Beatty Museum & Historical Society in Beatty, Nevada

Native American History in the Oasis Valley

Western Shoshone lived in several camps in the Oasis Valley. Their main focus was on permanent water and food sources. They hunted, gathered, and where possible, fished and farmed, to obtain a living. Considering the Oasis Valley is in a desert environment, this was not an easy task. Thus, the people developed a very close and intimate relationship with the land and its resources. As hunters and gatherers, they came to know the land exceedingly well and to view it and its resources as their primary sources of spiritual, as well as, physical strength.

During the 1870s there were six primarily winter camp sites in Oasis Valley, also know as the Ogwe'pi district in Shoshone. The camps were located at permanent springs in the valley. Population of each camp was three to ten people and usually included members of one to two extended families. By this period there had been considerable displacement of people due to introduced diseases and the population had decreased to less than 50 people. These winter village sites were homes to which people returned throughout the hunting and gathering year. They were sites of permanent residence from roughly November to May. From these people went each day, or for a few days, on plant gathering trips or to hunt large or small game animals. While away, they established temporary camps, usually near water sources. The total area utilized by the Oasis Valley population for subsistence purposes extended from the east slopes of the Grapevine Mountains in the west to the middle of Sarcobatus Flat in the north, and from the southern Belted Range in the east to the middle of the Amargosa Desert in the south.

For many, the web of kinship further connected families at greater distances. Particularly strong were ties between people in Oasis Valley and those in Death Valley, especially at winter villages at Furnace Creek, Stovepipe Wells, Mesquite Springs, and Grapevine Springs. Not only did the Oasis Valley people speak nearly the same dialect as the people of Death Valley, but they also often attended each other's fall festival gatherings and Annual Mourning ceremonies. For hunters and gatherers, such ties not only proved important in times of need for subsistence, but they also kept avenues of marriage open as well. For groups with small populations, this was an equally important factor.

Families were the basic economic units, with all decisions regarding day-to-day subsistence activities made within them. Food was obtained by family units and generally used by them as well. This included the products obtained by men through hunting and those taken by women and children through gathering. Farming, where practiced, was the work of both sexes. Families could be as small as a couple or as large as a unit three or more generations deep. In the latter case, one or more grandparents were part of a household containing a son or daughter plus spouse, their children and possibly a grandchild or two. Widowed persons might be part of the family as well, usually as temporary members, but occasionally permanently. Given that a pair of siblings from one family often married a pair from another family, this type of union resulted in another type of extended family. In this case, the sibling pair was the core of a single camp, with persons attached to them through kinship or friendship connections.

Marriages were only between non-relatives, and thus people knew their kin across several generations and many miles. One of the several functions of fall harvest festivals and Annual Mourning ceremonies was to attract visitors from other areas and give young people a chance to meet. Marriages took place or were arranged at these times. Young men usually went to live in the households of their wives for a year or two, as service to their wives' families. After that time, the couple might move to a camp of its own, or continue to stay attached to that of one of their parents. Given the important role played by grandparents in child rearing, these attachments were viewed as significant.

When white ranchers began settling in the Oasis Valley in the late nineteenth century, most married Shoshone women. This eased the transition of the Shoshone into the new ways. Although the coming of white horse traders, prospectors, miners, ranchers, and eventually tourists disrupted the traditional ways of life for the Native American, some remain to this day. They may have intermarried with the whites and adopted some of their technology, but they, like the land, have endured.

Food Gathering Cycle ♦ Plants Used