Pah ¡chi (From Big Spring Running Down) ig Springs Ethnographic Assessment US -J5 Corridor Study
OURCE GROUP REPORT NO. 34
Prepared by:
Nevada ` Department of Transportation Division of Environmental Services
and
Federal Highway Administration
Environmental Consultants: Louis Berger & Associates, Inc. Las Vegas, Nevada September 1998
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Pah hu wichi(From Big Spring Running Down): Big Spring Ethnographic Assessment US 95 Corridor Study
September 1998
BUREAU OF APPLIED RESEARCH IN ANTHROPOLOGY TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables v List of Figures vii Acknowledgments vii Foreword x
Chapter One Study Overview 1 Brief Description of the Project 1 Cultural Affiliation and Involved American Indian Tribes 2 The Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology 3 Native American Cultural Resource Revitalization 3 University of Arizona Study Team 4 Selection of Interview Sites 5 Interview Forms and Analysis 10 Data Analysis 10 Chronology of Work 13 Daily Schedule 13
Chapter Two Contextualizing Indian Opinions 15 Paiute Views of Their Culture 15 Creation Stories 18 Traditional Southern Paiute Political Units 20 The High Chiefs 20 Chiefs of Alliance 21 Disease and Sociopolitical Disruption 22 1840 - 1875 Depopulation 24 1875 -1900 Depopulation 24 Twentieth Century High Chiefs 26 Chief Tecopa 26 Continuities in Southern Paiute Political Leadership 26 Chief Penance 26 Chief Skinner 27 Technical Terms 28 Technical Term #1: Cultural Affiliation 28 Traditional Period 28 Aboriginal Period 29 Historic Period 29 Ownership of Land 30 Response to Encroachment by Euroamericans 30 Cultural Significance of Land 31 Technical Term #2: Cultural Landscape 32 Levels of Cultural Landscapes 37 Holy Lands 37 Storyscapes 38 Regional Landscapes 39 Ecoscapes 39 Landmarks 40
Chapter Three The 3- Springs Area A Place in Paiute Cultural Landscapes 41 The 3- Spring Landscape 43 Southern Paiute Landscape Responses 46 Connections between Indian Villages 46 Activities in the 3- Springs Area 48 Connections to Trails 50 Songs Associated with 3- Springs Area 52 Ceremonies Conducted at 3- Springs Area 53 Connections to Paiute Creation Places 54 Connections between Creation Places and other Places 55 Events Associated with 3- Springs Area 57 Mountain Connections to 3- Springs Area 58 Connections with Colorado River 60 Additional Connections 61 Key Regional Landscape Features 63 Caves 63 Gypsum Cave 63 Pintwater Cave 68 Hot Springs 68 Pah Tempe Spring 68 Artesian Springs 70 Ash Meadows Artesian Springs 70 Mountains 71 Spirit Mountain 71 Mt. Charleston 72 Sunrise -Frenchman Mountains 72 Canyons and Rivers 72 Grand Canyon as a Paiute Regional Landscape 73 Trails: Spiritual and Physical 74
ii Trails, the Cry, and the Salt Song as Paiute Songscapes 75
Chapter Four Site -By -Site Evaluations 76 The 3 -Spring Area Interviews 76 Lorenzi Park 77 History 77 Lorenzi Lake 77 Flora 77 Fauna 79 Stone Mortar Site 79 Topography 79 Flora 79 Fauna 81 Kiel Ranch 81 Soils 82 Fauna 83 Big Springs 83 Soils and Geology 84 Flora 84 Fauna 84 Purposes of Indian Use of the Area 85 Connection with other Places 90 Uses of Water 94 Uses of Plants 96 Uses of Animals 99 Archeology 103 Geologic Features 105 Access 108 Evaluations of Specific Features by Site: Water 110 Evaluations of Specific Features by Site: Plants 112 Evaluations of Specific Features by Site: Animals 113 Evaluations of Specific Features by Site: Archeology 114 Evaluations of Specific Features by Site: Geology 116 Comprehensive Evaluation of Sites and Management Recommendations 117 Factors Affecting the Condition of the Sites 118 Recommendations for Restoration 119 Evaluation of Big Spring and Recommendations for its Management 124
Chapter Five Summary of Findings 131 Cultural Landscape - Summary of Paiute Interpretations 131
iii Cultural Landscapes - An Ethnographic Interpretation 132 Site Specific - Summary of Paiute Interpretations 132 Stone Mortar Site 132 Lorenzi Park 133 Kiel Ranch 133 Site Specific Interviews - An Ethnographic Interpretation 134 Big Springs - Summary of Paiute Interpretations 135 Big Springs - An Ethnographic Summary and Conclusion 135 Regarding Extrapolation of Findings 135 Regarding Cultural Landscapes 136 Regarding Mitigation 136
References Cited 138
Appendix A: Cultural Landscape Interview Form 148 Appendix B: Site -Specific Interview Form 159 Appendix C: Final Evaluation Interview Form 170
iv LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: Major Epidemic Episodes of Old World Diseases Among Pueblo Peoples That May Have Spread to Southern Paiutes 23 Table 2.2: Epidemic Disease Mortality Model of Numic- Speaking Native American Population Change, 1847 -1856 25 Table 3.1. Response Summary Table: Connections between Indian Villages 46 Table 3.2. Response Summary Table: Activities in the 3- Springs Area 48 Table 3.3. Response Summary Table: Connections to Trails 50 Table 3.4. Response Summary Table: Songs Associated with 3- Springs Area 52 Table 3.5. Response Summary Table: Ceremonies Conducted at 3- Springs Area 53 Table 3.6. Response Summary Table: Connections to Paiute Creation Places 54 Table 3.7. Response Summary Table: Connections between Creation Places and other Places 56 Table 3.8 Response Summary Table: Events Associated with 3- Springs Area 57 Table 3.9. Response Summary Table: Mountain Connections to 3- Springs Area 58 Table 3.10. Response Summary Table: Connections with Colorado River 60 Table 3.11. Response Summary Table: Additional Connections 61 Table 3.12. Response Summary Table: Other Event Connections 62 Table 4.1. Response Summary Table: "Yes" Responses to Indian Use of Area 85 Table 4.2. Indian Use of Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 85 Table 4.3. Indian Use of Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 86 Table 4.4. Indian Use of Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 89 Table 4.5. Connections with Other Places: Response Summary Table 90 Table 4.6. Important Indian Features: Response Summary Table 93 Table 4.7. Indian Use of Water: Response Summary Table 94 Table 4.8. Indian Use of Water at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 94 Table 4.9. Indian Use of Water at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 95 Table 4.10. Indian Use of Water at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 96 Table 4.11 Indian Uses of Plants: Response Summary Table 96 Table 4.12. Indian Uses of Plants at the Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 97 Table 4.13. Indian Uses of Plants at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 98 Table 4.14. Indian Uses of Plants at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 98 Table 4.15. Indian Uses of Animals: Response Summary Table 99 Table 4.16. Indian Uses of Animals at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 100 Table 4.17. Indian Uses of Animals at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 101 Table 4.18. Indian Uses of Animals at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 102 Table 4.19 Indian Use of Site: Response Summary Table 103 Table 4.20. Indian Use of Site at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 103 Table 4.21. Indian Use of Site at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 104
v Table 4.22. Indian Use of Site at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 105 Table 4.23. Indian Use of Geologic Features: Response Summary Table 105 Table 4.24. Indian Use of Geologic Features at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 106 Table 4.25. Indian Use of Geologic Features at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table . 107 Table 4.26. Indian Use of Geologic Features at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 108 Table 4.27. Indian Access: Response Summary Table 108 Table 4.28. Condition of Water at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 110 Table 4.29. Factors Affecting Water at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 111 Table 4.30. Condition of Water at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 111 Table 4.31. Factors Affecting Water at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 111 Table 4.32. Condition of Water at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 111 Table 4.33. Factors Affecting Water at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 111 Table 4.34. Condition of Plants at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 112 Table 4.35. Factors Affecting Plants at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 112 Table 4.36. Condition of Plants at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 112 Table 4.37. Factors Affecting Plants at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 112 Table 4.38. Condition of Plants at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 112 Table 4.39. Factors Affecting Plants at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 113 Table 4.40. Condition of Animals/Habitat at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table .113 Table 4.41. Factors Affecting Animals/Habitat: Response Summary Table 113 Table 4.42. Condition of Animals/Habitat at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 113 Table 4.43. Factors Affecting Animals/Habitat: Response Summary Table 113 Table 4.44. Condition of Animals/Habitat at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 114 Table 4.45. Factors Affecting Animals/Habitat at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 114 Table 4.46. Condition of Site at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 114 Table 4.47. Factors Affecting Archeology at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table .114 Table 4.48. Condition of Site at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 115 Table 4.49. Factors Affecting Archeology at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 115 Table 4.50. Condition of Site at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 115 Table 4.51. Factors Affecting Archeology at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 115 Table 4.52. Condition of Geology at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 116 Table 4.53. Factors Affecting Geology at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table 116 Table 4.54. Condition of Geology at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table 116 Table 4.55. Condition of Geology at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 116 Table 4.56. Factors Affecting Geology at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table 117 Table 4.57. Evaluation of Condition of Place: Response Summary Table 117 Table 4.58. Factors Affecting Condition of Place: Response Summary Table 118 Table 4.59. Comparison -of Big Spring to Other Sites: Response Summary Table 124
vi LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Study team during orientation meeting regarding project study area 6 Figure 2. Study team members reviewing maps and aerial photos of the study area 6 Figure 3. Map of project study area 8 Figure 4. Study team viewing Indian exhibits at Nevada State Museum, Lorenzi Park 9 Figure 5. Shivwits Paiute elders viewing historic Indian photograph, Nevada State Museum, Lorenzi Park 9 Figure 6. Petroglyph site at Red Rocks State Park. 11 Figure 7. Indian elders viewing a traditional plant, Red Rocks State Park 11 Figure 8. Ethnographers and Indian consultants at Red Rocks State Park. 12 Figure 9. Southern Paiute elders viewing a traditional use plant. 12 Figure 10. Ethnographer interviewing Pahrump Paiute elder 14 Figure 11. Kelly's map of Southern Paiute districts (revised; Kelly and Fowler 1986:369) 16 Figure 12. Puaxant Tuvip: The Southern Paiute Holy Land 17 Figure 13. Southern Paiute cultural space surrounding the Big Spring Complex (from Laird 1976) 42 Figure 14. Study team at Lorenzi Park. 44 Figure 15. Spring at Kiel Ranch. 45 Figure 16 (top). Overview of Gypsum Cave; Figure 17. Entrance to Gypsum Cave. 66 Figure 18. Interior of Gypsum Cave. 66 Figure 19. Interior of Gypsum Cave, view toward entrance 66 Figure 20 (top), and Figure 21. Side canyon springs, Gold Strike Canyon. 69 Figure 22. Lorenzi Lake, Lorenzi Park 78 Figure 23. The grounds at Lorenzi Park. 78 Figure 24 (top). Stone Mortar Site; Figure 25. Bedrock mortars at Stone Mortar Site. 80 Figure 26. Indian consultant viewing bedrock mortar, Stone Mortar Site. 81 Figure 27. Historic building at Kiel Ranch 82 Figure 28. Spring water retention pond at Kiel Ranch. 83 Figure 29. Ethnographer interviewing Indian elder at Stone Mortar Site 86 Figure 30. Ethnographer interviewing Pahrump Paiute elder at Lorenzi Park. 87 Figure 31. Richard Stoffle interviewing Chemehuevi elder at Lorenzi Park. 88 Figure 29. Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah elder discussing traditional Indian lifeways. 128 Figure 30. Ethnographer interviewing Kaibab Paiute elder. 129 Figure 31. Richard Stoffle interviewing Moapa Paiute consultant 129
vii Acknowledgments
This report is the outcome of the efforts of many individuals. The authors would like to express their sincere appreciation to Dr. John W.Hohmann (Principal Investigator and Chief Archaeologist) and Peg Davis (Bioarchaeologist) of The Cultural Resource Group of Louis Berger & Associates, Inc. for their support throughout the project. Mr. T. H. Turner (Chief Archaeologist) State of Nevada, Department of Transportation, Environmental Services Division, was the funding agency point of contact for this project. Wewould like to thank Ms. Phyllis Martin of the Friends of Kiel Ranch for sharing information about the region and providing access to visit Kiel Ranch. The Las Vegas Indian Centerprovided office space and refreshments so that each group of tribal representatives couldparticipate in a project orientation that was out of the wind, cold, and rain which we experienced during the on -site interviews.
This report has been prepared at the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA). Dr. Maria N. Zedeno co- designed the landscape interview instrument and managedthe project. Sincere thanks to the BARA staff, especially Maria Rodriquez, Gabriela Lachica, and Armando Vargas, for their assistance and rapid response to our many questions and requests.
Most importantly, the authors wish to express their sincere appreciation and gratitude to all the Indian people who have taken part in this study. We wish to thank each tribal chairperson, Official Tribal Contact Representative (OTCR), and tribal cultural resource representatives for taking time away from their busy schedules to share knowledge of traditional life and cultural resources with us in this project. Their participation iswhat made this study possible.
American Indian Participants'
Cynthia Lynch Pahrump Paiute Tribe, Nevada Clarbelle Jim Pahrump Paiute Tribe, Nevada Richard Arnold Pahrump Paiute Tribe, Nevada
' The Las Vegas Paiute Tribe is participating in the study, but was unable to send tribal representatives. They have expressed an ongoing interest in the- places being considered in this study and will review the final report.
The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah (PITU) contains 5 formerly independent tribes - two of those tribes (now called bands) are represented in this study, however, PITU is considered as one tribe.
viii Calvin Meyers Moapa Band of Paiutes, Nevada
Clifford Jake Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Indian Peak Band Yetta Jake Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Shivwits Band
Betty Cornelius Colorado River Indian Tribes, Arizona Larry Eddy Colorado River Indian Tribes, Arizona
Gevene Savala Kaibab Paiute Tribe, Arizona
Rudy Macias Chemehuevi Paiute Tribe, California David Chavez Chemehuevi Paiute Tribe, California
Don Cloquet Las Vegas Indian Center, Las Vegas, Nevada Foreword
This report is based on interviews with American Indian representatives from six Southern Paiute tribes and the Las Vegas Indian Center. Each tribe and organization chose to send one or more tribal members to evaluate the potential impacts to American Indian cultural resources that would occur if Highway 95 were to be expanded to incorporate a portion of the current Big Spring location. This report provides the Southern Paiute evaluations of the proposed expansion.
Study Goal
The goal of this study is to convey in a systematic and readable fashion American Indian perceptions of potential project impact to their cultural resources. To do this the report must serve two rather distinct purposes. First, the findings from this study will be incorporated into the official Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Big Spring Highway 95 Corridor Project. Special summary sections have been prepared in this report in order to help fit the American Indian findings into the EIS. The UofA anthropologists are not on the EIS writing team. Second, this report is to be reviewed by the seven involved tribal governments and the Board of Directors of the Las Vegas Indian Center. In order to help with this review the report contains a number of background sections which are not expected to be used in the EIS but should be useful in helping tribal governments and other readers to understand the findings of the report.
Tiering
The Federal government requires that research being prepared for an EIS not unnecessarily duplicate previous studies. This is a process called tiering, which involves building one study upon another to reach an conclusion regarding what resources are present in the potentially affected environment and what impacts to those resources may result from the proposed project.
This report is meets the Federal tiering requirement by (1) using background essays produced elsewhere and (2) contextualizing some findings with reference to previous studies in the region. The source is clearly referenced whenever tiering is used to clarify some point in this report.
x The Indian Study Area
Indian people often perceive their traditional cultural resources as an essential part of larger cultural resources. Archaeologists, for example, often view local sites as being imbedded in a set of interrelated sites in what are technically called archaeology districts. Similarly, studies of falcons may extend to wherever they hunt during nesting times, rather than being restricted to where the nests are located. Indian people, too, view specific traditional places and cultural resources as a part of larger, more abstract units ofculture, often referred to as cultural landscapes. For this reason, Indian people interviewed during this project talked about bigger areas whose connections with the Big Spring study areashed light on the meaning of both near and far places. The American Indian study area for the Big Springs Ethnographic study is perceived as being as large as the sum of places that are culturally connected.
Spelling of Indian Names
This report uses Indian names wherever possible. There has not been an attempt to resolve the spelling of all Indian names. Different spellings of the same word appear because they were different in previously published texts and because the ethnographers conducting the interviews used different renderings of the words they heard. The development of a common spelling for all Indian names is currently beyond the scope of this study.
xi Chapter One Study Overview
The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with some understandingof this research project including sources of funding, points of project management,participating American Indian tribes, and researchers. Study methods are explained indetail, including site selection criteria, interview forms used in the field, and data coding and analysis.
Brief Description of the Project
This is an American Indian ethnographic study for the Big Springs Highway 95Corridor Project. The study area included the Big Spring Complex and associatedAmerican Indian sites potentially impacted by the westward expansion of U.S. 95 north of its junctionwith U.S. 15. The study does not include an analysis of U.S. 95 impacts to the east of the BigSprings complex towards what is known as Lorenzi Park.
Highway 95 has experienced a tremendous increase in traffic and increased safetyhazards for motorists due to growth in population and commerce in the Southwest.Federal, state, and local governments have worked to find a solution to the impacts of increasedtraffic and have chosen a number of alternatives related to highway expansion.
The Cultural Resource Group of Louis Berger & Associates, Inc. has been requestedby the Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) to conduct Phase II archaeological investigations and testing as part of the efforts associated with proposed road improvements. Louis Berger & Associates, Inc. contracted anthropologists at the University ofArizona (UofA) to work with a team of American Indian people to formulate a studydesign that would be acceptable to Southern Paiute tribal governments. The American Indian team included:
Richard Arnold, chair of the Pahrump Paiute Tribe; Betty Cornelius, Director of the Museum, Colorado River Indian Tribes; and Benjamin Pikyavit, Southern Paiute Consortium, Kaibab Paiute Tribe.
Their efforts produced a study design, entitled A Trip Report: Southern PaiuteEthnographic Studies Regarding the US 95 Project Corridor, Clark County, Nevada (Cultural Resource Group Research Report 31, December 19, 1997; revised, January 28, 1998). This report was subsequently reviewed by the potentially involved Southern Paiute tribes and the Las Vegas Indian Center.
1 The primary goal of this American Indian ethnographic study is to evaluate the potential impacts to American Indian cultural resources that would result from the proposed expansion of Highway 95 to the west along what is currently the Big Springs Complex, which is currently owned by the Las Vegas Valley Water District.
The American Indian ethnographic study proposal was developed and submitted by the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona (UofA) in Tucson, Arizona. This proposal was prepared by Dr. Richard Stoffle and Dr. Nieves Zedeno. The cultural resource portion (including both archaeology and American Indian resources) is being managed by Dr. John W. Hohmann of Louis Berger & Associates. Mr. T. H. Turner, Chief Archaeologist, is the point of contact for State of Nevada, Department of Transportation, Environmental Services Division. -
Cultural Affiliation and Involved American Indian Tribes
The first decision in any American Indian ethnographic assessment is to establish which American Indian ethnic groups are potentially culturally affiliated with the location(s) being studied. The term affiliation implies that the relationship between Native Americans and the land is cultural. There is no formula to define how long a people must live on land in order to establish cultural affiliation. In general, the length of time American Indian people have spent on the land will vary from groups who perceive they have lived there since the beginning of creation to groups who have had a brief but culturally significant experience on the land. When periods of time are chosen as the frames for viewing cultural affiliation, three broad divisions emerge: (1) traditional period, (2) aboriginal period, and (3) historic period. It is important to remember that Native Americans may use other definitions of time, including a pre -human time which is without measure and essentially timeless. These periods of cultural affiliation are discussed in more detail in the next chapter.
A second decision in any American Indian ethnographic study is for the culturally affiliated tribes to decide whether or not they want to participate. There are 7 tribes and 1 Indian organization participating in this study, although participation varies. The following expressed an interest in participating in the study:
Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah2 Shivwits Band Indian Peaks Band Cedar City Band Kanosh Band
2 The Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah was established by Congress on April 3, 1980. The new composite tribe included five formerly independent Paiute bands which had been terminated. CH2M Hill helped PITU prepare a plan for acquiring reservation lands for the new tribe. See Bureau of Indian Affairs (1982) and Holt (1992) for a fuller discussion.
