SHOSHONI, shei-shr?int. I probably from Shishinowits, snake, the name given them by the Cheyenne). The tribe, calling themselves simply Numa, 'people,' from which the Shoshonean stock (q.v.) takes its name, formerly holding the mountain country of western Wyoming and the adjacent portions of Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and northeastern Nevada. In common with their neighbors, the Banak and Piute, they have fre quently been known under the collective term of Snake Indians, a name which seems to have its origin in a misapprehension of the tribal sign in the sign language, viz. a waving outward mo tion of the index finger. Although commonly in terpreted as 'snake,' this sign is said by some good authorities to have been originally intended to indicate a peculiar style of brush-woven lodge formerly used by the Shoshoni. They were di vided into several bands with very little cohesion among themselves. The eastern bands had horses
and sometimes hunted the buffalo, but usually were kept close to the mountains by their fear of the more warlike Plains tribes. The more western bands depended chiefly upon camas and other roots, seeds, nuts, rabbits, and other small game. None of them were agricultural. Their dwellings varied from the skin tipi in the east to the merest brush windbreak in the west. There was no head chief and very little show of authority of any kind. Physically they are short er and rather more plump than the people of the Plains tribes. At the beginning of the present cen tury they numbered about 2500. viz. Banak and Shoshoni of Fort Hall Agency, Idaho, 1400; Sboshoni and Sheepeater (a subtribe), Lemhi Agency, Idaho, 400; Western Shoshoni Agency, Nevada, 225. besides others unattached; Shoshoni Agency, Wyoming, S00.