Bannock Indians - Roaming the Great Basin

NATIVE AMERICAN LEGENDS

The Bannock - Roaming the Great Basin

The Bannock Indians are a Shoshonean tribe who long lived in the Great Basin in what is now southeastern Oregon and Southern Idaho. They speak the Northern Paiute Language and are closely related to the Northern Paiute people, so much so that some anthropologists consider the Bannock to be simply the northern-most bands of the Northern Paiute.

Early on, the Bannock subsisted primarily on fish and small game. They fished with harpoons, hand nets, and weirs built from woven willows. They also provided for their survival by gathering and using a number of plant foods. Primarily, they lived in tipis and small conical lodges made of sagebrush, grass, and woven willow branches.

Bannock Indians

Later, they developed a horse culture and associated closely with the Northern Shoshone, were a widely roving tribe. Although Shoshonean in language, they were generally described in early reports to more closely resemble the Nez Perce.

The Fort Hall Reservation was set apart for them in 1869 and 600 Bannock, in addition to a large number of Shoshoni, consented to remain on it. However, most of them soon wandered away. By 1878, with the loss of their traditional hunting lands, dramatic reduction in the number of buffalo, and the failure of the government to provide assistance, the Bannock, led by Chief Buffalo Horn and joined by the Northern Paiute Indians began to raid white settlements in search of food. This soon led to what is known as the Bannock War when the U.S. Cavalry, under General Oliver Otis Howard, was sent in to crush the Bannocks. The cavalry won two battles against the Indians in southern Idaho before killing some some 140 Bannock men, women and children at Charles' Ford, Wyoming. Afterwards, some , the remaining Indians gave up and returned to the reservation.

When first encountered the Bannock were estimated to number some 8,000, but by 1869 had been reduced through famine, disease and war, to only about 500.

Today the many of the Bannock still live on the 544,000 acre Fort Hall Indian Reservation in southeastern Idaho, along with the Lemhi and Northern Shoshone Indians

Contact Information:

Shoshone-Bannock Tribe
PO Box 368

Fort Hall, Idaho 83203
800-806-9229

Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, © July, 2007

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