Description
Although no one knows how long the Goshutes had occupied the area where they lived when first contacted by Europeans, a date of 1,000 years ago is most probable as the time when Shoshonean speakers entered the Great Basin from the Death Valley region of California. After the Mormons, more emigrants, settlers, and government agents came to the Goshutes’ land. The Pony Express, the Overland Stage, and the transcontinental telegraph all ran through Goshute country bringing many white people into the land and contributing to the Indians’ problems of survival. The Goshute have both benefited and suffered from their desert isolation. The harsh desert conditions provided an effective barrier against white encroachment until the middle of the nineteenth century.
Language
Gosiute is a dialect of the endangered Shoshoni language historically spoken by the Goshute people of the American Great Basin in modern Nevada and Utah.
Culture
Like the other related Shoshonean groups and Paiute peoples who lived in the Great Basin, the Goshutes had an effective understanding of growing cycles, variations in climate, and animal distribution patterns. Domestic livestock represented an important source of competition to the Goshutes. They had never raised horses because the animals would eat the grass which they relied upon for seeds and fiber. Water, always in short supply, was denied to the Goshutes by farmers, ranchers, and Overland Stage stations. The Goshutes responded to this threat in the only way they knew how, by attacking the stations and farms and killing the inhabitants and livestock. The Goshutes hunted and gathered in family groups and often cooperated with other family groups that usually made up a village. Most Goshutes gathered with other families only two or three times a year, typically for pine nut harvests, communal hunts for no more than two to six weeks, and winter lodging which was for a longer period.