Tribe: The Paiute, comprised of several dozen smaller tribes. The larger tribes include the Northern Paiute of California, Nevada, Oregon and Idaho, the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada, and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, Southeastern California, Arizona and Utah. The Bannock, Mono, Coso, Timbisha, the Kawaiisu, the Walpapi, the Wadatika, and literally more than a dozen other smaller tribes are also considered part of the Paiute People.
Meaning of Name: Possibly "Water Ute" since they usually lived by lakes or rivers. The dozens of Northern Paiute tribes usually seem to call themselves by what they eat, as in "The Brine Fly Eaters." The Owens Valley Paiute call themselves the "Numa," which means "People," or "Nun'wa paya hup Cata'a Otuu'mu," which means "Coyote's children living in the water ditch." The Southern Paiutes usually seem to call themselves by their location, for example, "The Red-Stream People."
Location: The Paiute may have branched off from their mother-tribe, the Utes, in roughly 1000 AD. The various tribes of the Paiute have lived in California, Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Arizona, Utah since between 1100-1200 AD.
Original Language: Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language.
Tribal Affiliations: The Northern Paiute got along well with their Shoshone neighbors. The Southern Paiute traded with the Chumash in Southern California and got along well with the Mormons.
Traditional Enemies: The Northern Paiute did not get along with the Washoe tribe or white settlers. The Southern Paiute were frequent victims of slave-gathering raids by the Navajo and the Ute.
Traditional Style of Housing: Wickiups, those little lean-tos or pup-tents made of branches and leaves, which were made by the women.
Traditional Attire: The men wore fringed but otherwise plain buckskin tunics and leggings or pants, long headdresses for ceremonial occasions but otherwise, headbands like the Apache. Some of their clothing was made of pounded sagebrush bark. The women wore long buckskin or doeskin skirts and tunics, had bangs, and wore basket-woven caps. They adopted European-style cotton clothing as soon as they were able, especially since they weren't good at hunting pronghorn, which were necessary for making their native clothes from scratch.
Traditional Foods: Depending on where they lived: trout, chub, chuckwalla and other lizards, rats, hare, rabbits, grasshoppers, ants, locusts, waterfowl, pronghorn antelope, pinyon nuts, wild grass-seeds, roots (hunipui, wada, wild onion, agave, wild carrots, yucca), ground squirrels, tule, brine flies, deer, elderberries, chokecherries, fly larvae, wild spinach, desert parsley, gooseberries, thimbleberries, wild grapes, buffalo berries, raspberries, strawberries, currants, blackberries, huckleberries, juneberries, lingon-berries, mulberries, salmonberries, prickly pear, crabapples, persimmons, mushrooms, cui-ui fish, crayfish, salmon, groundhogs, sagebrush tea (for colds), purslane, pepperweed as seasoning, blue mustard, and non-poisonous mushrooms. Some Paiute had limited short-term agriculture and grew gourds, squash, melons, corn, sunflowers and winter wheat. Not particularly good hunters. The problem was with the bow design.
Position of Women: Families bonds were in constant flux, but provided what little social fabric that there was. Both sororal (sister) polygamy and polyandry were common. The women brought in most of the food, however, including the rabbits which they herded into long nets and trapped.
Paiute Courtship: If a young Paiute man took a fancy to a young Paiute woman, he was not allowed to talk to her directly, but to show off his horsemanship skills and in that way get her attention. (The Paiutes were, by and large, a poor tribe, so he only had one horse.) If she seemed interested, he then put on his nicest clothes, entered her family's wickiup, and sat silently at her feet. If she liked him, she would tell her grandmother, who would tell her father, and the match was made. There wasn't much of a wedding ceremony and if they ended up not liking each other, they simply parted ways.
Interesting Tidbits: The Paiute are organized into bands: the Snake Indians, the Wada Root and Grass-Seed Eaters, the Crayfish Eaters, the Salmon Caught in Trap Eaters, the Groundhog Eaters, Those Who Live in the Red Mesas, the Sagebrush Eaters, Those Who Live in Crescent Valley, the Wild Onion Eaters, the Hare Eaters, the Pine Nut Eaters, Those Who Live Amidst the Mountains, the Onion Eaters, the Cui-ui Fish Eaters, the Ground Squirrel Eaters, the Tule Eaters, the Cutthroat Trout Eaters, the Chubb Carp Eaters, the Salt Eaters, the Tuber Root Eaters, Those Who Live in the Cold, the Fly Larva Eaters, and the Yerington Paiute. So in Paiute Society, you really are what you eat....
Traditional Religion: Native American Church (which uses peyote, so it's kind of interesting that the Paiute should use peyote, which is pronounced the same), tribal religion, and Christianity
Slavery and the Paiute: The Paiute were a peaceful, unassuming, impoverished and nomadic tribe without much in the way of possessions, unlike other tribes that might have laid claim to hunting grounds, or had won many trophies while counting coup. Therefore, when another tribe wanted something from them, they usually took the Paiute women and children as slaves, and then traded them for something that they needed from another tribe.
Current Population: There are more than 6,000 registered Paiute.
Current Sources of Tribal Revenue: The Paiute are still not doing particularly well, economically-speaking, and most live on reservations. They are, however, known for being peaceful, hardworking laborers.
Famous Paiute: Wovoka, founder of the Ghost Dance.
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