2 Koosharem Band Kaibab Paiute Tribe Moapa Paiute Tribe Las Vegas Indian Tribe3 Pahrump Paiute Tribe Chemehuevi Paiute Tribe Colorado River Indian Tribes' Chemehuevi Division Las Vegas Indian Centers
The Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology
The Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology (BARA) is a unique research institution within the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Arizona. As a research unit, BARA seeks to apply social science knowledge toward an enhanced understanding of real -world problems. Its diverse range of research activities in both domestic and international contexts addresses critical human issues dealing with change and development, power and poverty, gender and ethnicity, growth and learning, social justice and equity, and environmental change and sustainability. At the heart of BARA's approach lies a commitment to community participation, empirical fieldwork, and innovative research methods. BARA bases its reputation on its ability to create effective dialogues with local stakeholders, to accurately document strategies of household and community, and to promote the economic well -being and cultural integrity of its partner communities. Building on its extensive field experience, BARA has developed and tested a research methodology that combines qualitative and quantitative techniques within a participatory framework.
Native American Cultural Resource Revitalization
This research is being conducted through the Native American Cultural Resource Revitalization (NACRR) program in BARA. Consistent with BARA's founding mission to monitor the welfare and well -being of Native American groups in Arizona, this program focuses
3 The Las Vegas Indian Tribe is an active participant in the study, but was unable to send elders during the site visits. The tribe will review the report.
4The Colorado River Indian Tribes is a composite tribe which includes Mohave, Navajo, Hopi, and Chemehuevi peoples. Only the Chemehuevi people were consulted during this study.
5 The Las Vegas Indian Center provides services to approximately 17,000 Indian people in Clark County, Nevada. The Las Vegas Indian Center has been a point of contact for American Indian ethnographic projects since the mid- 1980s. Indian people represented by the Indian Center have established historic period cultural resource ties to the region. See Stoffle and Evans (1992) for a fuller discussion of this issue.
3 on the national need to assure the preservation of Native American cultures and languages.
A long history of misguided policy -making and disregard for native cultures in this country created a wide variety of cultural resource problems for Indian peoples. Recent legislation, such as the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, and Executive Order 13007 - Sacred Site Access, has attempted to redress the situation and establish new policy paths that emphasize tribal empowerment and cultural respect.
BARA has contributed to these new directions by developing standard study procedures that assure the full participation of Native American tribes in the process of identifying and controlling their comprehensive cultural resource inventories. In this program, BARA research facilitates the interaction of tribes with government and private agencies. Through the use of ethnography, BARA professionals have assisted communities in reconstructing their cultural histories, made Geographical Information Systems (GIS) technologies available to tribes wanting to identify and maintain their cultural landscapes, and have worked to address language shift through the development of dictionaries and the promotion of language literacy on reservations.
This program also has contributed to the development of cultural resource theory within applied anthropology and has generated genuine, mutually respectful and productive partnerships between the University of Arizona and American Indian tribes. As one of BARA's most consistently supported research programs, NACRR has received long -term funding from American Indian tribes, the National Park Service, the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and the Bureau of Reclamation.
University of Arizona Study Team
The University of Arizona provided trained, academically -based persons to conduct all aspects of this project. These individuals brought various research skills, each of which was specially suited to this project. The following section briefly describes the study team.
Richard Stoffle, PhD Dr. Stoffle was team leader for this project. In this capacity he oversaw all aspects of the research from the initial writing of the project proposal to submitting the final report. He is a long -standing member of the NACRR program in BARA.
Fabio Pittaluga, MA Mr. Pittaluga is working on his PhD in Anthropology, UofA. He conducted interviews, coded data, and wrote portions of the report. He is a new member of the NACRR program in BARA.
4 Amy Eisenberg, MS Ms. Eisenberg is in the Ethnoecological Track of the Arid Lands Studies PhD. program, UofA. She is a botanist and botanical illustrator. She conducted interviews, coded data, and wrote text regarding the geography, fauna, and flora of each study site.
Tray Earnest, BA Mr. Earnest is working on his MA in the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida. He is studying to be an ethnoarchaeologist. He conducted interviews, coded data, and wrote text regarding the archaeology of the region.
Genevieve Dewey, BA Ms. Dewey is an applied cultural anthropologist. She helped design the interview forms, set up the Microsoft ACCESS data base used to organize data for the report, and helped code data. She is a member of the NACRR program.
John Amato Mr. Amato is a nursing major at Pima Community College and a professional photographer. He has worked with the Washoe tribe who live in the Lake Tahoe region of Nevada taking photographs to document impacts to Washoe traditional lands. Mr. Amato took all the photographs associated with this study and organized them into a story - line for this report.
Selection of Interview Sites
A team of Indian people and UofA anthropologists (Figures 1 and 2) prepared the initial study design for this project. For details on the original study design see A Trip Report: Southern Paiute Ethnographic Studies, Regarding the US 95 Project Corridor, Clark County, Nevada (Cultural Resource Group Research Report 31, December 19, 1997; revised, January 28, 1998). That study design involved a fine- grained analysis of the plants, animals, water, and archaeology of the Big Spring Complex. In addition, one remote archaeology site was to be visited and studied.
Just before field work began, the UofA team was denied access to the Big Springs Complex and the remote site for the purpose of conducting this ethnographic study. Private and public landowners are within their rights to deny environmental impact assessment study teams
5 Figure 1. Study team during orientation meeting regarding project study area.
Figure 2. Study team members reviewing maps and aerial photos of the study area.
6 access to property even though the property wouldbe potentially impacted by a proposed action. Despite such restrictions, the agency proposing the action and the environmental assessment team must prepare a statement of potential impacts for the EIS.
Given that the tribes had expressed an interest in evaluating this DOT proposal and were ready to participate in site -specific evaluations, it was decided to continue with a modified study design. This design involved the same period of site interviewing for each tribal representative, but interviews would be conducted at different locations. The basic philosophy guiding the selection of these new sites was finding places that were comparable with the Big Springs Complex. Given that traditionally all of these springs occurred together within a single Southern Paiute use area, it was thought that the contemporary meaning of one spring would be similar to another. Naturally, this hypothesis could only be tested by the Indian representatives.
The following locations were selected for the revised site -visit (see Figure 3):
Site #1 Stone Mortar; Site #2 Kiel Ranch; and Site #3 Lorenzi Park.
The Stone Mortar site was chosen because it afforded a good view of the valley and was associated with its own small spring. The Kiel Ranch site was selected at the recommendation of Ms. Phyllis Martin who also was aware of the nearby Stone Mortar site as a Southern Paiute cultural site. Finally, the Lorenzi Park site was selected because it originally was one of the Big Spring Complex springs and is located just across Highway 95. These sites are described in more detail in Chapter Three.
Orientation was provided to each Indian representative. At the beginning of each set of site visits the study van drove all participants around the fence surrounding the Big Spring site. Due to high winds, cold, and rain, the project orientation was held inside the conference room at the Las Vegas Indian Center. A large circular table facilitated face -to -face interactions. Packages of materials which contained maps and photographs were distributed to each Indian person. Historic photographs were provided so that people could talk about Big Springs and the other springs /ranches in the area. These photographs were provided by Louis Berger & Associates, Inc. Raised topographic maps were used to talk about the region around the Las Vegas valley. Interest in the subject was so high, and Indian knowledge was so personal that a tape recorder was turned on (with the knowledge and permission of theparticipating Indian people) during orientation in order to capture initial reaction stories and memory accounts of the 3- Springs Area.
Another unexpected source of stories came from a visit to the Nevada State Museum. This visit was scheduled after the site -specific interview at Lorenzi Park. At the museum (Figures 4 and 5) Indian people visited a rather extensive display of Indian basketry withphotographs of some basket makers. The Indian representativesresponded well to the display and shared a
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Figure 3. Map of projectstudy area, showing KielRanch and Spring Ranch (Big Spring;from Paher 1971:36) Pfrp,,,01
-z- -1/4 8 Mojave d ian Figure 4. Study team viewing Indian exhibits at Nevada State Museum,Lorenzi Park.
Figure 5. Shivwits Paiute elders viewing historic Indian photograph, Nevada State Museum, Lorenzi Park.
9 number of stories about visiting the Big Springs site and the 3- Springs Area to collect plants, camp, and conduct ceremonies. Many of these conversations were taped.
Site -specific data were collected at each of the previous sites but the final interview regarding Big Spring was conducted at Red Rock State Park. This site was chosen because it was a place where Southern Paiute people lived after they were pushed off the major sources of water in the 3- Springs area. Before going to this location for the final interview, the Indian representatives were "centered" by passing by the outer fence of the Big Springs site. The view from the major spring and petroglyph site (Figure 6) in Red Rock State Park stimulated additional cultural landscape insights and provided a culturally appropriate location for the third and final evaluation interview.
Interview Forms and Analysis
Each Indian elder (Figures 7 -9) was afforded the opportunity of having a private interview at each chosen location. These interviews were guided by using an interview instrument. The advantage of using an interview instrument is that each person is asked the same questions in the same order. This reflects, in part, the established finding that both question structure and question order can have some influence on furnished responses. Thus, one potential source of bias was reduced by systematizing data collection in this manner.
Three interview instruments were developed for this project: (1) Site -Specific, (2) Cultural Landscape, and (3) Final Evaluation. Each of these has a distinct purpose. The Site - Specific instrument form (Appendix A) was designed to elicit information about a specific place within the 3- Spring Area. This form was developed a number of years ago as a part of the Zion National Park and Pipe Spring National Monument ecosystem study (Stoffle, Austin, Halmo, Phillips 1997) and has since been revised in coordination with representatives from six Southern Paiute tribes. The form has been used on three other American Indian cultural resource projects. The Cultural Landscape instrument form (Appendix B) was designed to elicit information about the connections between the 3 -Spring Area and culturally connected places elsewhere. This form was specially developed for this project and partially based on information provided by Southern Paiutes in prior projects. The Final Evaluation instrument (Appendix C) was specially designed for this project to elicit exact responses to the Highway 95 proposal and the Big Spring site.
Data Analysis
The data collected through the three instruments were coded into a Microsoft ACCESS data base. This data base software has been used successfully in a number of recent American Indian cultural resource studies. The major advantage of the data base is that it permits quantitative and qualitative data to be coded simultaneously. Indian statements about a place or an issue can be fully included along with simple numeric assessments of the place or issue.
10 Figure 6. Petroglyph site at Red Rocks State Park.
Figure 7. Indian elders viewing a traditional plant, Red Rocks State Park.
11 Figure 8. Ethnographers and Indian consultants at Red Rocks State Park.
Figure 9. Southern Paiute elders viewing a traditional use plant.
12 Most data were coded by the ethnographer who conducted the interview (Figure 10). This permits the ethnographer to add material from the tape while assuring that hand -written answers on the instrument are transferred. A second person double checked a random percentage ofall coded data.
Chronology of Work
May 5 - Arrival to Las Vegas, NV May 6 - Begin first Indian group visit May 7 - Site visits continued May 8 - Data analysis May 9 - Begin second Indian group visit May 10 - Site visits continued May 11- Data analysis May 12 - Begin third Indian group visit May 13 - Site visits continued May 14 - Data analysis
Daily Schedule
Day1:
8.00 am Leave Hotel
8.30 am Orientation at Las Vegas Indian Center, Las Vegas, NV
9.30 am Site 1: Stone Mortar Site Landscape Interview conducted
12.30 pm Lunch
2.00 pm Site 2: Kiel ranch Site Specific Interview conducted
5.00 pm Return to Hotel
Day 2:
8.00 am Leave Hotel
8.30 am Site 3: Lorenzi Park (Twin Lakes)
13 Site Specific Interview conducted
11.00 am Visit Nevada Historical Society Museum
12.30 pm Lunch
2.00 pm Red Rock Canyon State Park Final Evaluation Interview conducted
5.00 pm Return home
Figure 10. Ethnographer interviewing Pahrump Paiute elder.
14 Chapter Two Contextualizing Indian Opinions
The purpose of this chapter is to provide the reader with some backgroundinformation which will help clarify Southern Paiute peoples' opinions about this project.This essay is designed to explain Indian testimony, but it is not intended in any way to testIndian testimony. What Indian people say about a place stands on its own, backed by the authorityof the tribal governments who review and approve of this report.
This chapter has two main sections: (1) Southern Paiute ethnohistory, and (2) a definition of technical terms. Each of these sections provide usefulbackground information or specifically describes places discussed in subsequent chapters.
Paiute Views of Their Culture
Southern Paiute people have resided in their traditional lands for manygenerations. Southern Paiutes, Western Shoshone, Owens Valley Paiutes, Utes,and Goshutes are all collectively called Numic or Numa people - a term that refers to theirlanguage and common cultural traditions. According to some archaeologists, cultural anthropologists,and linguists who accept the "Numic Spread" theory (Bettinger andBaumhoff 1983), Paiute people came into the region by at least 1150 AD (Euler 1964, Shutler 1961). Otherarchaeologists (Torgier 1995; Whitley 1994a, 1994b), cultural anthropologists (Stoffle, Halmo, Evans,Olmsted 1990), and linguists (Shaul 1986) cite data that support the theory that the Numicpeoples have continuously lived in the Great Basin and western Colorado Plateau for thousandsof years. The Southern Paiute people perceive that they have always been in this region since they wereplaced here by the Creator.
During the U.S. Claim Commission hearings, the aboriginal boundariesof many Indian groups were established (Sutton 1985).The Southern Paiute ethnic group aboriginal boundary was established by the U.S. ClaimsCommission, using various sources which included travelers' observations in the late 1700's (Bolton 1950), Euroamerican settlers' diariesand official government surveys in the mid -1800s (Little 1881; Powelland Ingalls 1874), and oral history interviews in the 1930s (see Figure 11; Kelly 1934, 1964; Kelly and Fowler1986; Stewart 1942). In addition to the Claims Commission documents, recentethnographic studies have further refined the aboriginal boundary (see Figure 12; Bunte and Franklin 1987;ERT 1980, Halmo, Stoffle, and Evans 1993; Stoffle, Halmo, Evans, and Olmsted 1990; Stoffle,Austin, Halmo, Phillips 1997).
15 Figure 11. Kelly's map of Southern Paiute districts (revised; Kelly and Fowler 1986:369)
16 SEV %ILK LAKa
4
PANUTE MEiA
7a S
e
J O not.ODLp ^MT3
AA OLD A WOt1AN Mrs. 3OUTHERN pAIUTENATION:
rAMi ._ ..tubtrìbe. bound.o.ey _tre.nniol s+ eta rn - _ . ìNáarmittor* !}YiO.rr
ALA PAt
Figure 12. Puaxant Tuvip: The Southern Paiute Holy Land
17 Efforts by Euroamerican scholars to define a boundary and an origin time for the Southern Paiutes are perceived by Paiute people themselves to be overshadowed byreligious knowledge about traditional ethnic territory and the events by which the people came toinhabit it. According to traditional Paiute beliefs, Paiute people were created in thesetraditional lands. Through this creation, the Creator gave Paiute people a special supernatural responsibility to protect and manage the land and its resources. In Euroamericanterminology, this land is their Holy Land (Spicer 1957: 197, 213), and a portion of it is under the supervision of thePahrump Paiutes (see Figure 12).
The Southern Paiute people believe that they were created by the supernatural near Charleston Peak -- called Nava yantu [herein rendered as Nuvagantu] -- located in the Spring Mountains (Kroeber 1970, Laird 1976, Stoffle and Dobyns 1983). According to Laird (1976:122):
In prehuman times Nivaganti was the home of Wolf and his brother, Mythic Coyote. It was the very heart of TiwiinYarivipi, the Storied Land.
There was and is no place in Southern Paiute traditional territory more sacred than theSpring Mountains and the areas around them. One author has noted that Charleston Peak is the most powerful of all cosmic centers in the southern and central Great Basin (Miller 1983:72). Concerns for this sacred area have been expressed repeatedly over the past 20 years incultural resource studies involving Southern Paiutepeople (Stoffle and Dobyns 1982, 1983a; Stoffle, Dobyns and Evans 1983; Stoffle, Evans, Harshbarger 1988).
Creation Stories
Southern Paiute oral scriptures that have been recorded generally resemble Christian Genesis and other creation stories in terms of placing the people on the earth. While there are different versions of this story, the following account derives from southern California and was provided by a Chemehuevi Paiute (Laird 1976). According to this account, Southern Paiutes believe that originally there was only water. Ocean Woman (Hutsipamamau ?u) then created dry land (Laird 1976:148 -149). Once there was land, Creator Coyote and Wolf lived on Charleston Peak. Creator Coyote later saw tracks of a woman, but when he caught up with her, she was a louse (Poo ?wavi). Coyote propositioned her, and she agreed to the proposal on the condition that he build them a house. He ran ahead, built a house, and when Louse caught up she magically put Coyote to sleep and continued on. This happened four times before they reached the Pacific Coast. Louse set out to swim to her home island with Coyote on her back. She dived, andCoyote let go and turned himself into a water -spider. He reached the island first, and was waiting for Louse when she arrived. Louse's mother wove a large basket while Coyote enjoyed Louse (Kroeber 1908:240; Laird 1976:150 -151). Then Louse's mother sealed the basket, and gave it to Coyote to tow back to land. As a water -spider, he did so. As Coyote, he found the basket growing heavy, became full of curiosity, and he opened it before reaching Nuvagantu. Louse's eggs had hatched in the basket and became human beings. The new human beings emerged from the now
18 opened basket and began to scatter in all directions over the land. By the time Coyote returned to Nuvagantu, only weaklings, cripples and excrement remained in the basket. On Charleston Peak, Wolf (Kroeber 1908:240 says it was Coyote) used his greater power to create the Chemehuevis and their Southern Paiute kindred. The darker color of Southern Paiute skin is attributed to the ingredients used by Wolf to create them. Because it is the place where the Southern Paiutepeople were created, Nuvagantu -- Charleston Peak --is holy to Southern Paiutes.
For each Southern Paiute tribal group there is a slightly different version of this story (e.g., Lowie 1924, for Shivwits version; Sapir 1930, for Kaibab) "which highlightsthe sacredness of their own local tribal territory" (Bunte and Franklin 1987:227). The Shivwits storyhas the emergence point at Buckskin Mountain inKaibab territory (Lowie 1924:104). In general terms, however, Southern Paiute origin stories share much in common. In the San Juan Paiute version of the Creation story the culture heros (both Wolf and Coyote) are called Shunangwav, a name which also translates into English as "God" or the "Great Spirit" (Bunte and Franklin 1987:33). In the San Juan story, Coyote untied the sack [basket in other versions] near Page,Arizona, and there was made the Southern Paiute people. For this version of the origin story, thecreation place of all Paiutes is in local territory of the San Juan Paiutes (Bunte and Franklin 1987:227). By moving the place of their ethnic group's origin, local Paiute groups strengthen their identification with the ethnic group itself and solidify their cosmological ties to that specific portion of Southern Paiute ethnic territory.
Despite local variations in the identification of the ethnic group's place of origin, all portions of traditional ethnic territory remain sacred to all Southern Paiute people. Puaxantu Tuvip (variant Puaruvwip) is the Southern Paiute term which translates into "sacred land" (Stoffle and Dobyns 1982). The Paiute term pua is cognate to the Shoshone term puha, or "power" (Franklin and Bunte 1993b:3; Miller 1983). The term puaxantu is a derivativeof the term pua; it may be transliterated as "powerful" or "(sacred) power."Thus the indigenous Paiute term would refer to sacred or powerful lands, that is landstraditionally occupied by the ethnic group that are made powerful by being wherethe creator placed the Paiute people.
The Federal government recognizes that all Southern Paiute people are directly associated with all portions of their aboriginal territory. This stipulation became the legal conclusionof the Federal government when at the end of the Indian Claim Commission hearings all Southern Paiute people received an equal financial compensation for the loss of aboriginal territory. Many local, state, and federal agencies have set the standard for government -to- government consultation by further recognizing what the Federal government and the Southern Paiute people recognize - that all Southern Paiute people have a sacred tie and contemporary right to be aware of and respond to actions that potentially impact traditional natural and cultural resourceswithin the Southern Paiute Holy Land.
