Shoshone-Paiutes enjoy remoteness of rez

By Wyatt Buchanan
OWYHEE, Nev. – This is the middle of nowhere and 100 miles from any Interstate freeway or railroad track.
The closest grocery store is 13 miles away. A bank and tribally owned fuel pump just recently came to town. Buying fresh meat means a two-hour drive to Mountain Home, Idaho. The biggest changes in the last few decades have been in the farming equipment used on the land
At the very bottom of the state map, actually straddling the Nevada-Idaho border, is the Duck Valley Indian Reservation – home to 1,200 Shoshone-Paiute Indians who inhabit the 290,000 acres of high desert land.
“You can go out during the day or at night and not hear anything but the birds,” says Marvin Cota, former tribal chairman. “I love it. It’s unique, isolated.
“Something probably very few other Indians are familiar with is isolation with no surrounding encroachment.”
Unique and isolated are descriptors that may aptly be ascribed to the Shoshone-Paiute people as well. Tribal members have to reconcile this isolation with a number of factors, including self-determination, healthcare, economic development and a noisy military neighbor.
Of all the reservations in the state, only at Duck Valley do tribal members, mostly ranchers and farmers, own all of the land. That was not the result of any political movement, Cota says. The members just do not sell the land to outsiders.
Also, the tribe is the first in the state to push for more self-reliance with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as the tribal council has taken on many of the duties previously performed by that agency through the Indian Self Determination Act of 1973.
“We’re the only self-governance tribe in Idaho,” says Lindsey Manning, environmental planner/educator and former chairman of the tribe. Now, the council gets a lump sum of $6 million to dole out to different agencies as it chooses, instead of having to wade through the bureaucracy of sending requests to Elko, Nev. and Phoenix for approval, Manning says.
Cutting out the red tape means the tribe gets about $1.5 million more than they did before, which is used on the hospital, all social services, enrollment, education and a host of environmental programs. The tribe left law enforcement, road maintenance and irrigation control to the BIA and is taking over the irrigation from the agency this year, Manning says.
Convincing members to accept this level of self-determination was not easy, he says, and other tribes in the state have chosen not to take on the responsibilities.
“The turbulent part was our people didn’t want us to do it,” Manning says. “They said it would be our demise, taking trust responsibilities from the government.”
Tribal members, many of whom worked for the bureau or Indian Health Services feared losing their jobs and mounted a successful referendum campaign to stop the move, he says. After the failure tribal members in favor of the switch gathered more support and embarked on an education campaign. There was a second vote, and this time a majority favored the new responsibilities.
Since its passage and as the arrangement has played over time, tribal members are now happy they made the switch, Manning says. “Now people are seeing that we’ve got more jobs and money,” he said. That helps on a reservation with unemployment near 75 percent.
One place that money goes is towards health care. Older tribal members and those with medical problems can get help here, instead of driving to Mountain Home or Boise. The hospital on the reservation was scheduled to be shut down, Manning says, but the tribe fought for its survival in Congress and won.
“One nice thing about straddling two states is you have four senators and two representatives,” he says.
Newly elected Chairman Terry Gibson says health care is one of his most important focuses. “We need to make sure our hospital is accredited so we can take care of Medicare and Medicaid patients,” he said.
Another part of that health picture includes the effects of dummy bombs and other warfare practice done for training near the reservation by the Mountain Home Air Force Base, Gibson says.
“I attribute our high rate of cancer to what is going on around us,” he says. Gibson himself has battled kidney cancer, losing a rib and a kidney before gaining the upper hand on the disease. Overall, the tribe has a high incident rate of cancer, he says.
The tribe just recently participated in a dedication ceremony for the bombing range. In 1992, the government wanted a range 15 miles from the reservation border, on top of sacred sites. Instead, the tribe and government settled on putting the Juniper Butte Bombing Range further away from the tribe and its critical areas.
Despite moving the range, the tribe still deals with the sonic booms that occur three times a day from the military testing aircraft over the area. Gibson said these planes sometimes fly 100 feet off the ground and one sonic boom shook a house on the reservation off its foundation.
“There are a lot of harmful effects our people are going to suffer because of this,” Gibson says. He says the jets disrupt the rhythm of nature that goes on in the desert and thinks more health problems could be attributed to the military exercises.
Despite the tribe’s isolation, a few slivers of economic development have begun to take form. One of these includes a $2 million commercial center that would house a grocery store, barbershop and retail center and be near the new gas station. A juvenile detention center that would bring 14 jobs to tribal members is also in the works, though shaky BIA funding for operational expenses has put its future in jeopardy, former chairman Cota says.
Gibson wants to attract Department of Defense contracts for manufacturing jobs. He also plans to work to reclaim aboriginal land off Interstate 84 near Boise with hopes of building a casino twice as big as the Coeur d’Alene Casino that would serve the populous Treasure Valley.
“It’s guaranteed to be successful in that location,” Gibson says. Such a casino would provide 700 jobs to tribal members, he says.
Unless such a plan takes off, the tribe will likely remain in relative obscurity at the bottom of the state map. That suits most members and recognition or no, providing for members, present and future, remains the goal of the tribe.
“To have a job and be secured, to have security for families and to be comfortable is probably what I’d like to see for all of our people,” Cota says.

