467: The tribe chanted and acted out the stories to the beat of a drum with people dancing. The Northern Paiute origin story, among many other important and formative legends, was passed on orally from tribal elders to younger tribe members and from grandmothers and grandfathers to grandchildren. Many of their stories and much of their history is passed on orally even today. Gender roles among the Northern Paiute did not stand out in society. Men and women divided

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1890-711: The western flank of Mount Lola within the Tahoe National Forest of Nevada County, California in the eastern Sierra Nevada . After entering Sierra County from Nevada County, the river picks up flows from Webber Lake and turns east to Stampede Reservoir , then turns south to flow back into Nevada County and then Boca Reservoir , and after that terminates at its confluence with the Truckee River. Historically, Lahontan cutthroat trout spawned in this Truckee River tributary, but due to passage barriers and non-native introductions which prey on and/or hybridize with native trout, Lahontan cutthroat are no longer found in

1935-470: The winter following harvest; the agricultural Pueblo people of the Rio Grande valley of New Mexico could store them for two or three years in pits. Each pinyon cone produces 10 to 30 seeds and a productive stand of pinyon trees in a good year can produce 250 pounds (110 kg) on 1 acre (0.40 ha) of land. An average worker can collect about 22 pounds (10.0 kg) of unshelled pinyon seed in

1980-502: The woman while the two bad people were subject to the man. The two sets of pairs (good and bad) left the man and woman. Each pair created fire: the two good people made a fire with minimal smoke, the two bad people made a fire with thick smoke. This made them enemies, even before foreigners plotted them against each other later on. War and strife have existed ever since. While several other variations of these stories are told, they all share some similar events and characters. Namely Nűműzóho

2025-424: The work between each other the most traditional way: women made household tools, gathered fruit and seeds, cooked, cleaned, cared for the children, and made the clothing, while men hunted and protected their families. Men also taught their sons how to hunt and fish as a means to pass on a survival skill. Both sexes took part in storytelling, artwork and medicine, and traditional medicine. As the Northern Paiute entered

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