19 Traditional Southern Paiute Political Units
The Southern Paiute nation, before historic disruption, was comprised of several levels of political organization including possibly two or more major subdivisions orsubtribes, a dozen or more districts, and numerous local groups -- sometimes referred to as bands --within each district. Some of the evidence of hierarchical organization comes fromLaird's (1976) documentation of Chemehuevi institutions, elicited from her Chemehuevi husband, George Laird.
Leaders occupied a special status with special symbols very visible in pre -contact Southern Paiute society. So- called High Chiefs could wear turquoise. The elite spoke a special language known as "tivitsi ?ampagapi" (Real Speech) as well as normal Southern Paiute.High Chiefs chanted it with a strong accent. Living members of the elite preserved that special elite language into the final decade of the nineteenth century. Quail -beans (kakaramurih), orblack - eyed peas, became a special dietary item for the chiefly elite (Laird 1976:24).Leaders employed a specialized corps of runners to transmit communications. These runners were probably young men who were especially selected for this task (Laird 1976:47), andGeorge Laird was one of the last of these runners (cf. Nabokov 1981).
The High Chiefs
It appears that a small sub -set of the elite Paiutes provided all of the SouthernPaiute people with socio- religious, economic, and political leadership. Evidence suggests thatthe Paiute people selected a principal chief or High Chief to govern the nation bysitting in a leadership capacity over local chiefs. There appears also to have been regional chiefsthat were not considered the High Chief. The position of HighChief appears to have played important political, economic, and cultural roles before European contact, which is generallyconsidered to be after the 1770s during the Spanish period. Thebasic concept of the position High Chief continued until the middle of the Twentieth Century.
After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago in 1848, Southern Paiute territory became a part of the United States, and we begin to find official references to the High Chiefs.Beginning in the 1850s, the elite male leadership of the Southern Paiutes are referred to as HighChiefs by a variety of Euroamericans. Southern Paiute leaders were recorded by Mormon settlerssuch as J. Hamblin in 1854 and A. Jensen in 1855; federal government surveyors such asWheeler in 1869 and J. Powell and G. W. Ingalls in 1872; regional historians such as William R.Palmer in the 1880s, and ethnographers such as J. Steward in the 1920s.
Some U.S. Federal and Mormon Church officials called Tutseguvits, who lived on the Santa Clara River in Southern Utah, the Head Chief of the Paiute people.He was called Head Chief for a decade, from 1859 (Forney 1859:73) until 1869 (Fenton 1869:203). In1869, Wheeler (1887, Vol 2, 37) named Tercherum as the "principal chief' of the area. Another U.S.
20 official in the early 1870s (Powell and Ingalls 1873) perceived that a single tribal chief named Tagon exercised some authority over all Southern Paiutes.
Chiefs of Alliance
In the early 1870s Southern Paiute enumeration, Powell and Ingalls also perceived the functioning of High Chiefs as heads of what they called confederacies of local groups (Fowler and Fowler 1971:108). They identified a dozen Chief of Alliance and created a special column in the report indicating their role over other leaders who were called just "Chiefs" (Fowler and Fowler 1971:105). One of these dozen Chiefs of Alliance was named To-ko-pur, and he provided leadership for local chiefs who headed at least seven local lineage bands which were based in the (1) Vicinity of Potosi, (2) Pa -room Spring, (3) Kingston Mountain, (4) Ivanpah, (5) Providence Mountain, (6) Ash Meadows, and (7) Amargosa (Fowler and Fowler 1971:104 -105; Laird 1976:24).
These seven local lineage bands roughly correspond to the boundary of what is called the Pahrump Paiute district (see discussion later in this chapter). It is also interesting to note that Powell and Ingalls recorded the presence of other Chiefs of Alliances heading combinations of local lineage bands whose territory added up to a Southern Paiute district.In another case, when we add up the territory of the local lineages of under Tau' -gu innorthern Arizona and southern Utah, the area totals most of the area of the Yanawant subtribe.
In parallel fashion, neighboring Shoshone groups in southern Nevada were recorded to have had a position of Alliance Chief (and perhaps High Chief). The main camp of one Alliance Chief was called Waungiakuda, which is a place at the foot of Pahute Mesawhere Indian people continued to live until the Twentieth Century. Then, for unknown reasons,the family members dispersed. In the late 19th Century, the site was occupied on a full timebasis and served as a place where people from the region wanted to visit for various reasons. It was the home (perhaps one of the homes) of Wangagwana, who was known as the "chief ofthis general region" in the 1930s, years after his death (Steward 1938:95). The village site was thebirth place and early residence of Wangagwana's son who the non -Indians called Panamint Joe and who the Indian people considered as "Chief of the Shoshone" during the Rhyolite mining boom about 1906 (Steward 1938:95). Waungiakuda was a place to visit for hunting, gathering, trade, and ceremony in the late 19th Century.
Steward (1938) noted the presence of many local chiefs based on his interviews in the 1930s and Laird independently conducted interviews that recorded the presence of localchiefs who led a number of local groups made up of lineage bands (Laird 1976:24). There are strong data -based arguments for the existence of a traditional system of local, regional, and national chiefs among the Southern Paiutes. This traditional political leadership system was stressed and eventually declined in frequency and function due to invasions by Euroamericans, their animals, and their diseases. Eventually, scholars and lay persons alike were to characterize Southern Paiute people has lacking political organization above the family level.
21 Disease and Sociopolitical Disruption
Perhaps the most important factor in sociopolitical change among the Southern Paiutes was arrival of European diseases. Diseases are welldocumented in more recent times as having devastated Indian communities. These destructive events began probably when the first pandemics spread north from Mexico City in the 1500s, but we have little evidence of the exact social and cultural impacts in that early period. Later during the Spanish occupation of northern New Spain we find a rather complete record of diseases and their impacts among the neighbors of Southern Paiutes. In the south we find clear evidence for the lower Colorado River tribes in the 1700s. To the east we find a good record of events for the Pueblos, especially the Hopi who were the immediate trading partners of the Paiutes.
Table 2.1 presents the best known disease episodes that may have spread to the Southern Paiutes between 1520 and 1837. Most of these episodes were well documented because of regular Spanish contact with various Pueblo peoples after 1625. One well documented event occurred between 1777 and 1780. The rains in northern Arizona had failed for three years and the Hopi were low on crops, water, and pastures for their herds. According to John (1975:593), disease bred in the scant, stagnant water deposits, and the Hopi people, weakened by hunger, had little resistance to sickness. In the spring of 1780 the Spanish governor Anza marched a troop of solders to the Hopi to convince them to submit to Spanish policy. According to John (1975:596), the smallpox epidemic that was now ravaging the Pueblos in New Mexico also had hit the Hopi. In less than five years since Father Escalante had calculated the Hopi population at 7,494, now only 798 people remained (John 1975:600). Anza documented that some Hopi had moved to the Colorado River to live with the Havasupai and others had set out for New Mexico on their own. Nonetheless, many were dead. Two of the seven Hopi villages had been totally abandoned and none had more than45 members in them.
Still the best evidence of disease episodes influencing the Southern Paiutes comes during the 1840s when wagon train after wagon train arrived in the region from the eastern United States.
22 Table 2.1: Major Epidemic Episodes of Old World Diseases Among Pueblo Peoples That May Have Spread to Southern Paiutes Trading at Oraibi6
Date Disease
1837 Typhoid fever and smallpox
1826 Measles
1816 Smallpox
1799 -1800 Smallpox, apparently pandemic
1780 -1781 Small pox, clearly pandemic
1759 Smallpox
1748 Smallpox
1738 Smallpox, apparently pandemic
1728 -1729 Measles
1719 Smallpox
1695 -1699 Fever, smallpox
1671 Pestilence
1635 Measles
1613 -1617 Bubonic Plague
1592 Measles
1564 Smallpox
1545 -1548 Bubonic and pneumonic plague, evidently pandemic
1531 -1533 Measles, possibly chickenpox, scarlet fever, or a combination
1520 -1524 Smallpox, pandemic in Hemisphere
6 Detailed citations are available for each disease episode in Stoffle, Jones, Dobyns 1995:196.
23 1840 - 1875 Depopulation
Depopulation from diseases transmitted by European immigrants who passed through and moved into Southern Paiute riverine oases caused many nationaland many subtribal social, political, and cultural functions to be largely eliminated by the late 1850s(Stoffle, Jones, and Dobyns 1995). Ten diseases (measles, cholera, malaria, tuberculosis, scarletfever, whooping cough, typhoid fever, intestinal parasites, mumps, and smallpox)assaulted Southern Paiute peoples from 1847 until 1856. These ten diseases accounted for thedeaths of thousands of Southern Paiutes and the depopulation continued throughout the 19th Century.
Table 2.2 presents both a summary of known diseases and a model for better understanding their impacts on the Southern Paiute people. The table assumes ahypothetical Southern Paiute population of 1,000 individuals in 1845 and assess theimpacts of various epidemic and endemic diseases over the next 11 years. The figures usedin the model are to illustrate hypothetical impacts. All the figures would be proportionally largerif the actual population of Southern Paiutes in 1845 were 10,000 people. Similarly, theimpacts of each episode or on -going impacts of endemic diseases are estimates based oncomparable events elsewhere. While the actual number can be argued, the evidence suggestsdrastic population declines during just this critical decade. And, as the next section willdemonstrate, disease impacts were to continue well into the 20th century.
1875 -1900 Depopulation
A 1905 newspaper in southern Nevada carried a story about Mr. HarshaWhite, who took the 1900 U.S. Census. White is quoted as saying that "the Piute(sic) population has decreased 60 percent since 1890" (Stoffle, Olmsted, andEvans 1990: 113 -114). White was the son -in -law of Joseph Yount who settled atwhat was called Manse Springs in Pahrump Valley in 1876 (McCracken 1990:12). Yount was quoted by Brooks (1970:11 -12)during an 1886 interview as having said to his new wife when she arrived and asked "Were are we?"
We are in Palorump [sic, Pahrump] Valley, Nye County, Nevada, and Mr. Bennett, six miles distance, is our only neighbor, except that we consider the hundreds of roving Paiutes neighbors...
24 Table 2.2: Epidemic Disease Mortality Model of Numic- Speaking Native American Population Change, 1847 -1856 (estimated)7 Date Disease Rate Loss Population
1845 1,000
1849 Measles 25% 250 750
1849 Cholera 15% 113 637
1849 Malaria 15% 64 573
1850 Tuberculosis 5% 29 544
1851 Malaria 3% 16 528
1851 Tuberculosis 3% 16 512
1852 Malaria 3% 15 497
1852 Tuberculosis 3% 15 482
1853 Scarlet fever 20% 96 386
1853 Whooping cough 15% 58 328
1853 Malaria 3% 10 318
1853 Tuberculosis 3% 10 308
1854 Typhoid & /or 10% 31 277 parasites
1854-55 Mumps 50% 138 139
1855 Malaria 2% 3 136
, 1855 Tuberculosis 2% 3 133
1856 Malaria 2% 3 130
1856 Tuberculosis 2% 3 127
See Stoffle, Jones, and Dobyns 1995:192 for full citations and discussion of the model.
25 White graduated from the University of Missouri in 1870, traveled west with the Yount family as a teacher, and married Maude Yount in 1872. Like hisfather -in -law, White knew and interacted frequently with the local Paiute people. Both White and Yount are pictured with Chief Tecopa around 1900, suggesting they had a special relationship with the Paiute leader and the local Indian community (McCracken 1990:5). As a college educated man with first hand local experience, White spoke with authority about Paiute population declines between 1890 and 1900. White was in a position to have directly observed the deaths of many Southern Paiute people, especially those in the Pahrump region.
Twentieth Century High Chiefs
The deaths of many Southern Paiute people meant that traditional socio- political units which had reflected the needs of denser aboriginal populations could no longer be maintained. However, despite the loss of people and the lessened need for national -level political, economic, and social power, some aspects of national and subtribal leadership persisted.
Chief Tecopa
In the early 1930s, Julian Steward (1938:185) recorded that a chief from the region of Pahrump and Ash Meadows, named Takopa [sic, Tecopa] was a leader of "all the Southern Paiutes." The Indian people who Steward (1938:185) interviewed in 1930s stated that the
Paiute of the Pahrump and Las Vegas regions were never unified in a single band. AH names a succession of three Las Vegas chiefs (towin'dum): Patsadum, who died many years ago; then Tasidu'dum, who also died many years ago; then A:udia', who was recently killed. For the region of Ash Meadows and Pahrump he named Takopa (who was probably born at Las Vegas and died at Pahrump about 1895 [actually 1905]). Takopa's main function was to direct the festival. ChB added that when Mojave raided Las Vegas people, Takopa might assist them, perhaps even taking command.
It is interesting that the people Steward interviewed could list the names of three Las Vegas area chiefs, but only listed Tecopa as the chief of the Pahrumpregion. Perhaps this reflects the fact that Tecopa had been the Chief of the Pahrump Paiute region from early 1870s until 1905, or approximately two generations.
Continuities in Southern Paiute Political Leadership
Chief Penance
After his death in 1904, Tecopa was replaced by another southern Nevada leader. Steward suggests the new High Chief was named Benjamin and was a veteran scout of the
26 United States Army who had lived at Tule Springs near Las Vegas (Steward 1938:185).Local newspapers, however, named Jack Penance as the newHigh Chief.
The center of national authority shifted from Pahrump to Las Vegas with theselection of Jack Panance as High Chief. This was the first time the High Chief had not livedwith the Pahrump Paiutes since at least 1874. This shift also means that the Pahrump Paiutedistrict began to be lead by a district chief rather than a regional or national chief.
Chief Skinner
When Chief Penance died in 1933 he was replaced by Chief Harry Skinner. The newspaper account covering this important political event wasentitled "Piutes Install New Chieftain at Tribe Ceremonial." This newspaper article documents the continuation ofPaiute national -level leadership well into the second half of the Twentieth Century. The Tonopah Daily Times- Bonanza (Oct.4,1933:4,1) recorded the inauguration of the SouthernPaiute chief as follows
With a mournful chant pouring from 300 aboriginal throats...the Southern Nevada Piute tribe, including Indians of Southern Utah, Southern Nevada and Northwestern Arizona, installed a new chief recently. Their old chief, Jack Penance...was killed recently in a very 20th century automobile, loaded with blankets, his squaw and about eight children (when it) blew a tire and overturned. One of his friends, known to white men asBaboons, served as head of the Nevada Indians a short time until a pow -wow could be set and distant Piutes called into meeting. Over desert roads they came, many by foot, horseback and wagon, but the number who maneuvered themselves andfamilies to the reservation in rattling, brass -bound flivvers wasamazing to old time desert dwellers...Harry Skinner, a young government Reeducated Piute from Arizona, was named Chief...
Because Harry Skinner was from northern Arizona, it is possible that this electionshifted the center of national leadership to the northern portions of theSouthern Paiute Nation. The election of a new national Chief in 1933 clearly documents that the traditional positionof High Chief continued to have some functions and value to all Southern Paiute people.This event illustrates that Southern Paiute people and traditional society persisted into the Twentieth Century, as they struggled to maintain social and political structures when possible andalways maintain their deep personal attachments to their supernaturally -given ecosystems that continued to sustain Paiute people.
s "Baboon"was the nickname of Jack Laug, who wasDaisy Mike's mother's brother. Mrs. Mike was a Las Vegas Paiute elder who was taped during an tribal historyinterview in 1974 by Jackie Rice and Floyd O'Neil (Rice and O'Neil 1974: Mike tape transcript, p.24).
27 Technical Terms
This section of the chapter discusses two technical concepts that are critical to understanding why Indian people participated in this project: (1) cultural affiliation and (2) cultural landscape. These concepts are discussed here because they are a part of the legal background to cultural resource consultation and help explain how Indian people organize their ideas about cultural resources. These are brief essays and do not represent a full discussion of either concept. References and some guidance are provided for the reader who would like more information. Both essays reflect articles published elsewhere which are used for tiering in this report.
Technical Term #1: Cultural Affiliation
The first decision in any American Indian ethnographic assessment is to establish which American Indian ethnic groups are potentially culturally affiliated with the location(s) being studied. The term affiliation implies that the relationship between Native Americans and the land is cultural. There is no formula to define how long a people must live on land in order to establish a cultural affiliation. In general, the length of time American Indian people have spent on the land will vary from groups who perceive they have lived there since thebeginning of creation to groups who have had a brief but culturally significant experience on the land. When periods of time are chosen as the frames for viewing cultural affiliation, three broad divisions emerge (1) traditional period, (2) aboriginal period, and (3) historicperiod. It is important to remember that Native Americans may use other definitions of time, including a pre -human time which is without measure, that is essentially timeless.
Traditional Period
The traditional period occurred before the arrival of Euroamericans in the New World. It involves any American Indian group who may have used the site under study. Some people may have used it thousands of years ago, and today there are no obvious ethnic groups who are their direct ancestors. Other people may have used the site in the distant past and today their descendants are represented by nearby tribes. The connection between peoples who once occupied a site and living Indian people is debated today whenever there are some disagreements between the science of archaeology and the oral traditions of living tribes. The connection is also subject to debate when Indian tribes disagree as to connections with past peoples.
Southern Paiute people generally believe that they alone have lived in the Las Vegas Valley since the beginning of time and that it was their ancestors who farmed at the major valley springs and along the Colorado River and traded for pottery made by the ancestors of the contemporary Pueblos. However, it is possible that in the distant past people currently identified with the Hopi and Zuni peoples lived in this area. This cultural affiliation debate cannot be resolved at this time through this study. So, a full consultation with all potentially culturally
28 affiliated Indian tribes would include an invitation to one or more of the Pueblos. This option is not included in the current study design because neither the Hopi nor the Zuni tribes have as yet responded to earlier contacts by letter, but such a visit can easily be added to the study if desired.
Aboriginal Period
The term aboriginal is used here to refer to those people who are recognized by the U.S. government as having possession of a site at the time it was lost to the United States. For many Native Americans groups, this transfer involved a treaty negotiated between their people and the government of the United States. For many other Indian ethnic groups, they simply were moved away from their aboriginal lands without formal transference of title. These twounique processes of land loss produced two types of aboriginal period cultural affiliations for Native Americans, who are termed here (1) treaty- tribes and (2) land -claim tribes.
During the U.S. Claims Commission hearings it was determined that from the Las Vegas region to the Colorado River was the aboriginal lands of the Southern Paiute ethnic group (Docket # 122, 145) and that the eastern side of the river was the aboriginal lands of the Walapai ethnic group (Docket #143). The Mohave ethnic group was determined to have occupied the Colorado River from below the study area to about Blyth, California (Docket #144). There was no evidence submitted that the Hopi or Zuni occupiedthe study area during the aboriginal period.
The U.S. Federal government gained control over these lands in 1848 after signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with the Mexican government. All of the Southern Paiute tribes, including the then federally unrecognized Pahrump Paiutes and San Juan Paiutes, received an equal share of the land claims payment. This payment distribution reflected the Paiute and the Federal understanding that Southern Paiute aboriginal lands belonged equally to all the Southern Paiute people.
Historic Period
The historic period begins when Euroamericans begin to record the culture of the Indian people. For Southern Paiutes it technically began in 1776 when Fathers Escalante and Domingues traveled through the upper portion of Southern Paiute territory and wrote about their culture. The same year, Father Garces traveled north from Mohave territory into Chemehuevi Paiute lands and arrived in Las Vegas on February 26th where he interviewed approximately 40 persons. After this time, Las Vegas was visited repeatedlyby illegal trading expeditions from Santa Fe to California. American, French, Canadians, and Spanish citizens traveled the Old Spanish Trail which was built by connecting a series of traditional Indian trading trails.
During the Mexican period, after independence from Spain in 1821, the new government loosened trade relationships with both the U.S. and California and the Old Spanish trail was officially opened in 1829 for trade in both directions. Soon, travelers of all nationalities were using the trail, including American Indians from various ethnic groups.
