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68-590: Prior to European settlement, the area was inhabited by the Kidütökadö, a band of the Northern Paiute . The town of Fort Bidwell is located at the north end of Upper Alkali Lake. Lake City and Cedarville are located between and west of Upper and Middle Alkali Lakes. Eagleville is situated south of Lower Alkali Lake. California State Route 299 crosses the basin in-between the Upper and Middle lakes. As

136-477: 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

204-481: 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

272-596: 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

340-772: A language in the Numic language group. To close a 1951 Indian Claims Commission case, the Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act of 2004 established the United States payment of $ 117 million to the Great Basin tribe for the acquisition of 39,000 square miles (100,000 km ). European exploration of the Great Basin occurred during the 18th century Spanish colonization of the Americas . The first immigrant American to cross

408-455: 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

476-419: Is a smaller lake called Cambron Lake , fed by Highrock and Eagle Creeks. Lower Alkali Lake is the southernmost and smallest lake, draining 212 square miles (550 km). Streams feeding the lake include Emerson, Barber, and Bare Creeks, as well as occasional overflow from Middle Alkali Lake. Northern Paiute people The Northern Paiute people are a Numic people that has traditionally lived in

544-426: Is applied to hydrographic , biological , floristic , physiographic, topographic , and ethnographic geographic areas. The name was originally coined by John C. Frémont , who, based on information gleaned from Joseph R. Walker as well as his own travels, recognized the hydrographic nature of the landform as "having no connection to the ocean". The hydrographic definition is the most commonly used, and

612-481: Is fed by Bidwell, Second, Goose, Wilkinson, Mill, Releford and Soldier Creeks, as well as overflow from Middle Alkali Lake if the level of that lake is high enough. Middle Alkali Lake is the largest by both surface area and drainage area. The total catchment of Middle Alkali Lake is 376 square miles (970 km). Creeks flowing into the lake include Sand, Fortymile, Cedar, Deep, Granger, Milk, Cottonwood, Owl and Raider Creeks. Between Middle and Lower Alkali Lakes there

680-551: Is nicknamed "The Loneliest Road in America", and Nevada State Route 375 is designated the "Extraterrestrial Highway". The Great Basin is traversed by several rail lines including the Union Pacific Railroad 's Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad) through Reno and Ogden , Feather River Route , Central Corridor and Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad . There has been a succession of indigenous peoples of

748-524: Is noted for both its arid climate and the basin and range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin in Death Valley to the highest point of the contiguous United States , less than 100 miles (160 km) away at the summit of Mount Whitney . The region spans several physiographic divisions, biomes , ecoregions , and deserts . The term "Great Basin"

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816-621: Is the only one with a definitive border. The other definitions yield not only different geographical boundaries of "Great Basin" regions but regional borders that vary from source to source. The Great Basin Desert is defined by plant and animal communities, and, according to the National Park Service , its boundaries approximate the hydrographic Great Basin but exclude the southern " panhandle ". The Great Basin Province

884-522: Is the result of extension and thinning of the lithosphere , which is composed of crust and upper mantle . Extensional environments like the Basin and Range are characterized by listric normal faulting , or faults that level out with depth. Opposing normal faults link at depth producing a horst and graben geometry, where horst refers to the upthrown fault block and graben to the down dropped fault block. Sediment build-up over thousands of years filled

952-599: The Cui-ui sucker fish (endangered 1967) and the Lahontan cutthroat trout (threatened 1970). Large invertebrates include tarantulas (genus Aphonopelma ) and Mormon crickets . Exotic species, including chukar , grey partridge , and Himalayan snowcock , have been successfully introduced to the Great Basin, although the latter has only thrived in the Ruby Mountains . Cheatgrass , an invasive species which

1020-607: The Great Basin region of the United States in what 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

1088-643: The Great Basin fence lizard , longnose leopard lizard and horned lizard are common, especially in lower elevations. Rattlesnakes and gopher snakes are also present. The Inyo Mountains salamander is endangered. Shorebirds such as phalaropes and curlews can be found in wet areas. American white pelicans are common at Pyramid Lake . Golden eagles are also very common in the Great Basin. Mourning dove , western meadowlark , black-billed magpie , and common raven are other common bird species. Two endangered species of fish are found in Pyramid Lake:

