Who Are the Paiute?
The Paiute are Numic-speaking peoples of the Great Basin region, divided into three distinct groups: **Northern Paiute** (Nevada, Oregon, California), **Southern Paiute** (Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California), and **Owens Valley Paiute** (California). Together numbering approximately 15,000-20,000 enrolled members across numerous reservations and colonies, the Paiute developed extraordinary adaptations to some of North America's harshest desert environments. They mastered the seemingly barren Great Basin, harvesting pine nuts, hunting rabbits in communal drives, irrigating crops in desert valleys, and creating the **Ghost Dance** religious movement that swept Native America in the late 19th century.
Desert Adaptation and Pine Nut Culture
The Great Basin—between the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains—receives minimal rainfall, supporting only sagebrush, juniper, and piñon pine. The Paiute mastered this challenging environment through detailed ecological knowledge and seasonal movement. **Pine nuts** (from piñon pines) served as the dietary staple, harvested in autumn and stored for winter. Families owned specific pine groves, returning annually for the harvest. Women created remarkable **burden baskets** for collecting and **winnowing trays** for processing seeds. **Rabbit drives**, involving entire communities driving rabbits into nets, provided protein and fur for blankets. The Owens Valley Paiute developed unique **irrigation systems** to grow crops in the desert, one of the few Great Basin peoples practicing agriculture. This detailed adaptation created sustainable life in landscapes Euro-Americans deemed "wasteland."
The Ghost Dance Movement
The **Ghost Dance** (Nanissáanah, "circle dance"), one of the most significant Native American religious movements, originated with the Northern Paiute prophet **Wovoka** (Jack Wilson) in 1889 near Walker Lake, Nevada. During an eclipse, Wovoka received a vision: if Native peoples lived righteously, performed the Ghost Dance, and rejected violence, the white people would disappear, the buffalo would return, and ancestors would be resurrected. The message spread rapidly across the West to desperate peoples confined on reservations. Different tribes adapted the dance to their needs: the Lakota believed special Ghost Dance shirts would protect them from bullets. This terrified US authorities, leading to the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre when soldiers killed 250-300 Lakota Ghost Dancers. While Wounded Knee ended the movement's spread, Ghost Dance ceremonies continued among some Paiute into the 20th century, representing hope amid devastating cultural loss.
Water Rights and Environmental Justice
Paiute history demonstrates devastating environmental injustice. The **Owens Valley Paiute** lost their homeland when Los Angeles diverted the Owens River in 1913, destroying their irrigated agriculture and turning Owens Lake into toxic dust. The **Pyramid Lake Paiute** watched their lake—home to the endangered cui-ui fish and Lahontan cutthroat trout, central to their culture—shrink by 80 feet as upstream diversions fed Reno's growth. Both communities fought decades-long legal battles: the Pyramid Lake tribe won water rights restoration in the 1980s-90s, and ongoing restoration efforts are gradually raising lake levels. The **Walker River Paiute** similarly struggle with water diverted from Walker Lake. These cases make Paiute communities leaders in environmental justice, their water rights battles setting precedents for indigenous environmental law while demonstrating how settler colonialism operates through resource extraction.
Contemporary Paiute Communities
Today, Paiute peoples live on numerous small reservations and "colonies" (urban reserves established in the early 20th century) across five states. The **Pyramid Lake Paiute** operate a fishery restoring the Lahontan cutthroat trout. The **Las Vegas Paiute** have developed significant gaming and business enterprises. The **Moapa Band** operates a solar power facility on their Nevada reservation—traditional stewardship adapted to new economies. Smaller colonies and reservations struggle with limited resources and recognition. Language revitalization addresses critical decline: Northern and Southern Paiute languages are endangered with few fluent speakers remaining, though immersion programs and documentation efforts continue. Cultural practices including pine nut festivals, traditional crafts (particularly Paiute basketry, among the finest in North America), and modified ceremonies persist. The Paiute experience illustrates both devastating colonial impacts and remarkable resilience among peoples whose homeland was deemed valueless until others wanted its water.
References
- Fowler, C. S. (1992). In the Shadow of Fox Peak: An Ethnography of the Cattail-Eater Northern Paiute People of Stillwater Marsh. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
- Mooney, J. (1896). The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890. Bureau of American Ethnology.
- Knack, M. C., & Stewart, O. C. (1984). As Long as the River Shall Run: An Ethnohistory of Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation. University of California Press.
- Hittman, M. (1990). Wovoka and the Ghost Dance. University of Nebraska Press.