29 It may be useful at this point in the discussion to describe the relationship between Southern Paiutes and Euroamerican invaders as seen through the 1855 diaries of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) missionaries to the Las Vegas valley and the Colorado River. These diaries provide eyewitness accounts that are useful for understanding who owned the land, the response of Paiute people to Euroamericans coming into aboriginal lands, and the cultural significance of the land at that time.
Ownership of Land
There was never any question in the minds of the LDS settlers in the Las Vegas spring area that the land in 1855 was still owned bythe various Southern Paiute communities in the region. In a letter to the Deseret News (Jensen 1926:146) dated "Las Vegas, July 10, 1855," William Bringhurst wrote "Shortly after we arrived here, we assembled all the chiefs, and made an agreement (treaty) with them for permission to make asettlement on their lands." It is interesting that the official LDS position was that they expected to eventually own all of the land and that the U.S. Federal government was the interloper. For this reason, the LDS mission leaders were making what they perceived as government -to- government treaties with thelegal owners of the land.
Response to Encroachment by Euroamericans
By 1855, when the LDS church decided to establish a settlement at the Las Vegas springs, the Southern Paiute people had been pushed away from the springs themselves, but were still farming on the Colorado River at this time. According to Jensen (1926: 140), who references an 1855 letter between two Mormon settlersduring an exploring trip to the Colorado River, which is about 28 miles from the springs where the fort was being constructed,
We found about 50 Indians (Piedes) on the Colorado, in a perfect state of nudity, except breechclouts; the men and women all dressed alike. They had raised alittle wheat on a sandbank; it was all ripe and harvested. They were very friendly.
The exact location of this Paiute village is unknown, but was probably within about 31 miles of the fort. It can be assumed that the site was at or near the delta of the Las Vegas creek as it joined the Colorado River.
The forced relocation of Southern Paiute people from the major springs in the Las Vegas valley was accomplished by hostile interactions with Euroamericans and by disease episodes derived from European contact (Stoffle, Jones, and Dobyns 1995). The initial encroachment was during the Spanish and Mexican periods when herds of horses were moved from Santa Fe to California over what was to be called the Old Spanish Trail. Few records were produced or survived these early periods to describe the interactions between Paiutes and these Hispanic herder /traders. Given that Santa Fe and Abiquiu were places for the sale of Paiute people into slavery (Hafen and Hafen Vol. 2, 1954:21, 261 -262; John 1975, Poling -Kempes 1997: Photo of
30 Juan de Dios Gallegos), it can be assumed that relations were unfriendly and that Paiute reactions to both human and animal intrusion into Paiute farming oasis was hostile.
The U.S. citizens who began to move across Paiute lands from oasis to oasis soon brought even more adverse impacts to Paiute people and their oases. After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the discovery of gold in what would become California in 1849, the travelers known as the '49ers streamed down the front range of the Wasach Mountains, through Mountain Meadows at the headwaters of theTonoquint (Santa Clara River), along the Rio Virgin to the Muddy River, to the Las Vegas springs, and thence south to one of a number of turnoffs across Paiute lands which would come to be called the Mohave Desert. One early '49er group (the Manly- Rogers party) left Mountain Meadow with a Paiute guide and struck out across southern Nevada toward Death Valley. This group would record the farthest west Paiute farm which was at Cane Spring, a location now within the Nevada Test Site. This party recorded that they found an Indian farm where they saw a cornfield with the stalks remaining after the harvest (Koenig 1984:86 -93). Like others before and after them, they helped themselves to harvested fruits of the Paiute agricultural fields. In fact, the Manly- Rogers party stayed nine days devouring the winter's store of squash which they found there and fattening their oxen on the stubble in the cornfield (Lingenfelter 1986:42) and went on without apparent concern for the potential adverse impacts to the Paiute farmers and his/her family.
In the summer of 1855, when the LDS Las Vegas settlers were leaving Cedar City the recent behaviors of the Southern Paiutes were assessed by Elder Haight in a letter to LDS President Snow (Jensen 1926: 128 -129), where he noted that some of the missionaries had experience living near Paiute people on the Rio Virgen (sic) and Santa Clara River. According to Haight, these LDS members had attempted to dissuade the Paiutes from fighting against the white men (Americans) who pass through their (Paiute) country, an action which the Paiutes had been accustomed to do. The hostile Indian response is attributed by Haight to the American pattern of shooting the Paiutes as they would shoot a wolf, so that now the Paiutes regarded every white man as their enemy.
Setting aside the LDSs'own hostile behaviors towards the American travelers, it is reasonable to assume some hostile Paiute responses to both the presence and behavior of travelers. It was, after all, a period when the Paiutes were still in control of most traditional lands, even though the riverine ecosystems were rapidly being lost to travelers and settlers.
Cultural Significance of Land
Few of the Euroamerican travelers and settlers had any interest in talking with the Paiute people about the cultural significance of the Las Vegas valley during these early encounters. One of the Las Vegas settlers, however, did just this and recorded the earliest account of the Las Vegas valley and the nearby mountains as sacred places. George Bean wrote a letter on December 11, 1855, which contained a number of cultural and linguistic observations which
31 obviously reflect the thoughts of a person who was inquiring about Indian society and culture. He wrote (Jensen 1926:187 -188):
The language of these Indians is somewhat different from the Utahs, though probably they have once been the same nation. These say that the Utahs and Pahvantes are branches of this nation, and if their traditions are true it must be the case, for they say that the two great brothers (Shenoub and Tewots) used to live on the mountain close by here. It was here they quarreled and Shenoub, or the devil, took advantage of his older brother, killed him and stole his wife, but after 24 hours, some say 3 days, Tewots came to life again and then commenced the great war which continued until they both left the country, but not until they had peopled this and the surrounding country. There is hardly a mountain or canyon that is not reverenced by them upon some account or other. (emphasis added)
These brief historic accounts provide eyewitness information about a largely independent Southern Paiute people under threat from human and animal encroachment. The full story is beyond the scope of this report; however, a couple of points can be made. First, Paiutes had farms where there was water and the freedom to farm. They owned the land in the Las Vegas region and tried to hold it through direct physical confrontations when this was possible, and later through raids on travelers and settlers. Paiutes were created by the Supernatural in the Las Vegas valley, making the area highly sacred. Therefore, this study is focused on eliciting Southern Paiute cultural evaluations and assessments of potential impacts to their lands that may derive from the proposed highway expansion project.
Technical Term #2: Cultural Landscape
American Indian people typically want to provide the fullest protection possible for their cultural resources found beyond the bounds of tribal reservations. Federal and state land managers also want to protect these cultural resources, thus complying with relevant and related laws. Since the mid -1970s when Indian concerns began to be formally incorporated into cultural studies, there has been a major gap between what Indian people want to protect and how much protection managers of non -reserved land are willing and able to provide. In general, Indian people desire holistic conservation, which means "these are our lands, even if others control them, and we wish no further development or damage to occur here" (Stoffle and Evans 1990). Unfortunately, from an Indian perspective, few land managers are able to follow this expressed desire. Often federal and state lands are required by law to permit and even encourage development of and open public access to the land. When development cannot be eliminated, Indian people are faced with a forced -choice situation; they can either recommend certain places for protection or withdraw from participation and have projects proceed without their input. This forced -choice decision results in what has been called cultural triage (Stoffle and Evans 1990), that is, making a recommendation to protect some cultural resources or areas before others. Cultural triage places in the hands of Indian people the right to choose what to protect first, and to make this choice based on their own criteria.
32 Today, many Indian people and tribes have selected places for special protection andland managers have used these recommendations tominimize adverse impacts to these cultural resources.
A number of scientific procedures have been developed to help translate the cultural concerns of Indian people so land managers canmake culturally appropriate decisions. One such procedure is calculating the cultural significance of Indian plants,animals, and artifacts and using these numeric values to select places having the highest valuesfor protection (Stoffle, Halmo, Olmsted, and Evans 1990). Calculating values for cultural resources andthe places they reside does not replace Indian styles of expression, but it is instead aparallel approach to the common goal of providing maximum cultural resource protection to the most culturally significant resources and places.
Cultural resource protection laws are another driving force behind the need to triage cultural resources and the places where they occur. Historically, these lawsbegin with the premise that some things and places are more important than others, and only the most significant places should be afforded protection. Once this premise isestablished, then determining the criteria for assigning significance logically follows. In general,significance derives from some obvious value to the society at large or to science. Initially,these laws were focussed on protecting single properties such as a house or an historic site. Thelaws eventually were broadened to protect archaeological orhistorical districts composed of multiple properties.
Most recently, the concept of traditional cultural property (TCP) has been offered as a tool for identifying and protecting places and objects that have specialcultural significance to American Indian or other U.S. ethnic groups (Parker and King 1990). The TCP conceptis a logical extension of the National Historic Preservation Act, which was initiallydesigned to protect individual buildings and historic objects. Althoughthe TCP concept has been effective in protecting small places of extreme cultural significance, Indian people andscholars alike have questioned whether or not TCP is the best way to conceptualize and protectAmerican Indian cultural resources.
We maintain that American Indian perceptions of land and its resources can be represented as cultural landscapes which are culturally and geographically unique areas. American Indian cultural resources (plants, animals, artifacts, minerals, air, water)tend be viewed by scientists and land managers according to inherent criteria defined by Western scientific concepts. Western scientists tend to study plants, animals, archaeology, androck art without reference to other cultural resources found in the area under study.This isolation of cultural resources by their perceived inherent characteristics has the advantage ofproviding an information -rich discussion about a single type of cultural resource. For example, acomplete study of plants significant to Native Americans is conducted and documented in a separate report that includes specific recommendations for protecting plants.Most Federal preservation laws address a single type of cultural resource, and this piecemeal approach procedure isuseful
33 to managers because it provides recommendations for resource management and preservation according to the predefined resource types. Despite the legal basis for and widespread use of resource -specific studies, these procedures for classifying and managing American Indian cultural resources do not fit and in some cases are quite meaningless in terms of how many American Indian people view cultural resources.
To illustrate this cross -cultural reality, Southern Paiute people tend to view cultural resources as being bound together in broad categories based on functional interdependency and proximity rather than being defined by inherent resource characteristics. Most places where Indian people lived and visited contained the multiple and diverse necessities of life: plants and animals for food, medicinal plants for continued health, paintings and peckings on rock walls telling about historic events and blessing the area where the people gathered, and water to drink and use in ceremonies of all kinds. Paiute people perceive places and the things associated with them as interrelated. For example, some archaeological sites were plant gathering areas, and some animals appear in rock paintings and peckings that depict the relationship between Paiute people and animals.
The key question that confronts Indian people, 'scientists assisting them with cultural resource studies, and agencies which must use the information to make land use policies is "how can we best conceptualize Native American cultural resources ?" Indian people contribute to resource -specific studies because they recognize that doing so has been the best way to protect the resource in a given cultural resource assessment situation. On the other hand, Indian people desire to reassemble the artificially disassociated components of their culture so that the fullest native cultural meanings associated with things and places are recognized and protected.
The idea that American Indian cultural resources can be viewed, evaluated, and protected in new categories is more than repackaging. Employing a holistic analytical perspective is an attempt to seek to understand culturally different cognitions of environment, history, and place. There is a growing scientific literature that demonstrates the importance of different culturally derived cognitions of the environment. Greider's (1993:79) analysis demonstrated that one Native American medicine woman transforms the same plants into Indian and non -Indian medicine, each requiring different culturally expected practices for the medicine to be effective. Winthrop (1994:27 -28) explained disputes over where to include Indian concerns in the Environmental Impact Statement of a proposed ski area by contrasting a U.S. regulatory agency definition of nature as a wilderness lacking humans, with an American Indian definition of nature as oikumene or inhabited world. The Indian people involved in the ski assessment believed that their cultural concerns belonged in all sections of the report and should not be restricted to a human impacts section. Howell (1994:130 -131) pointed out that the conquerors' conceptual removal of native peoples from the natural environment has had adverse impacts on how effectively U.S. national parks have been managed. Consequently, a reconceptualization of nature as human ecology is essential before realistic ecosystem management can occur. Treitler (1994:22 -23) suggested that three Indian tribes have chosen
34 different strategies for interacting with a federal environmental regulatory agency based on their differing cultural perceptions of the environment and the implications of sharing sacred information about the natural landscape being studied. Greider and Garkovitch (1994:8) concluded that:
Cultural groups socially construct landscapes as reflections of themselves. In the process, the social, cultural, and natural environments are meshed and become part of the shared symbols and beliefs of members of the groups. Thus the natural environment and changes in it take on different meanings depending on the social and cultural symbols affiliated with it.
Kelley and Francis' (1993) research with Navajo people suggested that the latter view places as a part of larger landscapes and that it is ethically wrong to refuse to adopt the culturally appropriate categories that people use in their cognitions of the environment. According to Kelley and Francis (1994: 101), even the Navajo Nation's Historic Preservation Department (HPD), when forced to do so by Federal laws, uses a piecemeal approach instead of the culturally appropriate landscape approach of its own people. The Navajo HPD argues (Downer et al. 1994), however, that the HPD is working within U.S. federal regulations while attempting to broaden overly constraining concepts such as history so that data derived from what is called traditional history can be used in the preservation of culturally important places.
Land management agencies manage places. If there are objects, plants, or animals to be protected, the place where the objects are located, or the plants grow, or the animals live is assigned special status. Sometimes the place is the cultural resource, and thus is termed a traditional cultural property (Parker and King 1990). In most instances, however, the place is set aside to protect the cultural resources it contains. Given the reality of contemporary land management practice in the United States, cultural resources ultimately must be studied and managed as geographically coherent units. A key question is "how big do these geographically units have to be to afford acceptable protection to the cultural resources they contain ?"
Both Native Americans and scholars of Native culture propose a number of terms to discuss these geographically coherent units: sacred geography (Walker 1991), spiritual geography (Griffith 1992) sacred landscapes (Carmichael 1994), symbolic landscapes (Grieder 1993) and cultural landscapes (Kelley and Francis 1993, 1994; NPS 1994). Each of these terms conveys similar key elements of what Native peoples often express when they talk about their traditional conceptualization of a holistic view of the land and its cultural resources (Stoffle and Evans 1990).
We chose not to use the terms sacred and spiritual here, even though these labels reflect the intensity of attachment Indian people have for their landscapes. Unfortunately, the terms sacred and spiritual imply in Western epistemology the concept secular, thus limiting cultural resource discussions to what non -Indians perceive to be strictly religious activities. Religious terms are appropriate if a study is only about ceremonial resources, but usually the
35 terms sacred and spiritual cause many Indian cultural resource concerns to be eliminated from the discussion of landscapes.
The term symbolic was not selected for use in this essay because it is not commonly understood, and thus requires technical explication before being useful. Actually, the term symbolic does reflect how landscapes are created by humans and why it is so difficult to find common terms to discuss them. Greider and Garkovich (1994:6), who have a theoretical discussion of how landscapes are created, conclude that humans beings, in essence ..."construct a landscape from nature and the environment through culturally meaningful symbols and then reif(y) it. " Thus, any specific landscape exists and lives only in the minds of social groups. Competing views develop when more than one social group occupies or otherwise has some reason to establish a cultural perception of a landscape. When developmental changes to the landscape are discussed, the assessment of these changes will be affected by which symbolic landscape is being considered. The consequences of planned environmental change can only be understood with reference to a people and their symbolic construction of the landscape.
The term cultural landscape is meaningful because it is widely understood without further explanation, and has official standing in a number of U.S. federal laws, regulations, and guidelines. Perhaps the most detailed federal policy statement on cultural landscapes appears in the National Park Service Cultural Resource Management Guidelines (NPS 1994). There, the agency defines cultural landscapes as complex resources that range from rural tracts to formal gardens (NPS 1994:93). The natural features such as landforms, soils, and vegetation provide the framework within which the cultural landscape evolves. In its broadest sense, a cultural landscape is a reflection of human adaptation to and use of natural resources. A cultural landscape is defined by the way the land is organized and divided, settled, and used, and the types of structures that are built on it.
The NPS stipulates that a cultural landscape is a geographic area, including both natural and cultural resources, associated with an historic event, activity, or person (NPS 1994:94). Using these criteria, the NPS recognizes four cultural landscape categories: (1) historic designed landscapes, which are deliberate artistic creations reflecting recognized styles; (2) historic vernacular landscapes, which illustrate peoples' values and attitudes toward the land and reflect patterns of settlement, use, and development over time; (3) historic sites, which are important for their associations with important events, activities, and persons; and (4) ethnographic landscapes, which are associated with contemporary groups and typically are used or valued in traditional ways. Rural historic landscapes are discussed in Bulletin 30 (McClellan et al. nd).
The NPS definition of cultural landscapes is both similar and dissimilar to definitions often expressed by Native Americans. Both definitions include the land, its natural components, places touched by pre -human spiritual beings, and objects left there by Indian people as these are conceived within the cultural system of the people. Both conceptualizations
36 of cultural landscapes reflect the full range of human activities, all of which areperceived of as being a part of life and thus culturally significant. Native American landscapes,however, are much larger in geographic space than are those considered by the NPS guidelines.The latter suggest that tracts of several thousand acres are the uppersize limit for cultural landscapes (NPS 1994:94). By simply broadening the spatial parameters of cultural landscapes, the NPS and Native American conceptualizations of these cultural resource units can be united.
Levels of Cultural Landscapes
We now outline the major types of cultural landscapes as these are perceived by many American Indian people. In terms of both size and function, there are five types of Native American cultural landscapes: (1) holy landscapes, (2) storyscapes, (3) regional landscapes, (4) ecoscapes, and (5) landmarks.
Holy Lands
Edward Spicer (1957) used the term holy lands to explain one of the broadest and most fundamental connections between American Indian people and the land. "Holy land" is a term that seeks a common land perception in order to convey to non -Indian people thecultural significance of Native American land perceptions. A holy land is created by a supernatural being who establishes a birthright relationship between a people (howeverdefined) and that portion of the earth where they were created. This relationship provides the peoplewith special rights to use and obligations to protect resources on that portion of the earth. The relationshipbetween a people and their holy land cannot be broken, even by a diaspora. Forced relocation byanother ethnic group will not break a relationship created by the supernatural, so holy land tiestend to be viewed similarly by contemporary occupants and those who have moved away.
Although the term "holy land" conveys many similar features between land conceptions held by American Indians and those of people from other societies, there are alsodistinctions. Holy lands tend to be where a people was created by the supernatural, but the location of this place in real and spiritual space may differ. Middle Eastern religions, for example, viewthe surface of the earth as the only existing surface while many Native Americans perceive of living surfaces above and below this one. The holy land on this earth surface may have beenproduced when the people emerged from another earth surface below this one where they wereoriginally created. The center of the Zuni Indian Pueblo is such a place.
The term "holy land" never exactly fits American Indian views of ethic origin lands, but many Indian people have acceptedthis as a gloss for their perception of creation lands and have agreed to assign a term to it. These terms tend not to exist in the Indian language, probably because the concept is foreign. The Navajo Nation, for example, officially uses the English language term Navajoland when referring to an area bounded by the four sacred mountains (Kelley and Francis 1993). The Pima -speaking people of southern Arizona and northern Sonora Mexico refer to their creation land by the Spanish language term Pimeria Alta (Griffin 1992:xix).
37 The use of foreign terms to refer to Indian places is common; after all the term Navajo is a Spanish label for a people who call themselves Dine, and the term Pima is a Hispanicized mis- label for people who call themselves O'odham.
Storyscapes
The term storyscape refers to a portion of a holy land that is delineated by Native American story or song. Storyscapes may even exist outside of holy lands, a point that raises questions about whether storyscapes can serve to integrate humankind as well as the Indian people who hold them.
The structure and meaning of the story landscape or storyscape derives only from where the story or song occurs. The storyscape is held together neither by common topography nor common plant and animal ecology. Quite the contrary,the story or song proceeds from place to place based on the activity it is conveying. Often the story is about spiritual beings that can move without reference to topography; that is, they can fly, swim along underground rivers, pass through mountains, or even move telekinetically.