1156-725: The Humboldt Sink are a few of the "drains" in the Great Basin. The Salton Sink is another closed basin within the Great Basin. The Great Basin Divide separates the Great Basin from the watersheds draining to the Pacific Ocean. The southernmost portion of the Great Basin is the watershed area of the Laguna Salada . The Great Basin's longest and largest river is the Bear River of 350 mi (560 km), and

1224-662: 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

1292-480: The Pleistocene , the alluvial deposits that make up the lake beds are up to 5,000 feet (1,500 m) deep at Middle Alkali Lake and hold significant amounts of groundwater . The 228,460-acre (92,450 ha) Surprise Valley Groundwater Basin has an estimated volume of 4,000,000 acre⋅ft (4.9 km). The northernmost lake, Upper Alkali Lake has a drainage area of 318 square miles (820 km). The lake

1360-578: 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

1428-454: 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

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1496-632: 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

1564-466: The cold Great Basin and Oregon High Deserts in the north. The deserts can be distinguished by their plants: the Joshua tree and creosote bush occur in the hot deserts, while the cold deserts have neither. The cold deserts are generally higher than the hot and have more even spread of precipitation throughout the year. The climate and flora of the Great Basin are strongly dependent on elevation; as

1632-475: The last ice age . Sediment deposits indicate Lake Lahontan was up to 550 feet (170 m) deep in this area, which would have filled the entire valley. The surrounding area has been used for agriculture since the first settlers arrived in the 1840s. The valley was named "Surprise" because of the relatively abundant greenery, supported by streams flowing from the Warner Mountains, in stark contrast to

1700-693: 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. Great Basin The Great Basin ( Spanish : Gran Cuenca ) is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds , those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America . It spans nearly all of Nevada , much of Utah , and portions of California , Idaho , Oregon , Wyoming , and Baja California . It

1768-436: 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

1836-535: The Basin and Range Province contains the Great Basin, but extends into eastern Oregon , southern Idaho , and the Colorado River watershed and the northwest corner of Arizona ). The Basin and Range region is the product of geological forces stretching the Earth's crust, creating many north–south trending mountain ranges. These ranges are separated by flat valleys or basins. These hundreds of ranges make Nevada

1904-588: 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

1972-564: The Fremont built small villages and grew crops like corn and squash. Seven hundred years ago, the Shoshone inhabited the area after the Fremont. They were hunter-gathers and lived in temporary homes to be able to follow animal herds and collect plants. Now, Shoshone descendants live in nearby areas. Other tribes in the area included the Ute , Mono , and Northern Paiute . All of the tribes speak

2040-466: The Great Basin . Paleo-Indian habitation by the Great Basin tribes began as early as 10,000 B.C. . Archaeological evidence of habitation sites along the shore of Lake Lahontan date from the end of the ice age when its shoreline was approximately 500 feet (150 m) higher along the sides of the surrounding mountains. The Paleo-Indians were mainly hunters and hunted bison, the extinct mammoth, and extinct ground sloth. For housing, since they followed

2108-774: The Great Basin from the Sierra Nevada was Jedediah Strong Smith in 1827. Peter Skene Ogden of the British Hudson's Bay Company explored the Great Salt Lake and Humboldt River regions in the late 1820s, following the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada to the Gulf of California. Benjamin Bonneville explored the northeast portion during an 1832 expedition . The United States had acquired claims to

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2176-745: The Great Basin into three ecoregions roughly according to latitude: the Northern Basin and Range ecoregion , the Central Basin and Range ecoregion , and the Mojave Basin and Range ecoregion . Great Basin wildlife includes pronghorn , mule deer , mountain lion , and lagomorphs such as black-tailed jackrabbit and desert cottontail and the coyotes that prey on them. Packrats , kangaroo rats and other small rodents are also common, and are predominantly nocturnal. Elk and bighorn sheep are present but uncommon. Small lizards such as

2244-475: The Great Basin's central Lahontan subregion. The hydrographic Great Basin contains multiple deserts and ecoregions , each with its own distinctive set of flora and fauna. The ecological boundaries and divisions in the Great Basin are unclear. The Great Basin overlaps four different deserts: portions of the hot Mojave and Colorado (a region within the Sonoran Desert ) Deserts to the south, and

