more diffusely applied in Wyoming. One old Nevada Shoshone woman referred to the Eastern Shoshone as Kwichundöka, while a native of Wind River referred to his people as Gwichundöka, slight phonetic variants of the common term meaning "Buffalo eaters." This name appears in Hoebel (1938, p. 413) as Kutsindika. Hoebel also reports that the Idaho Shoshone referred to the Wyoming people as Pohogani, "Sage Brush Home" and Kogohoii, "Gut Eaters" (ibid.). (Hoebel's terms are here anglicized.)

Whatever names may be applied to identify the Shoshone of Wyoming, none refer to any sort of political group maintaining a stable territory. As Shimkin says (1947a, p. 246):

The identification of the Wind River Shoshone and their territory is not a simple matter. It is complicated by several facts. These people had no developed national or tribal sense; affiliation was fluid. Nor did they distinguish themselves by a special name. They merely knew that others called them ... Sage Brushers, ... Sage Brush Homes, or ... Buffalo Eating People. Furthermore, they felt no clear-cut distinctions of private or tribal territories.

One may speak of an eastern population of Shoshone Indians, but it would be inaccurate to speak of one Eastern Shoshone band, despite the fact that leadership was better developed in Wyoming than in other parts of Shoshone territory.

It is doubtful whether there was any accurate estimate of the Eastern Shoshone population until the post-reservation period. Burton (1861, p. 575) cited the no doubt exaggerated figure of 12,000 for the population led by Washakie. Forney numbers the total Shoshone population at 4,500 in 1859 (1860a, p. 733), while Doty raised this to 8,650 in 1863 (1865, p. 320). The more reliable estimate of 1,600 Eastern Shoshone was given by Agent Mann in 1869 (1870, p. 715), after the establishment of the Wind River reservation. This number was later reduced to 1,250 in official reports (Patten, 1878, p. 646). Kroeber has estimated the Wind River Shoshone population at 2,500 (1939, p. 137). These figures are not representative of earlier periods, for the ravages of smallpox and other new diseases made heavy inroads on the pre-treaty population, and it is probable that the population at the time of the treaty did not greatly exceed 1,500.

EASTERN SHOSHONE HISTORY: 1800-1875

According to Shoshone tradition, the winter camps of the Eastern Shoshone were in the valley of the Wind River, and their hunting territory extended north to Yellowstone Park and Cody and east to the Big Horn Mountains and beyond South Pass. Little is said by informants of excursions west of the Continental Divide, although historical evidence suggests that this was actually once their principal hunting grounds. In partial support of this contention, Shimkin says (1947a, p. 247): "The historical evidence gives some weight to the assumption that in 1835-1840 the Shoshones were mostly west of the Wind River Mountains." He also notes that hostilities between the Shoshone and Crow resulted in the westward withdrawal of the former again in the 1850's (ibid.). In an earlier article Shimkin also stated (1938, p. 415):

This [smallpox epidemics in the first half of the 19th century], and probably the increased aggressiveness of other Plains tribes with the spread of firearms as well, led to a recession of the Shoshone and their retreat to the west in the middle of the nineteenth century. A final wave of expansion onto the Plains came with white aid, following the treaty at Fort Bridger, July 3, 1868.

While agreeing in part with these conclusions, we would not confine the Shoshone restriction to the territory west of the Continental Divide to such limited periods. The following data suggest, rather, that "the heart of this people's territory," as Shimkin describes the Wind River country, did not extend west of the Wind River Range from at least 1800 until the reservation period and that the Shoshone, while frequently entering the Missouri River drainage, did so only for brief periods and usually in considerable fear of attack.

In Washington Irving's account of the Astoria party, one of our earliest reliable sources on the Wyoming Shoshone, the author tells how the Shoshone were pushed out of the Missouri River buffalo country after the North West and Hudson's Bay Companies put firearms in the hands of the Blackfoot (Irving, 1890, p. 197):

Thus by degrees the Snakes have become a scattered, broken-spirited, impoverished people, keeping about lonely rivers and mountain streams, and subsisting chiefly upon fish. Such of them as still possess horses and occasionally figure as hunters are called Shoshonies.

The westward-bound Astoria party traveled up the Wind River Valley in the middle of September, 1811, without sighting any Indians (ibid., pp. 199-200). This was exactly the time of year when, according to contemporary informants, the Shoshone buffalo party should have been gathering there. However, on the western side of the Wind River Range, they found "a party of Snakes who had come across the mountains on their autumnal hunting excursion to provide buffalo meat for the winter" (p. 202). In September of the following year, the eastward-bound party under Stuart encountered a party of "Upsarokas, or Crows" on the Bear River, who said that they intended to trade with the Shoshone (p. 289). This Crow party later ran off the trappers' horses. Throughout their trip to the Green River country, the trapping party was in continual fear of the Blackfoot (p. 298). Upon arriving on the Green River on October 17, 1812, they met a party of about 130 "Snakes" living in some 40 "wigwams" made of pine branches (p. 306). The ostensibly peaceful Crow had run off all but one of the horses of this camp and had stolen some women also. The Astoria chronicle, then, documents a situation that appears consistently in later sources: the Shoshone were usually encountered west of the Continental Divide and were continually on the defensive against powerful tribes to the east and north that seemingly entered their hunting grounds at will.

The activities of the early trappers in northern Utah and western Wyoming brought them into contact with a variety of Indian populations, not all of which are easily identifiable. This region is shown by the reports of the fur seekers to be characterized by a great fluidity of internal movement of Shoshone—and Bannock-speaking groups and by frequent entry by other tribes for purposes of war, trapping, and trade. The journal of J. P. Beckwourth gives a vivid, although not wholly reliable, account of the ebb and flow of population in the area under consideration. While camped near the east shore of the Great Salt Lake late in the year 1823, Beckwourth lost 80 horses to the "Punnaks [Bannocks], a tribe inhabiting the headwaters of the Columbia River" (Beckwourth, 1931, p. 60). His party pursued the Bannock to their village, some five days distant, and, after regaining part of the stolen herd, returned to camp to find some "Snake" (p. 61) (Shoshonean-speaking) Indians camped near by. He states that this group numbered 600 lodges and 2,500 warriors. The Indians were friendly and the locale was said to have been their winter camp (ibid.). Three years later, Beckwourth and his party were camped near the same site (today, Farmington, Utah) and encountered 16 Flathead Indians. Shortly thereafter the trappers were attacked by 500 mounted Blackfoot Indians, who were driven off (ibid., p. 66). Two days later, the fur party was joined by 4,000 Shoshone, who aided them in defeating another Blackfoot attack (pp. 70-71). (Beckwourth's population estimates are probably quite exaggerated.)

While Beckwourth's journals are poorly dated, it was no doubt during the late 1820's that his party was attacked near Salt River in western Wyoming by a body of