A great variety of storyscapes crisscross the landscape of American Indian holy lands. Many of these involve a time before today's humans existed, what some would call a mythic time. The term "mythic" implies only another time before present time; it certainly does not implythat either that time or the stories were fictitious. A story about the movements of mythic beings conveys the sense of purpose in the behavior of themythic beings, but the story itself also is tied to places where either events occurred or the mythic being specificallyestablished some relationship with the landscape (Kelley and Francis 1994). Vecsey (1988: 145) concludes that in Navajo myth physical place is as important as what is happening in the story because
the geographic references tend to emphasize the movement and vivacity of the hero...the mythic text cares little for the products of heroism; instead it sings the praises the heroic journey, setting an example for the patient to be healed by the Chantway and thereby become restored in health through his own motion.
In general Indian myths, like those of the Navajo, occur along a storyscape that topographically represents what the story conveys. A hole in a sandstone cliff may be where a mythicbeing shot an arrow at an opponent and a stain of color in a rock may represent aneagle frozen in flight.
Were one to pass along the path of the story, the landscape would be marked with story or song points. Moving from point to point permits aliving person to physically reenact and directly experience the story or song. Romanoff (1992:227) was told by a Lillooet person that the Lillooet Coyote story is marked by places where it occurred and that
such landmarks are memorably named and arranged by the myth, so that a child hearing the myth acquired an internal map that he could follow on the ground.
38 Generally, specifically noted story or song landscape points are not more important than the less specific physical space between them, because they all constitute the geographical path of the storyscape.
Regional Landscapes
Regional landscapes are components of Native American holy lands. Like other cultural landscapes, they are defined in terms of both geography and culture. Typically, regional landscapes are spatially expansive, involving hundreds, perhaps thousands, of square miles. A regional landscape is often defined by a major geographical feature like the Black Hills of South Dakota or the Grand Canyon of Arizona. A major river like the Columbia may define a regional landscape, as can a desert like the Mohave. A regional landscape is the first level of cultural abstraction that can be expected to correspond with an ecosystem that is defined by its biotic and abiotic characteristics (Golley 1993).
Usually, with a regional landscape there are somewhat unique natural resources that are generally bounded by a major geographical feature. For example, there are certain types of plants and animals found in the Black Hills, the Grand Canyon, and the Mohave Desert. When American Indian people used the natural resources of a regional landscape over long periods, then specific adaptive strategies developed and were incorporated into their overall cultural system.
Human adaptive strategies reflect but are not determined by their environment. Environmental deterministic theories have long since been set aside because studies demonstrate that ultimately people can live anywhere and do so largely on their own terms (Moran 1990, Vayda 1969). There are many dynamics between people and their environment (Ness, Drake, Brechin 1993), and these special relationships tend to be criteria in defining cultural landscapes, including regional landscapes.
Ecoscapes
Some new terms are necessary to clarify past discussions with greater conceptual specificity. One of these, storyscapes, has already been discussed. Another, ecological landscapes or ecoscapes, points to the special relationship between American Indian cultural landscapes and the natural ecosystems they encompass.
The term ecoscape refers to a portion of a regional landscape that is clearly defined by an unusual or distinct local geography and its unique cultural relationship to an American Indian group or groups. The ecoscape tends to be recognizableterrain that has already been named by both Indian and non -Indian people. It may be a mountain, a canyon, or an area with many hot springs. The ecoscape is by definition smaller than the regional landscape where it is found, but the two are directly related. The geographical structure and cultural meaning of a regional landscape derives in large part from the structures and meanings of the many ecoscapes it
39 contains. For example, the Mohave Desert is composed of great expanses of dry lake beds and their surrounding mountains, a massive unique valley called Death Valley, and dramatic areas defined by volcanic cinder cones, magma tube tunnels, and mesas capped by surface lava flows. Each has the potential of becoming an ecoscape due to its own physiological components, the unique plant and animal communities it supports, and the special relationships it has with Indian people. Together these ecoscapes become the Mohave Desert as a regional landscape.
Indian people ultimately define an ecoscape when they specially incorporate this local geography into their culture. The ecoscape may be viewed as a power place. It may have the shape of a creation being that is lying down, like Kuuchamaa, the Kumeyaay sacred mountain (Shipek 1985). It may provide mineral waters for healing. It may be of special historic importance. Each ecoscape will serve a special role in the history and culture of an Indian group.
Landmarks
The term landmark refers to a discrete physical place within a cultural landscape (Kelley and Francis 1993:158). A landmark tends to be a small part of the local geography that is topographically and culturally unique. Landmarks are easily defined both in terms of their physical boundaries and the reasons why they are culturally important. A landmark may be a salt cave which is the source of an essential natural element, the object of numerous pilgrimages, and the end of a storyscape. A landmark may be a deep spring in the desert that is surrounded by pictographs from past ceremonies, plants for food and medicine, and water for the irrigation of gardens. A landmark may be a power rock that will heal sick people if they can talk to it in an Indian language and perform the proper ceremony.
Landmarks tend to be obvious places that seem to demand the focus of intense cultural interest. The residual volcanic core standing on the high plains of Wyoming, for example, called by Lakota people Mato Tepee (Bear's Lodge) and by other people Devil's Tower, became the focus of cultural interest of at least ten American Indian groups as well as the federal government which made it a national monument (Evans, Dobyns, Stoffle, Austin, and Krause 1994: 73 -79). Because of what might be termed inherently interesting features, it is relatively simple to convey the cultural importance of such landmarks to people belonging to another culture. As easily identifiable places whose meaning is readily conveyed to others, landmarks are ideal subjects for cultural protection and management. Except for Mt. Shasta, most TCPs are defined as landmarks; however, the upper portion of Mt. Shasta has recently received the TCP designation making it the largest TCP. In fact, most cultural resource protection laws in the United States are designed to protect landmarks. However, a few laws are designed to protect larger geographic units like ecoscapes.
40 Chapter Three The 3- Springs Area A Place in Paiute Cultural Landscapes
This chapter presents opinions expressed by Indian people regarding the relationship of the 3 -Spring Area to places and cultural resources found in the surrounding region. This is a direct effort to center the 3- Springs Area within a regional landscape, an ecoscape, or a storyscape as these terms represent types of larger cultural landscapes. These concepts were discussed in the previous chapter, but how they are being operationalized should be explained here. This chapter concludes with a discussion of places specially mentioned as part of Southern Paiute cultural landscapes.
Within the model of American Indian cultural landscapes discussed above, and used here to frame this analysis, it is possible for any specific place to be a part of one or more typesof cultural landscapes. Any place can be connected to other places through the occupation and use of a common geophysical space like a watershed. Such a relationship is being termed an ecoscape cultural landscape. Any place could also beconnected to other places through larger direct connections, thus making it an integral portion of a regional cultural landscape. Finally, any place could be connected with other places by being a partof a storyscape or a songscape. This chapter is based on data from a cultural landscape interview instrument that provides each Indian person the opportunity to discuss whether or not the 3- Springs Area is connected in any way with larger cultural landscapes.
The idea of studying the 3- Springs Area derived from the need to assess the cultural significance of the Big Spring Complex, which is one of the three springs that was used traditionally, aboriginally, and historically (see previous chapter for definitions of these periods) by the Southern Paiute people. The Big Spring Complex is being understood in this study as a part of a place that is slightly larger than itself; that is, a place containing the threesprings and the intervening spaces that divide and immediately surround them (Figure 13). The concept of the 3- Springs Area is one that is used by Indian people today, but they refer to it as "where our traditional Las Vegas springs are." The term "3- Springs Area" is short hand for that Indian designated place.
41 The 3- Spring Landscape
This portion of the chapter presents what the Indian people said about cultural landscapes. The interviews were conducted at the same set of locations and using the same setof interview instruments. The Stone Mortar site was selected to conduct the interviews because itaffords a 360 degree view of the valley and from there a person can see where two of thethree springs are located. Kiel Ranch, which was called the Indian Fields Spring when it was establishedin 1855, is located about a mile to the south of the Stone Mortar site. The Old Mormon Fort (1855-1857), later called the Las Vegas Ranch (1872- 1882), and later the Stewart Ranch (1882-1905) is about 3 miles to the southeast. The Big Spring Complex and its sister spring, nowcalled Lorenzi Park (Figure 14), both of which were called the Spring Ranch, are about 4 miles to the southwest. About 2 miles away to the south, the Las Vegas Paiute Colony had its reserved landsestablished in 1911 on a 10 -acre portion of what was the Stewart Ranch.
Southern Paiute people lived in this Las Vegas area when it was full of large and small artesian springs. The photograph of the artesian spring at Ash Meadows is used on the coverof this report because Indian people interviewed during this study perceive that Ash Meadowstoday is comparable to traditional artesian springs in the Las Vegas valley. According to Bell(1981: 7):
The hydrologic system in the Las Vegas Basin is characterized by artesian, intra basin flow. As much as 25,000- 35,000 acre -feet of water probably enters the system in the recharge area of the Spring and Sheep Mountains. Once the water enters the flow system, movement is downward in the recharge area, horizonalin the basin -margin areas, and upwards in the central part of the basin. As water moves laterally into the basin sediments, it is confined orpartially confined beneath poorly permeable and impermeable horizons. Movement under such conditions result in an artesian head or an upward seepage pressure in excess of the hydrostatic head.
The 3- Springs Area was the center of this water system, a place that contained many artesian springs that produced a variety of braided streams that combined to produce the Las VegasRiver. The term Las Vegas River is not commonly used today. Perhaps this is because it failed to always reach the Colorado River, or because its flow was quickly reduced by European water diversions. Nonetheless, the Las Vegas Spring alone produced 7 cubic feet a second in 1899 and was a river (as these are defined in this arid region) miles away from its origin and before it joinedwith the other springs in the 3- Springs Area (Bell 1981:22).
Europeans diverted the flow of these springs and portions of the Las Vegas River beginning with the establishment of the Mormon Fort in 1855 (Jensen 1926). In a survey map, John Steele, one of the Mormon settlers, depicted the progress of Las Vegas Creek, whichflowed past the site of the new Fort downstream through a "tooly grass" area that was twoand one -half miles long and one -half mile wide, and then flowed on to the Colorado River (Paher 1971: 20- 21). Initially, these water diversions only partially displaced Southern Paiute uses of the
43 Figure 14. Study team at Lorenzi Park. springs and the river. In fact, the Mormons negotiated with the regional Paiute chiefs for both the use of the springs and for a set -aside irrigated agriculture areacalled the Indian fields - later to become the Kiel Ranch (Figure 15).
By the turn of the century, Euroamerican water use in the valley had increased, but still largely drew from the available flow of the artesian springs and the Las Vegas River. Two portions of the area were platted in 1905 and a land -rush began. A photograph published in Paher (1971:76) shows one of more than 150 people waiting along a rather full Las Vegas River for the townsites to open for settlement. After this time, water use in the valley rose to the capacity of the natural system. By the 1940s, over -drafting had occurred. People were taking more water than the system could recharge, so the water table consistently fell. According to Bell (1981: 7):
...from 1944 to 1964 cumulative water -level declines of as much as 30 m (100 ft) were measured around the main pumping centers in the basin, and from 1955 to 1973 declines of as much as 55 m (180 ft) occurred in an area around the Las Vegas Valley Water District well field.
Water overdrafts in the mid -twentieth century significantly altered the natural water system of the Las Vegas Valley and virtually eliminated the flow of the Las Vegas River. These changes in the water system in turn created a series of environmental changes that altered the biotic and abiotic environment of the 3- Springs Area.
44 Figure 15. Spring at Kiel Ranch.
The abiotic changes are perhaps the most drastic. The land literally dropped and faults appeared. According to Bell (1981: 56), the Las Vegas Valley Water District, Nellis Air Force Base, and the city of North Las Vegas well fields all show the effects of severe, localized surface depression. Today, the older well heads often stand many feet above the surface of the ground.
The biotic changes have occurred due to water overdrafts. As the water tablewas pulled down by overdrafts, even large cottonwood trees with deep root systems died. Naturally, the surface springs disappeared and any plants and animals dependent on surface waterwere displaced or died off.
Another dramatic alteration of the Las Vegas water system, and one that playsa key role in how Indian people today view the ecological history of this oasis area, is the damming of the Colorado River and the creation of Lake Mead. The 1930s marked an ecological transition that was beyond what Indian people had ever imagined could happen. The Colorado River was dammed up at the mouth of Black Canyon. This simultaneously caused the radical alteration ofa culturally important river, the flooding of Indian villages and traditionaluse areas formerly located along the river by an enormous artificial lake, and the filling ofa medicinal and spiritual canyon. According to Bell (1981: 32):
Since the construction of Hoover Dam in 1935, a broad, regional subsidence has been imposed by the weight of Lake Mead. The total load of the lakewas initially
45 related to the total weight of water -- about 40- million tons; present loads consist of the weight of water plus the weight of accumulated sediment.
The weight of Lake Mead created a tilting of the earth to the southeast between 1935 and 1940 and shifted further to the southwest during the next decade. In addition, there is a broad, shallow sinking of the Boulder Canyon area centered about 19 km (12 mi) upstream from the dam. The lake created a depression approximately 17 cm (7 in) and tilted the Las Vegas Valley about 10 -12 cm (4 -5 in.)(Bell 1981:32).
In less than a hundred years, Euroamericans have radically altered the water system, geology, and biology of the entire Las Vegas basin. Even within the context of scientific studies, authors express a sense of amazement as to the extensiveness of these environmental modifications. It is within the context of these changes that Southern Paiute people express their contemporary evaluations of what has occurred, what is occurring, and what might occur as a result of further modifications to the 3- Spring Area, including the Big Spring site.
Southern Paiute Landscape Responses
The following portion of this chapter is about how the Indian people being interviewed during this project responded to the 3- Spring Area landscape questions. The answers are organized by (1) question and (2) gender. Each question is presented exactly as it was asked. Then the summary of answers is presented in a table. Finally, all of the qualitative responses written at the time are listed. Gender is a variable that is always considered in ethnographic questions, and sometimes appears to influence responses.
Connections between Indian Villages
Responses to Q1: "Were there Indian villages in this 3- Springs Area ?"
Table 3.1. Response Summary Table: Connections between Indian Villages Male Female Total
Yes 7 3 10
Don't know 1 0 1
Responses to Q2: "If yes, were the 3- Springs Area villages connected to others in the Las Vegas valley" and Q3: "If yes, how were these connected ?"
f Yes Bands are related in the area and came togther for trade, food, and ceremonies, like death ceremonies.
46 m Yes They are connected because people came from the mountain. They came here and we went through. My dad's uncle came from here and we lived in Moapa. It is like we all came out of one place. m Yes Underground water sources; all are interconnected. This area connected with Tule Springs area. The L.V. people lived everywhere, Gypsum Cave and Sheep Mountains connected. South end of valley, a place on the way to Pahrump where LV people lived. All water isinterconnected with one another. Always talked about not playing by springs, do not fall in springs or you'll go to another area. Have waterbabies. m Yes There are a variety of sites related to this such as some up north of here by Tule Springs and Sunrise Mountain, Potosi, and Good Springs. In many ways they are connected culturally,through stories and songs, and through underground water system, and the trails and songs about these water sources, and because we are all the same people. f Yes This is kinda like a base camp for living and manufacturing food items. All villages in the area came here. We feel like this place was important for the processing of mesquite beans. Women mostly would come back and forth to here. High places were for enjoyment, for looking around. m Yes Indian people lived close to the springs for water and at foot of mountains; they hunted animals such as mountain sheep, antelope; some of these animals are still left. People here still know of these places; Indian people were connected throughout this area by kinship. m DK Not sure, but probably. There were Indian allotments at each spring, they were probably all related to each other, and gavethem a chance to get out and meet one another, and that's how we sings some of our songs, we get together once or twice a year. f Yes Indians used to travel to collect food, water and at certain times of the years seeds as well. We have baskets, pottery,dry seeds and grind them to recook during the winter time. Also in the Fall we prepare food. We also dry animals... my kids like it (meat) cooked the old way. Paiute means water - we belong to the water. We were known for living nearthe water, spring to spring. They would travel on foot. This place has food,medicine, grinders, not only for the mesquite but also for meat and water.Probably there was a home around here the would enable them to see the whole area. If I was here I would have gonethere to the mountains (Sunrise Mountains) to get deer.
47 m Yes They were all family intermarried.
m Yes Indian Springs (Air Force Base), Cactus Springs, Corn Springs, Tule Springs, Kyle Ranch, Lorenzi Park, Big Springs; others to the northwest such as Bonnie Springs and those at Red Rock Many of these springs are connected to or associated with the Spanish Trail. From the summit of mountain springs to Big Springs is about 65 miles.
m Yes Through inter -social relationships. Clans would come together to intermarry and trade goods.
Activities in the 3- Springs Area
Responses to Q4: "Do you know what Indian people did here ?"
Table 3.2. Response Summary Table: Activities in the 3- Springs Area Male Female Total
Gathering plants 8 3 11
Ceremonies 8 3 11 Farming 6 2 8 Gambling 5 3 8 Political meetings 6 0 6
Specific Responses to Q5: What kinds of activities ?"
f Yes hand game, stick game, round dance, bear dance, big sheep dance.
m Yes ranch hands, housekeeping duties. A long time ago, Indian people would gather near water so they would not have to travel. If someone died, they buried them there. Overton area was like this, had water and lots of people. They congregated there. There is a ceremony every day because of the sun rising, meeting the new day. Don't let the sun catch you sleeping (will make you lazy). Grinding mesquite; any time you use something coming from the earth you pray for it so it will not harm you. You look around here and pine nuts will not come back because they have been abused by people.
m Yes No doubt they farmed, got water; medicine, doctoring spots; can talk to the weather; the wind comes and it talks to you about how to prepare for the area. Songs sung here, places of power here which helped to get
48 medicine. Came up on high hills like this to talk to nature. Springs are central places. m Yes Farming activities, plants for food and medicine, ceremonies revolving around the water, prayers said by people, we have always lived around this area, gambling includes hand games, and meetings were for regional chiefs to get together. Cottonwood is very important to us, the root of which is used in ceremonies and figurines are made from it. It's native to us even though it is considered an exotic. m Yes This is a very spiritual place. The mountains to the east are also important (name unsure, but sure that they had a song). Passing on knowledge occurred on the sacred mountain. The Great Spirit created this world and put these sacred places here for the Paiute to be shared with all Paiute. These places should not be bothered. The Almighty put this place here not to be sold; it belongs to the Indian people. The Indian knows this, but sometimes they have a hard time saying these things to other people. m DK They probably worked at ranches. They hunted and gathered Water was their life line and anywhere they could get it was where they lived. Indians always gambled every time they got together. It 's part of their culture, and so are social gatherings and community activity. As for political meetings, only the leaders of different bands got to go and attend them. f Yes Farming - they wouldn't farm too much. They had to wait for the rain and pray. They would put the seeds way down where it is damp and so you don't need to water all the time.
Ceremonies - if someone dies they notify people elsewhere. They would use the runners but it depends on what spiritual people say. Some times they dream about singing and then it happens and I meet people I haven't seen for long time others - people knew where things were going on elsewhere and would visit. Even if others think I wouldn't make it, I have someone there who helps me. m DK Don't know for sure this might have been a temporary village in summertime and wintertime and all of these were activities the people would do. m Yes marketing place, food processing, rabbit hunting, nut roasting; probably had ceremonies at these springs, too. This place should be on the
49 National Register of Historic Places, be protected and secured, maybe by a fence. There should be an archaeologicalstudy conducted at this place.
m Yes Paiutes would come together to do the first four, and the last would be done in the context of clans.
Connections to Trails
Responses to Q6: "Do you know of trails that were connected with the 3- Springs Area?"