2312-708: 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

2380-443: 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

2448-440: 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

2516-546: 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

2584-455: 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

2652-492: The United States . The "section" is somewhat larger than the hydrographic definition. The Great Basin culture area , or indigenous peoples of the Great Basin , is a cultural classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas and a cultural region located between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. The culture area covers approximately 400,000 sq mi (1,000,000 km ), or just less than twice

2720-615: The animals they were hunting, they had no permanent villages. The next group to live in the area was the Great Basin Desert Archaic, from approximately 9,000 to 1,500 years ago. They hunted animals like mule deer and antelope and gathered onions, wild rye, and pinyon pine nuts. Then, from 1,500 to 700 years ago, the Fremont lived in the area. Unlike the Paleo-Indians, who moved around to follow bison herds,

2788-602: The area of the hydrographic Great Basin. The hydrographic Great Basin is a 209,162-square-mile (541,730 km ) area that once drained internally. All precipitation in the region evaporated, sank underground or flowed into lakes (mostly saline). As observed by Fremont, creeks, streams, or rivers find no outlet to either the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean . The region is bounded by the Wasatch Mountains to

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2856-404: 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

2924-529: The crow flies , the lakes are located about 40 miles (64 km) east of Alturas and 150 miles (240 km) northeast of Redding . The lakes lie at the bottom of a graben created by the Surprise Valley Fault, which has experienced nearly a mile (1.6 km) of vertical displacement, resulting in the steep eastern scarp of the Warner Mountains. They are a remnant of Glacial Lake Lahontan , which existed up until about 12,000 years ago during

2992-687: The down-faulted basins between ranges and created relatively flat lacustrine plains from Pleistocene lake beds of the Great Basin. For example, after forming about 32,000 years ago , Lake Bonneville overflowed about 14,500 years ago in the Bonneville Flood through Red Rock Pass and lowered to the "Provo Lake" level (the Great Salt Lake , Utah Lake , Sevier Lake , Rush Lake , and Little Salt Lake remain). Lake Lahontan , Lake Manly , and Lake Mojave were similar Pleistocene lakes. The Great Basin physiographic section of

3060-514: The east, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges to the west, and the Snake River Basin to the north. The south rim is less distinct. The Great Basin includes most of Nevada , half of Utah , substantial portions of Oregon and California , and small areas of Idaho , Wyoming , and Baja California, Mexico . The term "Great Basin" is slightly misleading; the region comprises many small basins. The Great Salt Lake , Pyramid Lake , and

3128-733: The eastern regions of the 1848 California Gold Rush , with its immigrants crossing the Great Basin on the California Trail along Nevada's Humboldt River to Carson Pass in the Sierras. The Oregon Territory was established in 1848 and the Utah Territory in 1850. In 1869 the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit in the Great Basin. Around 1902, the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad

3196-422: 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

3264-402: The elevation increases, the temperature decreases and precipitation increases. Because of this, forests can occur at higher elevations. Utah juniper / single-leaf pinyon (southern regions) and mountain mahogany (northern regions) form open pinyon-juniper woodland on the slopes of most ranges. Stands of limber pine and Great Basin bristlecone pine ( Pinus longaeva ) can be found in some of

3332-517: The higher ranges. In riparian areas with dependable water cottonwoods ( Populus fremontii ) and quaking aspen ( Populus tremuloides ) groves exist. Because the forest ecosystem is distinct from a typical desert, some authorities, such as the World Wildlife Fund , separate the mountains of the Great Basin desert into their own ecoregion: the Great Basin montane forests . Many rare and endemic species occur in this ecoregion, because

3400-598: The individual mountain ranges are isolated from each other. During the Last Glacial Period , the Great Basin was wetter. As it dried during the Holocene epoch, some species retreated to the higher isolated mountains and have high genetic diversity. Other authorities divide the Great Basin into different ecoregions, depending on their own criteria. Armen Takhtajan defined the "Great Basin floristic province". The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency divides