By Kathrin Podbrecnik
Partly in Idaho, partly in Nevada – the Duck Valley Indian Reservation of the Shoshone-Paiute tribe lies right on the border between two states.
Like an ironic remark, the reservation’s geographic location alludes to the tribal members lives torn between two very different worlds: Native American culture versus American lifestyle – a fate that the tribe in Duck Valley shares with most Native Americans throughout the country.
Tribal member Reggie Sope has taken the lifetime responsibility of protecting Native American beliefs and values from the tempting influence of the American way of life. Chosen by elders to pass on the culture of his people to the next generation, he attaches importance to maintaining aboriginal customs in order to ensure the appropriate way of life for the members of his tribe.
A large part of the Native American way of life is shaped by a close relationship to nature, he said. Native Americans do not live against but with their environment. Since the Maker has put a spirit in everything – every stone, tree or animal – Native Americans say a prayer before they take anything with them. Water plays a key role for them because it is the most important thing in life. Therefore, hot springs are considered as birthplaces with an especially powerful spirit.
It is a humble way of life in a culture where humans do not play the most important part in nature, he said. In fact, according to many Native American beliefs, humans were created after anything else. They are just one part of the circle of life and have to respect everything around them because it was there before them.
Native Americans are taught to be thankful for everything that happens in their lives, even for things that don’t seem to be positive at first sight: if your hat is blown away by the wind and you have to run after it, thank the Maker instead of swearing about your bad luck, Sope said. “It might have saved your life because there is a reason for everything.”
Other big parts of Native American culture are traditional ceremonies and dances, for example the Ghost Dance that is destined to honor the spirits. The Sun Dance not only strengthens the dancers’ faith by improving their spiritual condition, it also helps to clean and refresh body and mind. Participants of the Sun Dance sacrifice any food or drink for four days of dancing.
In Duck Valley, these ceremonies still exist, but despite Sope’s efforts to maintain Native American values on the reservation, the American way of life threatens to become rampant. He said the number of tribal members suffering from cancer or diabetes increases annually, and especially young people need more and more guidance in their lives.
Sope assumes to know the reasons for the spread of physical and mental inflictions in the reservation. The intake of medications instead of natural remedies or the jet activity of the nearby Air Force Base – in short, the abundance of American aspects in their lives – might contribute to the Native Americans’ bad living conditions.
But above all, there is one key factor that has a bad influence on the Native Americans in Duck Valley: it’s the life of being torn between two sides, the inherited aboriginal world and the growing American world.
ught to keep our homelands and this is a gift from God,” he continued. “We still are a prayerful people and we share what we have.”

By Morgan Winsor
Restoring fish populations along rivers and in lakes is a constant challenge for the Shoshone-Paiute tribe.
In 1929 construction of the Owyhee Dam fenced off the main passages for salmon, red band trout, bull trout and rainbow trout to enter streams in southern Idaho where tribal members fish.
That dam, coupled with the erection of other water barricades – like the Bull Run Dam, Wild Horse Dam and Hell’s Canyon Dam – has made it radically impossible for Shoshone-Paiute tribal members to successfully fish from particular streams and lakes. For the tribe, fishing is a tradition passed on through generations.
Thanks to an annual $1 million grant from the Bonneville Power Administration, fishing woes on the reservation aren’t as extreme as they used to be.
The grant has allowed the tribe to hire Fisheries Biologist Vincent Pero, who for five years has diligently worked to bump up the number the fish in reservation waters.
Pero, who acquired a fisheries degree at the University of Idaho, said he and his team of researchers are in the midst of developing five habitat enhancement projects.
He said the first is to protect streams and spawning areas by fencing off springheads that spurt from aquifers.
He said springheads attract stampedes of livestock and that cattle carry viruses that can destroy genetically pure fish.
Finding where genetically pure fish roam is another project Pero is tackling. Clad in waders and armed with electrified rods, Pero and his team stand knee deep in icy waters shocking fish “only long enough for them to be captured.” he said.
The voltage jolt momentarily paralyzes the fish, sending them belly-up to the surface. Pero then clips a dime-size piece of skin from the fish and analyzes it at a lab to determine whether the fish are genetically pure.
“So far out of five streams there are only two that carry genetically pure red band fish,” Pero said. “Fawn Creek and Little Sheep Creek are the only two.”
Pero said cross fish breeds pose a threat to pure fish in streams. He said they interfere with spawn and feeding patterns. Crossbreeds also have more aggressive behavior and are known to attack and maim, sometimes kill off the purebreds.
Pero tries to keep the three reservoirs on the reservation stocked with rainbow trout. He manages operations on Lake Billy Shaw, a 500-acre fisherman’s paradise. But Pero is worried his duties won’t be enough to save the endangered fish.
“Wild Horse Dam was constructed to capture water for the tribe to use for irrigational purposes,” he said. “But the dam only captures 40 percent. The other 60 percent is collected behind Owyhee dam.”
Terry Gibson, the tribe’s newly elected chairman, said the tribe currently is working to acquire more water rights to salvage endangered fish populations.
“The Owyhee Dam has caused irreparable damage to our natural resources,” Gibson said. “Hell’s Canyon Dam has cut off 34 percent of our fish population. We need to get our water rights back.”