Table 3.3. Response Summary Table: Connections to Trails Male Female Total
Yes 6 3 9
No 1 0 1
Don't know 1 0 1
Responses to Q7: "If yes, can you tell me something about those trails ?"
f Yes These trails went north, east, west, south. They were used to go to places like Pintwater Cave for ceremonies; used to visit relatives, for gathering food, and they came here to prepare for events. Like the wind now, it feels good Oh yes, these kind of trails are well traveled They connect to the Utah people. They traded with each other. When they traveled the trails, they would sing; they always had a central purpose to what they did, they had a central mission. Would talk for 2 or 3 days about travel; when the special day came they would say, this is the day, and then they would go.
f Yes Where did they go? - Indians knew where animals went (animal trail) but also had an Indian Trail also called the "long walk" (ningwebo). They would go visit sick people and also hunting. They used to say "I'm gonna see my relative" Why did Paiute people travel the trails? -Family relationships are important as connections between places. They know: if there is water that's the only way they could go. They knew the distances. Were these trails somehow special to the Paiutes people? - also for all other Indians they were special...
f Yes Used for gathering plants, seeds. Trails were not only used to reach specific locations, but also as routes through resource rich areas; resources were gathered en route, such as mesquite.
50 m DK I'm assuming that maybe they ran north and south and traveled northwest to Bishop for ceremonial purposes, a gathering of the clans or socializing. They left their markings like petroglyphs a message to other people. m Yes Chemehuevis don't like to mix their spiritual life with their ordinary life, I imagine there were trails between the water and the other springs These small colonies depended on each other, they used trails to communicate with one another they had runners and that's all they did run out across the desert. m Yes We need them for our afterlife, without them it would impede that process. Paiutes have a whole variety of songs, Parker, Chemehuevi, circle around through Pahrump. Salt Songs, Bird Songs, and the stones talk of our afterlife and our journey. Interconnectedness. Trails are used in our daily lives in our ceremonies and prayers, like taking part of you away, that is how we all became related, to take it (the spring) away is like severing a tie. m Yes From Sheep Mountain to Alamo. Trail to Cactus Springs to Indian Springs. U.S. 95 may also correspond with an Indian trail.Trails were highly significant for rest, subsistence. Immigrant trail, Spanish trail from Santa Fe to Las Vegas to Los Angeles. m Yes Know of trails near Yucca Mountain, which were used for traveling. m Yes The springs are always places of importance connected by trails. Petroglyphs would be connected to springs by trails. Trails connect to medicine gathering and healing areas. We need these trails for our afterlife; songs sung during menstrual services. Trails were key in winter stories. Older men would tell boys stories; need stories to find your way; find were you are supposed to be, when your umbilical cord is buried. m Yes From here to Mt. Charleston for pine nuts; have one from Moapa to Sheep Mountains; used to be another one to Mount Charleston, also one from here to Moapa, Pahrump, and surrounding Indian communities. All trails are special because they are there for a reason -- to take you someplace, not just to wander around. Used to gather, to hunt, for visitation; a lot of people from the Las Vegas Valley are related to surrounding tribes.
51 Songs Associated with 3- Springs Area
Responses to Q8: "Do you know of any songs associated with the 3- SpringsArea ?"
Table 3.4. Response Summary Table: Songs Associated with 3- Springs Area Male Female Total
Yes 5 3 8
No 3 0 3
Responses to Q9: If yes, were they ceremonial, traveling or other songs?
f Yes Salt songs, circle dance songs (eagles, mountains, old lady mountain), pine nut songs.
m Yes This area is close to a cave where you can learn songs, so it must be related to the songs. Cave shows you how to have medicine power. If someone was sick, it would show you how to heal them.
m Yes Bird songs, salt songs, creation stories and songs.
m Yes Salt songs are specific to Big Springs area, the Las Vegas Area. Water and water babies supernatural force can be taken in. Songs are related to certain people, like winter stories and songs.
f Yes There were hunting songs, deer and sheep songs. They would wait here.. This one spring was a beginning place for songs. Songs have specific times, morning songs and evening songs. They are not just given to anyone, but to special people. Wise people like Yettawould be given a song. These are people who have deep knowingabout what is to be done. Indian people live by their deep knowing, spiritual knowledge. Also had healing songs which could be sung here, a shaman could sing them here. Using elements like rain, wind, clouds, they all work together like harmony; it's a binding force. When my grandpa came this way he would go into those mountains, he would get his healing powersthere. He had a staff that turned into a rattlesnake once. He would talk to wind; it is hard to explain.
m Yes Salt songs, bird songs, circle songs, war songs, pow -wow songs.
m No There used to be songs of mountain goats and sheep and deer, used to go around this area. They were all traveling songs, lots of bird songs --the bird song is about a bunch of birds came up the river and wherever they
52 stayed, that's how they would get there. That's what it tells, the hardships of the birds on the snow capped mountain trying to find their way home. Oh, and there's the Friendship dance and the circle dance, the bird dance and song.
f Yes Traveling songs - They sing in the morning. They mean they want to travel and want the water to bless them and take them where they're going. They never go back because the water takes you to that place. Sometimesthey sprinkle it on their faces or on the head. They sing various songs. I know one song that means "I'm going around clockwise," like the water.
m No There might have been traveling songs or ceremonial songs. Most songs tell a story.
m Yes Salt ceremonial song, mountain sheep song go outside of area to south and west.
Ceremonies Conducted at 3- Springs Area
Responses to Q10: "Do you know of any ceremonies that were conducted at or near the 3- Springs Area ?"
Table 3.5. Response Summary Table: Ceremonies Conducted at 3- Springs Area Male Female Total
Yes 4 3 7
No 4 0 4
Responses to Q11: "If yes, can you tell me something about those ceremonies?
f Yes Death ceremony: conducted three nights from sunup to sundown in order to help deceased's spirit to heaven. Conducted near water.
m Yes Ceremonies involved large numbers of people; people from different Paiute groups would come. Funerals - his dad told him about coming over here by wagon. My wife's folks would come downfrom Shivwits; it would take 2 days to get here, 3 days singing for the person, 2 days back to Utah. Political - The Paiute way is to help one another, so if a family needed help the rest of the family would come in and help them.
m Yes Main life ceremonies occurred in the area, but people would move these away from the springs. Like funerals. Funeralswould not be held near
53 major springs. Would take water from springs to give to dead person so they'll have a smooth journey to the afterlife.
m Yes Sometimes you travel long distances to get to certain plants. In winter songs people to receive it and preparefor that. Water can be taken away from that area and used. Respect is given to the stories and beliefs.
f Yes Grandpa came here often from near Blythe, CA. He and my relatives would come up here and he would go into the mountains for healing power. He healed people here; hehealed everybody.
m Yes Not sure about the ceremonies that occurred here, but am sure that they must have been similar.
f Yes They had to be thankful to the mesquite both for food and for allowing them to make beds. At Kiel Ranch they might have had sacred pow -wows and doctors would be singing one, two or usually three nights. This was for curing purposes. One time I went with my grandmother. The doctor at Kaibab said the lady from the mountain is coming this way. I couldn't see any lady... but that's was a spirit... The spirituallady was coming from the Kaibab mountains (Kaibab means "mountain laying down ") They gave her juices from the chaparral or greasewood. This was when I was six. Another time I went to Moapa to see a doctor. When I was a kid we used to travel from Moapa to the Indian Camp and to Pahrump. Sometimes they had doctor ceremonies. They had lots of Indian doctors both men and women.
Connections to Paiute Creation Places
Responses to Q12: "Is the 3- Springs Area at or near the place where the Paiutes werecreated ?"
Table 3.6. Response Summary Table: Connections to Paiute Creation Places Male Female Total
yes 8 3 11
Responses to Q13: "If yes where is the creation place?
f Yes Close by in the mountains, but there are different versions in Oregon and Nevada and southern Nevada.
m Yes Yes, it is close; somewhere on Mount Charleston.
54 m Yes Big Place - Nuvonkui -Mt. Charleston Peak, but the Spring Mts. is a woman lying down. All of that is a part of where we werecreated. Wolf and Coyote lived there and they came down to these springs.
m Yes Within the area or region, Mt Charleston for us, is where everything started. What animals were related to those people Nuvugai and area all encompassing description of place has all the resources you need a very special place.
f Yes On top of Mt. Charleston, that is where we came from. Snow up there.
m Yes In this area; in Paiute territory; different tribes have different creation places and their own ways.
m Yes To the Chemehuevis, that's where it all started there. That's the spirit mountain Nuvag.
f Yes They had an Indian name but I don't know it. Creation place - Santa Clara (Utah) is another place where Northern Utes (they used to call us that way) were created. Then we came down this way and they call us Southern Paiutes.
m Yes The whole area, everything you see here. Pintwater Cave, all this area. That's the most sacred area for the Paiute. At the time, years and years ago, there used to be a lake. That area there was a gathering place for ceremonial purposes, and for wild rice and sheep. To me I'm very grateful this place has been preserved so long even though some of the artifacts have been destroyed. People can come up here and have ceremonial gatherings but once you let the public in everything starts to disappear.
m Yes Spirit Mountain.
m Yes Mt. Charleston.
Connections between Creation Places and other Places
Responses to Q14: "Do you know if there are other places in the Las Vegas Valley that are also connected with the Creation of the Paiute people ?"
55 Table 3.7. Response Summary Table: Connections between Creation Places and other Places Male Female Total
Yes 4 2 6
No 3 0 3
Don't know 1 1 2
Responses to Q15: "What and where are those places?
m Yes The LV Wash, where water came down. Valley important too; Red Rocks [Canyon State Park]; there are underground connections between these places.
m Yes Several along the Las Vegas Wash along Colorado [River] to Parker, Arizona and Chemehuevi [Indian reservation]. Springs are also an integral part of stories of creation. Stories at beginning of the day, stories of the wind, creation of the place.
f Yes Like towards Los Angeles where the Chumash live. That is where a spirit, like a woman, sent her messengers this way. These messengers came and it was a water spirit; it stayed and it belonged to the Paiute people. This spirit gave them area water. So, all water in this area was created by this water spirit, it is real big, not a person; it was drawn to the surface by the force of the sun. That is what they say about Ash Meadows. This big force made that and then came down here to make these springs. So, all of this water is connected by that creation.
m No Back when I was a young guy we were all Chemehuevis of one tribe. That's what progress does, we didn't know different tribes were all the same people, today its not that way, we used to be like one tribe.
f Yes A mountain near Nellis [Air Force] base. A big cave. That's where they get the songs from, on the other side where the sun shines at Nellis. You have to go there alone to learn songs and stay overnight. You could also get the songs by waterfalls, where the water flows or in the air, from the trees.... That's what they sing about: sky, stars, anything. Rainbows, the clouds, colors, all of those and even a name sometimes.
m Yes Pahrump and Snow mountain, can't remember.
56 m Yes Possibly on the Nevada Test Site, the Yucca Mountain Area, and Valley of Fire State Park.
Events Associated with 3- Springs Area
Responses to Q16: "Do you recall events in Paiute history that occurred at or near the 3-Springs Area ?"
Table 3.8 Response Summary Table: Events Associated with 3- Springs Area Male Female Total
Yes 5 3 8
No 3 0 3
Responses to Q17: "If yes, will you tell me about those events?
f Yes Killing of Paiutes by Mormons and early settlers; often occurred near springs as these were places Paiutes lived.
m Yes 1910 -1920, from here to Moapa. My dad used to talk about when his uncle lived over here and how they moved him to Moapa about when Las Vegas became a colony. They got the land from Helen Stewart. The village was already there when Stewart gave it to them. Colony also had its own spring at their village site.
m Yes 1800's, farming activities.
m Yes Farming activities occurred in areas meetings and leaders come to represent these places. Interactions with Mormons when they were coming through. Medicines; we 're not given credit for what we are.
f Yes Mormons came in 1855; late 1800's trappers came, and hunters. Then they dug in and made their own roots. Trapped for cash. Native peoples did not trap, but told the trappers where to go. Then a lot of animals disappeared Trappers led the way for losing the land. Certain rights were taken away, even though the rights were taken away, I still feel the Indians have rights; it is part of their stewardship of the land. Indians would go away and still have a crisis and then they needed to find their place. If you go back to the tribes they can still be of use to the tribes as stewards of the land. Everyone has their place, and for Paiute people, this is theirs. Indian people have a character that is taught; this is how they are made. The environment has its own way and the Indian people bend
57 their will to match. When this gets out of balance, the environment wins. Environment is blind to humans; it just carries on.
m Yes Whites came and took land away from Indian people.
f Yes 1930s (37 -38) at Twin Lakes [Lorenzi Park] one of my cousin's father used to live there and farm. I used to go swimming there and visit them.
m Yes They had rabbit drives and used the rabbits for food and clothing.
Mountain Connections to 3- Springs Area
Responses to Q18: "Is there a connection between the 3- Springs Area and the mountains you can see from here ?"
Table 3.9. Response Summary Table: Mountain Connections to 3- Springs Area Male Female Total
Yes 7 3 10
Don't know 1 0 1
Responses to Q19: "If yes, what mountains and how are they connected to the 3- Springs Area?
f Yes All springs and mountains are connected through the flow of water. We should keep from destroying these places.
m Yes Mount Charleston; since we came from Mount Charleston the mountain has lots of power to it, like the desert does. Even though it is a desert, it was a pretty place, really nice place to be.
m Yes All mountains are a big circle, all connected. Mt. Charleston (creation), Sun Rise, Sheep, McCully's, Bird Spring. Where people would go to Gypsum Cave, we got our songs there. Mountain sheep would come to them in songs. Also other animals used in doctoring. Pintwater Cave is cave where Tuvots - wolf - lived. The home of little mountain spirits; wind came in. Have to talk to 2 caves or they will take power from flashlights. Sheep Mountain area is point of connection between Moapa, LV and Pahrump; Spring Mts for red paint.
m Yes Sunrise Mountain (Shuukaiv) connection where day begins. A lady who lived up by there. She used turtle shells for bowls and when people
58 stopped protecting the land she died, Also Red Rock mountain (Ompka'ii) and Mt Charleston. f Yes Pintwater Mountains; you don't mess with it; all the chiefs and shamans went to Pintwater Cave for spiritual reasons, fortheir magic, you need to give these mountains some kind of gift. But some mountains you cannot give a thing, they will not give to you. Some will, some won't.They had a name that reflected being at a place of spirits orcreation place. So you would know instantly what was there, what the place had to offer. All places had this one significant thing about them. This is the gift to the Paiute. m Yes All these places are part of Mother Earth. My mother's nephew brought me to this area when I was a boy. Thelocal Paiute spoke the same language. Water from the mountains and the springs connect these places, both physically and spiritually. m DK I imagine there is but I wouldn't know, we call Paiute Mountain(Nuukai), and Mt Charleston (Nuvar), and Sheep Mountain (Na -ah), but these are not local names. It is just a spiritual place for allChemehuevi. f Yes They are all connected by underground water. The water comes from the mountains. The mountains connected to here are: (1) Snow Mountain (Wiwabe), connected by water streams. Lots of berries were gathered there and also pine -nuts; (2) Mount Charleston (Niwaharit) where we would go to collect kerns and berries: (3) Sunrise Mountains (Nahagkaib), connected to here by water, food and medicine.. Nahagkaib means "mountain sheep mountain." People used to go there and seek the visions. It's very sacred and at pow -wows we give prayers to the Sunrise Mountains. m Yes Everything is connected with the land and the mountains had to have a relationship with the people who gathered their food, minerals for paint, vegetation for baskets and dwellings, they had to go to different places to gather. For example stickweed, out of it they would weave mats and they would put their dwellings to keep rodents out. It's very smelly, a very smelly son of a gun. m Yes Trails connected these places where they had events, ceremonies and gathered food in both places. m Yes Not certain of the exact nature of the area, but there is Bill Williams Cave (Origin of Salt song), and Mt. Charleston (Origin place).
59 Connections with Colorado River
Responses to Q20: "Do you think the 3 Spring Area is connected tothe Colorado River ?"
Table 3.10. Response Summary Table: Connections withColorado River Male Female Total
Yes 8 3 11
Responses to Q21: "What section of the river and how is it connected tothe 3- Springs Area?
f Yes The Colorado [River] is one of the main water sources for this region. Whites, however, are taking too much water from this river and other places.
m Yes Other side of Sunrise Mountain; these springs flowed into the Colorado River.
m Yes The springs are connected to the river, water flows into the Colorado River. Cottonwood Island - people from there brought special water stories or water songs. Cactus needle from a cactus near Potosi Mountain mine.
m Yes Gypsum Cave, Lake Havasu is how Chemehuevi got their names. Cottonwood Island is underwater now, known to have strong connection with water like Havasu area. Duree talks of people who lived all around this area, places are all interconnected with deep spiritual connection, through trail system and underground water going down to Chemehuevi people.
f Yes Special places, such as those where turtles lay eggs or places to gather willows; songs cross, dead go, streams meet both above and under the ground. Yes, the river is really important, it is not made by itself, it is made by springs like this.It is fresh water. The Colorado River is really important to us because it was made by a god. Animal will and human will is also connected We were once animals and they still want to be with us. They know a lot, if you watch a coyote he will watch you, but if you look at him he will run; he is accusing you of beingmischievous; like 2 mischievous people watching each other. Even the birds have their message, too. Dove cries; his message is look out below,that is why he passes his dung on us. Watch out below; he is thesymbol of peace, the dove.
60 m Yes Yucca Flats. Concerned about the effects of nuclear fallout on water resources.
m Yes Cottonwood (Sovip) Spring and Cotton Island, a lot of Chemehuevis came form there.
f Yes They're connected by underground water that flows into the Colorado river. Also connected to Lake Mead by same water underground.
m Yes Because of the migration from our area my ancestors started going down and when they offend the source of the river we just kept on moving but we are connected to the river. Maybe that part of the river was moresuitable for them to raise their families and my assumption is there were maybe 15 families and they started going South to find a place of their own. and we wound up way down there.
Yes Trade, interaction, ceremonies.
m Yes Because of the water it flows down from the mountains through the springs and supplies water to the river.
Additional Connections
Responsesto Q22: "Is the 3- Springs Area connected to any places or events in the Las Vegas Valley thatwe have not already talked about?
Table 3.11.Response Summary Table: _ Additional Connections Male Female Total
Yes 6 3 9
No 1 0 1
Don't know 1 0 1
Responses to Q23: "If yes, what other connections do you want to talk about?
f Yes The Nevada Test Site is included in this connection of places and has contributed radiation/pollution which has caused cancer in local peoples. The land should be taken care of and used in a balanced way.
m Yes There is a lot more, but I have forgotten.
61 m Yes Probably more. Used to be singers in this area who had special songs. Johnny Domingo used to sing in this area. This used to be different because everything was spiritual; all kinds of ceremonies. People would talk to the wind, bring rain. Water also came up by talking to spirits in the ground They would push the water up to us here who need it. When doctor would stir water to wake it up so it gives you attention, medicine, help. Water is alive.
m Yes But not that I can think of
f Yes Other areas are connected, too.
m Yes New reservation at Snow Mountain. All are connected to Mother Earth. My wife is more familiar with this area than me.
f Yes They're Indian springs. I don't know the name but they are connected. Tecopa was a sacred man and used to come and visit people here.
m Yes Because of being in the immediate area. Their nomadic playground whether they lived here permanently or had a gathering here, depended on the food like pinyon and mesquite beans.
Responses to Q24: "Is the 3- Springs area connected to any other events in traditional Southern Paiute territory that we have not already talked about?
Table 3.12. Response Summary Table: Other Event Connections Male Female Total
Yes 6 3 9
No 1 0 1
Don't know 1 0 1
Responses to Q25: "If yes, what other connections do you want to talk about?
f Yes Nevada Test Site.
m DK The real significance about this part of the country is ideal for almost every plant that grows here. A place where Paiute and Chemehuevi gathered plants and found medicine. They came from all over and traded. This area had naturally all the plants ready for them.
62 f Yes The 3- Springs Area is connected to Moapa as well, by water and by a road that leads to Arizona. Around Lake Mead there is a wagon trail (Ningwebo) that takes us to Cedar City and St. George Utah, Kashano, etc.
m Yes This a place of the people, it is an important place also, this is where they gathered It was a meeting place. Its hard to image what it looked like then but it was a really nice place to come. It seems they will never end the building.
m Yes Just the Salt trail.
Key Regional Landscape Features
The previous section of this chapter presented the answers of Indian people to a seriesof questions about cultural landscapes. Embedded in those answers were references to placesand events. This portion of the chapter discusses those placesand events so the reader may better understand what was being discussed. In addition, where appropriate, this chapterincludes details about these places that derived from the previous interviews with Southern Paiutepeople.