3468-554: The lakes receive runoff from a drainage basin of 878 square miles (2,270 km) and are considered part of California's North Lahontan watershed. Despite the nomenclature, the direction of water flow is not from north to south. Middle Alkali Lake is actually the highest at 4,478 ft (1,365 m) above sea level. Water will either flow south to Lower Alkali Lake at 4,472 ft (1,363 m), or north to Upper Alkali Lake at 4,449 ft (1,356 m). The lakes are seasonally flooded with alkaline water in most years, drying out in

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3536-470: The largest single watershed is the Humboldt River drainage of roughly 17,000 sq mi (44,000 km ). Most Great Basin precipitation is snow, and the precipitation that neither evaporates nor is extracted for human use will sink into groundwater aquifers , while evaporation of collected water occurs from geographic sinks . Lake Tahoe , North America's largest alpine lake , is part of

3604-536: The most mountainous state in the country. The Great Basin's two most populous metropolitan areas are the Reno-Sparks metropolitan area to the west and the Wasatch Front to the east (with the latter being significantly more populous than the former). The region between these two areas is sparsely populated, but includes the smaller cities of Elko , Ely , Wendover , West Wendover , and Winnemucca . To

3672-610: 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

3740-453: 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

3808-903: The north are; in California Susanville , in Oregon Burns and Hines , in Idaho Malad and in Wyoming Evanston . To the south are Cedar City , Tonopah , and Bishop and the very southern area of the basin has the communities of Pahrump , Palmdale , Victorville , and Palm Springs . Interstate Highways traversing the Great Basin are Interstate 80 (I-80) and I-15 , and I-70 and I-84 have their respective endpoints within its boundaries. Other major roadways are U.S. Route 6 (US 6), US 50 , US 93 , US 95 and US 395 . The section of US 50 between Delta, Utah , and Fallon, Nevada ,

3876-486: 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

3944-769: 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

4012-497: 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

4080-412: The summer. Annual precipitation in the basin ranges from 13 to 17 inches (330 to 430 mm). The average annual runoff is 160,000 acre-feet (200,000,000 m), which occurs mainly between March and June as snowmelt. This is enough to flood the lake beds 8 inches (200 mm) deep; however, most of the water is either appropriated for irrigation, or evaporates in the desert heat. Formed by erosion during

4148-434: The surrounding high desert country. With growing water use and drought conditions in the 21st century, falling groundwater levels in the basin are an increasing concern. Salt was extracted from briny wells on the east side of Middle Alkali Lake until 1943. The lakes form an endorheic (closed) drainage system in the western edge of the Great Basin . With a total combined surface area of 370 square miles (960 km),

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4216-488: The territory north of the 42nd parallel via the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty with Spain and 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain. The US gained claims to most of the rest of the Great Basin via the 1848 Mexican Cession . The first non-indigenous settlement was in 1847 in the Great Salt Lake Valley, leading to the first American religious settlement effort of the Mormon provisional State of Deseret in 1849 in present-day Utah and northern Nevada. Later settlements were connected with

4284-467: 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

4352-502: 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

4420-424: 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

4488-402: Was constructed in the lower basin and Mojave Desert for California-Nevada rail service to Las Vegas, Nevada. The climate varies throughout the Great Basin by elevation, latitude, and other factors. Higher elevations tend to be cooler and receive more precipitation. The western areas of the basin tend to be drier than the eastern areas because of the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada . Most of

4556-496: Was defined by botanist Armen Takhtajan to extend well beyond the boundaries of the hydrographically defined Great Basin: it includes the Snake River Plain , the Colorado Plateau , the Uinta Basin , and parts of Arizona north of the Mogollon Rim . The Great Basin physiographic section is a geographic division of the Basin and Range Province defined by Nevin Fenneman in 1931. The United States Geological Survey adapted Fenneman's scheme in their Physiographic division of

4624-422: Was unintentionally introduced, forms a critical portion of their diets. Feral horses ( mustangs ) and feral burros are highly reproductive, and ecosystem-controversial, alien species. Most of the Great Basin is open range and domestic cattle and sheep are widespread. The Great Basin includes valleys, basins, lakes and mountain ranges of the Basin and Range Province . The basin and range topography

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