Caves
Caves are places of power. They reside in mountains which have their own power, some of which is related in unknown ways to the caves themselves. Also in caves arespirits sometimes glossed in English as "the little people." Associated with caves are rivers, mineral deposits, hot springs, plants, and animals. Each of these cultural resources was combined in special ways to influence how caves were used. In turn, because of their relationship with caves, each of these resources was influenced by the caves. In this section we present two examplesof sacred caves in the region: (1) Gypsum Cave in the Frenchmen/Sunrise Mountains due east of Las Vegas and (2) Pintwater Cave in the Pintwater Mountain Range north west of Las Vegas.
Gypsum Cave
Sacred caves are places of power and served a vital role in the quest for knowledge by shamans or medicine men. Caves are perceived by Native Peoples as the embodiment of an individual, spiritual entity, as well as the home of lesser spiritual beings. Sacred caves were visited by shamans in order to seek visions, find spirit guides, and to acquire healing power and shamanistic songs (Kelly nd: 24:7; Laird 1976:38).
Prior to using caves and other sacred places, medicine men would undergo rituals of preparation which involved fasting and prayer. Such rituals purified the shaman's body and spirit and helped ensure a safe visit to spiritual places and the receipt of spiritual knowledge. Rituals of purification often occurred at hot springs, such as those on the Colorado River below
63 Hoover Dam. Before entering caves or other spiritual locations, shamans would provide offerings of food, tobacco or other items, and would pray to the spirits of such locations for safe passage and the receipt of knowledge (Laird 1976:38).
One of the most important caves in the study area is Gypsum Cave, located in the Frenchman Mountains near present day Lake Mead (Figures 16 -19). Indian peoples used Gypsum Cave possibly as early as 6,000 B.C. Paiute medicine men visited Gypsum Cave up to the early1900s in order to obtain shamanistic dreams (Kelly 1937: 161). Gypsum Cave was extensively excavated by M. R. Harrington in the early 1930's. Paiute people told Harrington of a large `lost chamber' toward the back of the cave. Attempts by Harrington's team to locate this chamber were unsuccessful (Harrington 1931, 1933).
Paiute medicine men were said to have visited this room for the purpose of depositing offerings to cave spirits. Harrington (1931:235) states that these cave spirits were described by the Paiute as beings around three feet high. Such a description corresponds with information from recent Paiute and Hualapai informants concerning the `little people', shadow -like spiritual beings about three feet tall which inhabit canyons and caves (personal communication, Paiute and Hualapai tribes).
Harrington (1933:163) considers diagnostic arrow points the only evidence of Paiute presence at Gypsum Cave. He states that Paiute people visited the cave rarely and only for the purpose of depositing offerings to spirits inside the cave. However, food remains found in the upper cave levels also may be associated with Paiute use. Corn kernels recovered from these levels belong to the starch or flour corn variety, and are attributed by Harrington to Pueblo or Paiute origin. Other plant remains included four cultivated beans, possible squash seeds, the remains of a small reddish cactus, mesquite and screwbean pods, pinenuts, and catclaw seeds. Some of these seeds had been ground into a cake -like form. Harrington (1933) implies that such food remains indicate intra -cave food preparation and consumption.
The possibility must be considered that some percentage of food remains and cultural items were associated with cave offerings by visiting medicine men. Ethnographic data indicates that items identified by Harrington as utilitarian may have served dual or sacred functions. Paiute people discussed the importance of the mountain sheep and the sacred connotation of material items made from this animal.
A Pahrump Southern Paiute person said that mountain sheep often bring songs and knowledge. When visiting spirit caves, medicine men would become possessed by the spirit of a mountain sheep and would travel places and receive songs and healing knowledge. A petroglyph at the Nevada Test Site shows a medicine man becoming a bighorn sheep and going on a spiritual journey.
64 Figure 16 (top). Overview of Gypsum Cave; Figure 17. Entrance to Gypsum Cave.
65 Figure 18. Interior of Gypsum Cave.
Figure 19. Interior of Gypsum Cave, view toward entrance.
66 The sheep horn spoon and sheep's hoof rattle at Gypsum cave are sacred items used by medicine men. Mission period Indians used sheep hoof rattles to chase away bad spirits; the noise from these rattles scared evil spirits away. Sheep horn spoons are part of various Paiute stories, such as "How the Crow Became Black ".
A Chemehuevi Southern Paiute man explained how the Crow Became Black. Coyote's nephew, Crow, became very ill. Coyote went to the medicine man, Duck, who agreed to heal Crow. Coyote was instructed to paint Crow black and he would be healed. In return for his help, Duck was paid by Coyote with the gift of a sheep horn spoon. After being painted black, Crow was healed, and remains black to this day.
Two Southern Paiute men independently suggested that two tortoise shell bowls were recovered from the upper levels of Gypsum Cave. Ethnographic data indicate that these items were used for mixing medicinal drinks or potions; the bottom of the tortoise shell was ground into a powder and mixed as a drink which had healing properties and also prevented thirst.
Atlatl dart and arrow fragments found by Harrington at Gypsum Cave could also have been cave offerings, rather than purely functional items. Ethnographic data indicate that arrows were commonly left at caves and other sacred locations as spiritual offerings (Kelly nd: 24:7). Paiute people interviewed in this project also have stated that colored decorations on atlatl shafts from Gypsum Cave possess a high degree of spiritual significance.
Feather fragments recovered from Gypsum Cave also may provide additional evidence of shamanistic activities (Harrington 1933: 89, 150 -151). According to three independent Southern Paiute men, eagle, hawk, and vulture feather fragments recovered by Harrington are highly significant components of ritual paraphernalia.
Nine manos were discovered at Gypsum Cave, none of which resemble Pueblo or Paiute manos from Moapa Valley. Manos from Gypsum Cave show no evidence of extensive use and probably are not associated with food processing. Similar manos have been recorded at Nevada Test Site rock art sites nearby and are believed to be associated with pigment processing. The possibility should be considered that manos at Gypsum Cave served a similar function, although Harrington (1933) makes no mention of the presence of residual pigment.
Gypsum Cave has suffered greatly from both historical and modern impacts. Harrington's (1933) excavations, while providing valuable information on cave occupation, are considered by Indian peoples as the desecration of a sacred place. Dynamiting and graffiti defacement by vandals have continued to impact Gypsum Cave. However, Paiute people state that this sacred cave can eventually heal itself if left alone. Paiute people have expressed deep concern over protecting Gypsum Cave and the surrounding area from further damage (Stoffle and Dobyns 1983).
67 Pintwater Cave
Another sacred cave in this region is Pintwater Cave, located within what is now Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada in the Pintwater Mountain Range. The cave is located just north of the old Indian village at Indian Springs. The Pintwater Cave, area is believed by Indian people to be the home of Wolf and Mountain Sheep, who are mentioned as important figures in the Southern Paiute creation story, and many other stories, as well. Paiute elders speak of Pintwater Cave as being the place where wind originates, and one of the homes of the Little People, or mountain spirits (NAES 1997).
Archaeological investigations in 1963 -64 indicate that the earliest occupation of Pintwater cave most likely began about 6,500 B.P. This date was obtained from a dart shaft recovered from the cave surface during the 1963 investigations. The majority of items recovered during the 1963 -64 investigations consisted of atlatl dart shaft fragments and dart points which date to 3,000 B.P. and older, and at least 31 arrow shaft fragments were also recovered. Many of these shaft fragments exhibit residual painted decoration similar in both color and design to examples from Gypsum Cave, Nevada (Buck and DuBarton 1994).
Like Gypsum Cave, Pintwater Cave is considered by Indian people to be a place of great spiritual power. Paiute elders have expressed substantial concern toward protecting this power cave and the surrounding area.
Hot Springs
Hot springs are places of mixed power. They supply water for healing and they represent a place that has its own spirits. Hot springs, like all water, was created for a purpose and Indian people look for the answer to this purpose whenever they visit new hot springs. Hot springs can be embedded in a powerful river, like Pumpkin Springs in the lower Grand Canyon which comes directly up out of the bottom of the river (Stoffle, Loendorf, Austin, Halmo, Bulletts, Fulfrost 1995: 214) and has been identified as a Traditional Cultural Property by the Southern Paiute and Hualapai people. Hot springs can be embedded in a canyon like those in the Gold Strike Canyon near the Colorado River (Figures 20 and 21). Hot springs can also be embedded in a small river like those along the Virgin River near Hurricane, Utah. The latter spring, called Pah Tempe, has been chosen for illustration here.
Pah Tempe Spring
Hot springs function as very sacred sites for Indian people. Such places are traditionally visited by Indian people in order to make use of their healing qualities. Hot springs contain water which is used in healing ceremonies both at the springs and at other locations. Patients would come to hot springs at the instruction of medicine men or accompanied by a medicine man. Before entering a hot spring, Indian people speak to the spirit of the spring, introducing themselves and telling what type of healing is needed. Indian people have traditionally carried
68 Figure 20 (top), and Figure 21. Side canyon springs, Gold Strike Canyon.
69 water from hot springs back to individuals who were unable to leave home due to age or illness ( Stoffle et al., 1995).
Paiute elders have provided information which indicates that hot springs also were used by shamans for ritual purification prior to visiting sacred caves or other spiritual locations. Such purification was necessary in order to prepare the mind and body for a safe and proper interaction with spiritual beings.
Pah Tempe Hot Springs in southwestern Utah, near the town of Hurricane, provides an example of a sacred hot spring used by Indian people for many centuries. Interviews with Southern Paiute elders indicated that these springs were visited regularly by Indian people from as far as Moapa Valley. Indian people used these springs well into this century for relieving various ailments and conducting healing ceremonies ( Stoffle et al. 1995).
Pah Tempe Hot Springs is now privately owned and serves as a commercial resort for natural healing and relaxation. Extensive modification has removed the majority of native plant species. Paiute elders, however, have provided information that these springs were once an important location for gathering medicinal plants. The geological, aquatic and floral aspects of this location integrate to form what is still an important sacred location for Indian people (Stoffle et al. 1995).
Artesian Springs
Like hot springs, artesian springs have existed for a reason from the time of creation. As such they have their own power or life force, derive special meanings from places around them, and contain their own living beings. The entire Las Vegas Valley is composed of artesian springs, making the entire area culturally special and subject to interpretation as to the system of water and power that created it. Other artesian springs are of great importance to Southern Paiute people. These include those at Ash Meadows, which has the famous Devil's Hole with a special species of pupfish that has been the focus of world controversy. Ash Meadows has recently been "restored" to a previous condition by the removal of human farming, homes, and dams, and is used here to illustrate Southern Paiute attachments to artesian springs and their thoughts on restoration of such springs.
Ash Meadows Artesian Springs
Ash Meadows has been a focal location for Native American occupation during both pre- contact and post- contact times. This area is located in Nye County, Nevada near the border with California, and has numerous large springs which provide an abundance of water and a unique biotic community. Indian people used the water from these springs for irrigation agriculture to cultivate corn, beans, squash and sunflowers (Steward 1941:231 -232). Historical documents indicate that Paiute families continued to reside and farm in the Ash Meadows area well into the 1950's (Stoffle 1990:37).
70 Desert springs such as those at Ash Meadows possess a diverse range of floral and faunal species which differs significantly from surrounding arid environments. The Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge contains over twenty floral and faunal species found nowhere else in the world, many of which are threatened or endangered. An abundance of water and the uniqueness of the biotic environment have attracted Indian people to this area for countless generations.
Deep stone mortars near one spring bear testimony to the antiquity of Indian occupation at Ash Meadows. These features provide evidence of extensive processing by Paiute people of mesquite, screwbeans, and other seeds. Mesquite trees still exist in abundance here, and are known for producing some of the sweetest beans available.Large grapevines flourish near springs in this area and most likely provided an additional food source for local Indian people (Stoffle et al. 1990:29). Additional plants at Ash Meadows which were important to Indian people include Anemopsis californica (Yerba mansa), Pluchea sericea (Arrowweed), Stanleya pinnata (Indian spinach), Lycium andersonii (Wolfberry), and Apocynum (Indian hemp). Numerous small lithic scatters have been observed near springs and streams in the area. The nature of lithic tools and debris provide further verification of prehistoric use of the Ash Meadows area as an important location for hunting, as well as processing floral and faunal resources unique to this area. Lithic assemblages observed on the surface include cores and expedient flake tools; no temporally diagnostic items were observed. It is likely, however, that a complete representation of surface artifact assemblages no longer exists due to surface collecting by tourists.
Mountains
Mountains have always been recognized by non -Indians as being of great cultural significance to Indian people. Mountains are central points in most patterns of connections which are the foundations of cultural landscapes. Mountains are recognized as influencing the weather and defining a diversity of topography so that multiple plant and animal communities are present in a local area. Like other places, mountains have their own life force while being the host of other powerful beings like caves, springs, mineral deposits, and little people. But more than this, mountains are alive. They are connected with each other by webs of power - power that can be disrupted by electrical and radio towers. Mountains are complex; they vary as to why they were created for Paiute people. Some were created to provide food while others were created to be a place for the teaching of youth. This section uses three illustrations to explain the cultural significance of mountains; two are creation mountains, one is a powerful curing mountain.
Spirit Mountain
Spirit Mountain is located near Davis Dam on the west side of the Colorado River and represents a highly significant central place in the religion and oral history of many regional Indian peoples. For Yuman language speaking tribes such as the Hualapai, Havasupai, and Mohave, Spirit Mountain, or Wi Kahme [alternative - Avikame], is the creation place. Oral
71 history speaks of this sacred mountain as being formed from the soil removed when the Creator carved the channel of the Colorado River. Wi Kahme is also perceived as the location from which Yuman peoples (and other humans) first emerged from under the earth and spread out across the landscape (Hinton and Watahomigie 1984).
Mt. Charleston
Nttvaganttt, or Charleston Peak, is the highest mountain between the Sierra Nevada in California and the San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona. It is located in the Spring Mountain Range west of Las Vegas. It constitutes a significant boundary for the Las Vegas hydrological basin. Probably no other place is more sacred to the Southern Paiute people, for whom Nttvaganttt is the place of creation. According to Southern Paiute belief, the summit of Nttvaganttt is the location at which Wolf and Coyote created the Chemuhuevis and their kindred. For those who are aware of their creation story, this sacred mountain serves a reminder that all land within sight of Ntivaganttt compose the Paiute Holy Land.
Sunrise -Frenchman Mountains
The Sunrise -Frenchman Mountains compose an area of high sensitivity to local Indian peoples. This area traditionally has been used for hunting game animals such as bighorn sheep and collecting a wide variety of medicinal and staple plant resources. Several caves exist in this area, such as Gypsum Cave, which are traditional sacred places. Local Indian peoples have expressed a high degree of concern over protecting sacred places in these mountains ( Stoffle and Dobyns 1983).
Canyons and Rivers
Canyons and rivers are powerful beings working together to create cultural landscapes of enormous complexity and cultural centrality for Indian people. In a paper prepared for an organized session involving Indian speakers from the Southern Paiute, Skokomish, and Wanupum tribes, Stoffle (1997) suggested a model for beginning to understand what might be termed riverine cultural landscapes. Quoting from that paper,
If we consider again the San Juan Paiute metaphor of the Colorado River as the veins of the earth, then we are tempted to extend this perception and to conclude that the valleys of the Colorado River are the body of the river. Valleys channel water into streams that join the Colorado River, they feed the river, they are the river. Valleys with streams that join other rivers belong to those rivers. Thus valleys that constitute the watershed of the Colorado River are, in a real sense, its body.
The body of a river is bounded. What is inside contributes to its unique qualities, what is outside serves as contrast. Given that the body of a river is
72 primarily defined by its watershed, we could also use the term ecosystem to describe the body of a river. While not totally self contained, certainly birds and people do move in and out of the ecosystem, thus breaking its boundary and moving into other places. Yet, there is something unique about each river, its associated valleys, and the things that occur within its body.
In that paper Stoffle suggested a more technical term for talking about a river and its body. This term is Riverine Cultural Landscape, which demands a more descriptive way of discussing this cultural phenomena. The concept places the emphasis on the Indian people who live, use, perceive, and attach themselves to the river and its body, but still includes the biotic and abiotic features of the ecosystem.
This role of a river and canyon in Southern Paiute culture is illustrated by the Colorado River as it passes through the Grand Canyon. This cultural/topographic area has been defined as a regional cultural landscape (Stoffle, Halmo, Austin 1997).
Grand Canyon as a Paiute Regional Landscape
The Grand Canyon is a bounded ecosystem set apart by Native American people as culturally special. Geographically integrated, the system includes those watersheds that drain into the Colorado River within an area defined to the east by Kaivyaxaruru (Navajo Mountain) and the Kaibito Plateau, defined to the north by the Paunsaugunt Plateau and the Markagunt Plateau, defined to the west by the Beaver Dam Mountains, and defined along the south by the center of the Colorado River. This regional landscape is biotically diverse due to great variations in microclimate, soils, and rainfall due to geographic isolation caused by the Colorado River and high mountains.
The Paiute conceptualization of the Grand Canyon regional landscape emerged during a series of studies of local cultural resources. Southern Paiute people were asked "To what, if anything, is this placed connected ?" Whether it was a women's healing ceremony site along the Colorado River, a Ghost Dance ceremony site in Kanab Creek, a plant collecting site in Pipe Spring National Monument, a pictograph panel in Zion National Park, or a hot mineral spring on the Virgin River, Paiute elders said that the meaning of these places derives in part from their connection with other places. When these other places are laid on a map, they create something like the ecosystem -based Grand Canyon regional landscape. The concept, therefore, is emergent and thus subject to test by further analysis. Current data suggest, however, that it meets the criteria established in the cultural landscape model discussed previously, of having unique and mutually interactive geographical and cultural components.
Before Euroamerican encroachment and diseases disrupted the Indian people of this region (Stoffle, Jones and Dobyns 1995), the Grand Canyon was a critical part of Southern Paiute life, and those lands along the Colorado River were especially important components of the Paiute transhumant adaptive strategy (Stoffle and Evans 1978:5). That portion of the
73 Colorado River that flows through the Grand Canyon involves the traditional territory of three local Southern Paiute districts whose people are called today by the terms Shivwits -Santa Clara, Kaibab, and San Juan. Each district is composed of (1) an oasis where crops were grown near permanent communities and (2) upland areaswhere plants were gathered, animals were hunted, minerals quarried, and where other Paiutepeople belonging to the district lived on a more or less permanent basis. TheShivwits -Santa Clara district had its horticultural center on the Tunakwint (Santa Clara River, UT), theKaibab district was centered on Kanab Creek, and the San Juan farmed along the San Juan and Colorado Rivers. People from the Kaibab and Shivwits -Santa Clara districts used irrigated farming techniques most adapted to the steady and quiet flows of streams and rivers that flow into the Colorado River. While most Paiute horticulture was adapted to these small riverine systems, techniques were available for farming the flood plains of the Colorado River. Such farms existed all along the Colorado River from the San Juan territory down river past the Las Vegas district (Jensen 1925:140), to the farms of the Chemehuevi Southern Paiute at Cottonwood Island, and along the west bank of the Colorado River near the current town of Blythe, California (Laird 1976:19 -20).
Piapaxa 'uipi (literally "Big River Canyon" or Grand Canyon) is the central focus of this Paiute regional landscape. Here are high quality quarries of salt and red pigment needed for life. Here too is a place for farming, hunting, curing, conducting ceremonies, and exchanging manufactured goods with other Indian people like the Hualapai, Havasuapi, and Hopi. A San Juan Southern Paiute elder defines this ecosystem in terms of water.
The river there is like our veins. Some are like the small streams and tributaries that run into the river there, so the same things; it's like blood --it's the veins of the world...This story has been carried down from generation to generation. It's been given to them by the old people...It would be given to the new generation, too. (Stoffle, Halmo, Evans, and Austin 1994:1)
By likening the watersheds of this ecosystem to their own veins, Southern Paiute people express how they have a direct and personal relationship with the Grand Canyon regional landscape.
Trails: Spiritual and Physical
Trails have existed from the time of creation down to the present. They exist in physical form, used by living Indian runners and travelers to move from place to place. They exist in spiritual form, used by spirits of humans and others to move from place to place. Trails are a special cultural resource and they were owned by American Indian ethnic groups, families, and individuals. Knowing songs and stories associated with trails was way of defining trail ownership. Performing these songs and telling these stories was a way of having this ownership socially recognized. The cultural significance of trails is tied in part to where they go; that is what they connect. Both spiritual and physical trails have places that exist on the ground and are thus potentially subject to disturbance. Paiute elders have expressed a concern for protecting trails
74 since they were first asked about potential physical impacts from development projects (Stoffle, Jake, Bunte, and Evans 1982). The cultural importance of trails is illustrated in this chapter with the spiritual trail identified as the Salt Song trail.
Trails, the Cry, and the Salt Song as Paiute Songscapes
The Southern Paiute people have two major categories of songscapes, one connected with specific trails and the other connected with the trail to the afterlife. Traditionally, Southern Paiutes had a system of trails and specialists who moved along them carrying messages, goods, and services. A knotted string, called tapitcapi (literally "the knotted "), was sent out via a runner to other Paiute people to inform them of events (Laird 1976:26 -27). Perhaps the best accountof these trails is provided by Carobeth Laird who was married to one of the last of the ritual runners from the Chemehuevi Southern Paiutes (1976:47 -49). These Chemehuevi Paiute runners traveled along trails specifically created by Southern Paiute people. The trails were complex because they passed from water source to water source across the rugged terrain of the Mohave Desert regional landscape. Often trails were traveled at night. In order to remember the trail routes, the runners would know a song that told the way. The trail songs described the path to be followed as well as encouraged the runner by recounting stories of mythic beings who traveled or established the same trail. The trail songs were so critical that ownership waslimited to specific individuals and families who maintained the songs and passed them from generation to generation as a heritage (Laird 1976:19 -20, 268 -276).
Perhaps the least known but most important trail is that traversed by Paiute people to the afterlife. The deceased person moves along this trail in response to Salt Songs which are sung by Paiute people at the funeral ceremony, which is termed the Cry (Sapir 1912). The multiple days of collective singing move the spirit of the departed along a trail that begins in the south, near the origin mountain, and ends in the north, in the Grand Canyon, where the spirit jumps into the afterlife. After each set of songs the singers know the physical location of the spirit person. In this way progress is marked, and the living are assured that the afterlife is being achieved.
75 Chapter Four Site -By -Site Evaluations
This chapter summarizes the responses of Southern Paiute people who were sent by their tribes to participate in this project. The following data are organized by the place where the interviews occurred in the 3- Springs Area. Site -specific evaluation interviews occurred at (1) Stone Mortar Site, (2) Kiel Ranch, and (3) Lorenzi Park. Access was not provided to the prime study area, the Big Spring site, so no interviews could be conducted there. Instead, interviews at the three other sites were conducted over a two -day period and a final interview was conducted regarding potential impacts to the Big Spring site itself. Data collection from the nearby spring sites was gathered under the premise that potential impacts and historical use would be significantly similar to the Big Spring site. This is not the ideal methodology; however, it can be said with a degree of certainty that the meaning of the Big Springs is equivalent to the composite meanings of the other sites in the 3- Springs Area.
These site -specific cultural evaluations are further understood as component parts in various Southern Paiute cultural landscapes. These landscapes and the role of places in the 3- Springs Area were discussed in the previous chapter. The landscape analysis tests the assumption that the cultural significance of the Big Springs is similar to, and even to some extent dependent upon, the cultural significance of the other places in the 3- Springs Area.
The 3- Spring Area Interviews
This portion of the chapter presents the site -by -site interviews. Site descriptions are provided as background for the readers of this report. Although care has been taken to present an accurate description of each site, comprehensive geological, archaeological, fauna, and flora studies were beyond the scope of this research.
The following text presents specific responses to all of the questions asked on the site- specific interview form. The responses to each question are summarized for all sites, followed by qualitative responses made at specific sites. Photographs illustrate main research points.
76 Lorenzi Park
In 1965, the City of Las Vegas purchased this 80 acre site, which is situated to the east of Twin Lakes Drive, just south of Washington Avenue and west of Rancho Road. Within the park are the Nevada State Museum, Lorenzi Lake (Figure 22), a rose garden, volleyball courts, softball fields, and picnic and barbecue areas (Figure 23).
History
In 1911, a Frenchman named David Lorenzi admired the high knoll and mesquite covered slope of this site, and cleared it for farming. He built a large lake with a mule team and a dragline, completing the project in 1922. The lake is one of the largest man made bodies of water in the city. Later, a pool approximately 100 feet by 110 feet was added, and another lake was soon dredged north of the original lake. There were horse races, rodeos, gambling and entertainment at this locality. During the Prohibition, Lorenzi had his own ice plant and still. He sold the land to Thomas Sharp in 1937 (Nevada State Museum, 1980s).
After World War II, Twin Lakes Lodge was considered an oasis in Las Vegas, at this site. The pond was stocked with rainbow trout and the lakes were redredged. Motels were built, and the lodge became a dude ranch for marriages and divorces, with stables, barbecues and rodeos. In the 1950's, many scientists resided there during construction of the Nevada Test Site (Nevada State Museum, 1980).
Lorenzi Lake
The land slopes toward the east in this area. A lawn of fescue and Bermuda grass cover the gently sloping hills on the eastern side of the lake. In 1988, a retention wall was constructed around the lake to alleviate erosion. The water used to be crystal clear, but today it is murky and heavily used by fishermen, picnickers and those who feed the ducks and geese. The lake holds 7.23 million gallons of water, and there are five pumps located strategically around it at various points, to circulate the water and to deter the growth of algae.
Flora
Approximately a dozen mesquite trees grow within the park, and they are one of the few native species among a largely cultivated exotic flora. Fremont cottonwood and weeping willow provide shade and structurally diverse habitat along the lake side for wildlife. Flowering plum, oleander, Vitex, Leucophyllum, Caesalpinia (bird of paradise), Washingtonia fan palm, roses, olive trees, pine, ash, live oak and Chinese pistachio are some of the introductions. Before these modifications, this natural spring's riparian ecosystem was surrounded with native flora.
77 Figure 22. Lorenzi Lake, Lorenzi Park.
Figure 23. The grounds at Lorenzi Park.
78 Fauna
The lake is stocked with rainbow trout, catfish, bluegill and crappie. The Parksand Leisure Department designed a fish habitat for these aquatic organisms. Ducks, geese, sparrows, hawks, owls, doves and pigeons can be seen in Lorenzi Park.
Stone Mortar Site
This mesa -like plateau is situated in North Las Vegas, just east of the North LasVegas Community Golf Course. It is on Losee Road, approximately 1 mile from theKiel Ranch, and it extends for 20 acres. The area is surrounded by urban development, and a considerable amount of trash dumping occurs at this site.
Topography
This site is a dry, sparsely vegetated and exposed rocky outcrop (Figure 24), rising approximately 20 -30 feet above the immediate area. It is estimated to be 2000 feet above sea level, and is composed of caliche, a sedimentary bedrock, and has a well preservedmesquite grinding area on the northeast corner of the plateau (Figures 25 and 26). The soils are alight colored alluvium with coarse rock fragments. Boulders create microhabitat forwildlife and plant communities.
Flora
A black tarry crustose lichen grows on the boulders and rock fragments throughoutthis locality. The glandular and delicate Thymophylla pentachaeta (five -needle fetid marigold), provides a yellow tinge against the chalky colored terrain. Larrea tridentata (creosote bush), Atriplex canescens (four -wing saltbush), Atriplex confertifolia (shadscale), and Thamnosa montana (turpentine bush), are some of the desert shrubs which characterizethis disturbed ecosystem. Sphaeralcea ambigua (desert globemallow), Plantago insularis(plantain), Plantago patagonica (woolly plantain), Datura meteloides (sacred datura), and Ambrosiadumosa (white bursage), add texture and diversity to the wind swept landscape. Stephanomeria spinosa (Indian gum bush), with its photosynthetic green stems,Salsola tragus (tumbleweed), Lepidium lasiocarpum (desert pepperweed), and purple flowered Phacelia with its scorpioid inflorescence, are scattered across the table -like rugged surface. Atthe base of this landform are Prosopis glandulosa (honey mesquite), with the parasitic Phoradendron californicum (mistletoe),Ephedra nevadensis (Indian tea), Sisymbrium irio (tumble mustard), and Solanum eleagnifolium (silverleaf nightshade).
79 Figure 24 (top). Stone Mortar Site; Figure 25. Bedrock mortars at Stone Mortar Site.
80 Figure 26. Indian consultant viewing bedrock mortar, Stone Mortar Site.
Fauna
Wildlife occurring at the site are cottontail, burrowing owl, mockingbirds, sparrows, doves, and black widow spiders.
Kiel Ranch
Kiel Ranch is located on the north side of Carey Avenue between Commerce Street, and west of Losee Road in North Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada. It is a 12.21 acre site which is situated approximately 1.5 miles north of the Las Vegas Ranch, and is classified as an unimproved historic site (Figure 27). The area is at an elevation of 1980 feet in the Mojave Desert, with slopes ranging from one to four percent (Hohmann, 1997).
81 Figure 27. Historic building at Kiel Ranch.
Soils
The region is composed of alluvial soils, which were formed of eroded materials from the surrounding mountains encircling the Las Vegas Valley. The local soil type is a gravelly,loamy fine sand, which displays a well developed desert pavement (Hohmann, 1997).
Flora
Various processes of land clearing have impacted the original vegetation and riparian ecosystem of the site. Larrea tridentata (creosote bush), Atriplex canescens (four-wing saltbush), Atriplex confertifolia (shadscale), Stanleya pinnata (Indian spinach), several species of Descurainia (tansy mustard), Sisymbrium altissimum (tumble mustard), Sphaeralcea ambigua (desert globemallow), Datura meteloides (sacred datura), Amsinckia tessellata (fiddleneck), and Cryptantha are found in the central portion of the property. Ambrosia dumosa (white bursage), Salsola tragus (tumbleweed), Heliotropium curassavicum (heliotrope), Senecio (groundsel), Chenopodium (goosefoot), and Euphorbia (spurge), are well established along the peripheral areas of the grounds.
The retention pond supports a riparian community of plant life such as Typha (cattail), Pluchea sericea (arrow weed), Salix gooddingii (Goodding willow), Salix exigua (coyote willow), and Populus fremontii (Fremont cottonwood), which provide shade for the lush and vigorous wetlands ecosystem around the natural spring (Figure 28). Cuscuta (dodder), the twining, leafless parasitic plant climbs upon its host as an orange stringy mass. Prosopis
82 Figure 28. Spring water retention pond at Kiel Ranch. glandulosa (honey mesquite), Prosopis pubescens (screwbean mesquite) and Acacia greggii (catclaw), contribute structural diversity to the tract of land. Phoradendron californicum (mistletoe) parasitizes mesquite, and produces mucilaginous berries that are relished by many species of birds.Vitis arizonica (wild grape), the woody native climbs by its tendrils, upon the trees and shrubs along the edge of the pond.
Fauna
Wildlife in the area includes cottontail, small rodents, several species of reptiles, numerous birds such as roadrunner, quail, sparrowsand ducks. Although Kiel Ranch is a disturbed site, the environment is relatively diverse with biotic and abiotic elements that sustain life.
Big Springs
The Las Vegas Valley Water District's North Well Field is located in the heart of metropolitan Las Vegas. Today, this diverse "island" ecosystem is surrounded by urbanization. There is no surface water flow from Big Springs because of extensive pumping, which has decreased it by more than 100 feet. Although the springs are dry, this site continues to provide rich and viable habitat for plants and wildlife. There are plans to recharge and restore the riparian communities, to create a life supporting environment for reptiles, amphibians, mammals, migratory birds and plant life (Las Vegas Valley Water District, 1998).
83 Three large reservoirs, two pump stations and numerous wells are onthe property, which is enclosed by a chain link fence. The 180 acre site isbordered by Valley View Boulevard to the west, and Alta Drive to the south, and extends fromWest Charleston Boulevard to U.S. 95. Big Springs, which is the headwaters of Las Vegas Creek, is onthe northern part of the grounds adjacent to the freeway, U.S. 95 (Las Vegas Valley WaterDistrict, 1998).
Soils and Geology
The site is relatively flat in profile, and has a 3 percent slope towardthe southeast. On the northern portion of the grounds, historic creek beds collect storm waterwhich drains toward the historic creek channels (Las Vegas Valley Water District,1998). Sand and silt sized fine grained material containing small amounts of clay, characterize thesurficial deposits in the North Well Field. Significant soil organic matter is evident in the cottonwoodriparian corridor on the northern part of the property. Subsurface deposits from the Red RockAlluvial Fan, with caliche represent the substrate within the complex. Several faults traversethe area, and land subsidences due to ground water withdrawal continue to occur. Since the 1950's,subsidence on the site is approximately one to two inches per year, and faults cause fissuringwhich are small tension cracks in alluvial sediments above the water table. Fissures expand as aresult of the erosive action of runoff, and several abandoned wells exhibiting localized subsidence arein the northern part of the property (Las Vegas Valley Water District,1998).
Flora
The site provides habitat for native plants and plant communities which arerarely encountered in the Las Vegas Valley. Populus fremontii (Fremont cottonwood),several species of Salix (willow), and Prosopis (mesquite), contribute to the structuraldiversity of the area. Native Mojave Desert plants such as Prosopis pubescens (screwbeanmesquite), Prosopis glandulosa (honey mesquite), Yucca schidigera (Mojave yucca), Stanleya pinnata( Indian spinach), Larrea tridentata (creosote bush), various species ofAtriplex (saltbush),Pluchea sericea (arrow weed), Ambrosia dumosa (white bursage), andSphaeralcea ambigua (desert globemallow), grow on the property. Phoradendron californicum (mistletoe)parasitizes mesquite, and produces coral pink fruits which are eaten by phainopeplasand other birds. Ephedra nevadensis (Indian tea), Thymophylla pentachaeta (five -needlefetid marigold), and Datura meteloides (sacred datura), display color and texture to thelandscape. The towering Populus fremontii and Salix indicate the underground presence of water,marking the course of the springs, which were once surface flowing.
Fauna
The large trees of the riparian ecosystem provide nesting, roostingand foraging opportunities for wildlife. A well developed litter of organic matter offers coverfor amphibians, reptiles, small mammals and insects.
84 Fauna such as grey fox, kit fox, coyote and white -tailed antelope squirrelinhabit the North Well Field. Numerous birds such as red -tailed hawk,mockingbirds, American kestrels, quail, poorwill, northern flicker, greater roadrunner, kildeer, burrowingowl, cuckoos and loggerhead shrike occupy the Big Springs environment (Las Vegas Valley WaterDistrict, 1998).
Purposes of Indian Use of the Area
Responses to Q10: "Would Indian people have used this area?
Table 4.1. Response Summary Table: "Yes" Responses to Indian Use ofArea Name of site Female Male Total Lorenzi Park 5 5 10 Kiel Ranch 3 4 7 Stone Mortar Site 4 2 6
Table 4.2. Indian Use of Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table Stone Mortar Category Male Female Total Site Gathering food 2 3 5
Living 1 3 4
Ceremony /power 1 3 4 Camping 2 2
Other 1 1 2
Comments on Uses of Stone Mortar Site:
m Mesquite ceremonies; a sacred place.
f A special place for pounding grains and seeds, singing songs.
f They move around, they don't stay in one spot.
f The spring nearby means that Indians made homes here. It might have used also for power ceremonies as well.
85 Figure 29. Ethnographer interviewing Indian elder at Stone Mortar Site.
f They did pounding here and needed to do it with water near, chew on datura leaves and can tell where something was hiding but if overdo become crazy, gathered here for ceremony.
f Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table Lorenzi Park Category Male Female Total
Gathering food 5 4 9
Living 4 4 8
Ceremony /power 4 4 8
Hunting 5 2 7
Camping 3 3 6
Other 2 2 4
86 Figure 30. Ethnographer interviewing Pahrump Paiute elder at Lorenzi Park.
Comments on Uses of Lorenzi Park:
m Deer, antelope, rabbits, chipmunk, lizards, gila monsters, mesquite turtle, salt song, funeral ceremony, mountain sheep, coyote ceremony, deer ceremony, salt ceremony (done with coyote), prayfor purification of water and for farming.
f Desert turtle, basket making, powwow.
m Would have lived here and camped here also. Made jewelry and baskets here. Conducted ceremonies here.
A f We didn't have camp grounds so we would camp away from road or away from ponds. Old Indians used this place for gardening. The area is windy
87 Figure 31. Richard Stoffle interviewing Chemehuevi elder at Lorenzi Park.
in the winter so west to the foothills. the desert is really cold. The red rock foothills are sheltered areas too, but not Mt. Charleston.
f Social gatherings. It would have been a place for a chief to live. They always had the best spot. Best because it is hilly and you can see wherever you want. It's a good lookout and has good water.
m Probably it was a main source for local Indians because of the 2 lakes. Most livelihood in this valley was around these lakes. It was used also for farming and for drinking. The lake also attracted animals and so was used for hunting purposes.
m If this was like Moapa there would have been more animals, like mountain sheep or deer. This place is part of the desert and the desert has a power and a life. The desert could help you. When my little brother died in Prescott, AZ, my dad gave prayer to the desert and some food. They had told us not to go because of a big storm and a flood but we arrived there without any problem. Our car used to consume a lot of oil but we didn't have time to put extra oil in the engine and still we did the whole trip and return with the same oil.
88 f Maybe to camp and have ceremonies or maybe becauseof food. This area was covered with mesquite andchaparral They fixed it and now its different. Maybe to rest and camping, when traveling theycamped by the water on their way to Mt. Charleston.
f A home.
m Collect plants for medicine.
Table 4.4. Indian Use of Kiel Ranch: ResponseSummary Table Kiel Ranch Category Male Female Total
Gathering food 4 1 5
Hunting 4 1 5
Living 3 3 Ceremony /power 2 2
Camping 1 1 2 Other 2 2
Comments on Uses of Kiel Ranch:
f Basket making.
m Meeting place for gathering.
m There is water here, plants, animals, they probably farmed here.Because of the slope of the landscape it looks like good ground.
f It was one of the main areas used by Indians.
m It was an Indian farm. There are some grapes. It would make anexcellent farm because the soil is rich. For hunting an abundance of rabbit and squirrel, gathering plants for food and medicine. The springs are very impressive.Kiel is primarily underdeveloped compared to other springs. Big springs is an area pretty well untouched except for the capped wells.
89 Connection with other Places
Responses to QI1: "Is this place part of a groupof connected place ?"
Table 4.5. Connections with Other Places:Response Summary Table m <::<;^I:.::.: t this ñi .na .. imun..n ... p......
:.. , . ,4r1 ?1 5'.5:., ..::...1... Q.. 7.. > ::::..3,:.4`. ,.. ,....,:.,:::<:;.:::::.:<,::.:::.:: :;.,:.:»:.:.::..>:.>:<..,:,<,.:..:,..:.::::>::.:::.::..:<:. :_,....::.:;.,..::.:: ....:..::...: ::.;:.,:.,:::.::,:. :..Y: ...... ::.:<::,,..,,.::«.:<. . .,...... Ki.e..v...... ?...1..l..R...... G.,::;;.....,.. ..::.,::.<.:.<'... .
::...... :..:...... 1.: iStone.Mortar..Site..' Do.a'l..Koow...... Comments on Connections between Lorenzi Parkand other Places:
m Subsurface aquifer, connected through the rain, people,animals, earth, sky relationship. Springs are connected as functional and spiritualplaces.
f Other springs.
m Twin Springs has been since time immemorial and isconnected with a series of springs up and down the Las Vegas valley. They areall connected by an underground aquifer. The Spring Mountain range (5,586 feet) is anexample of a high altitude spring on the Spanish trail. There are 54registered springs here, hence the name spring mountains. and they are connected tothis area.
f Mt Charleston for shelter, Red Rocks, Chemehuevi valleyand Colorado river. f The big major spring across highway heads down towardsthe Sunrise Mountains and to the Colorado river. It is all connected: the water flowsfrom here to other places.
m It's close to other three springs. People gathered here to gamble.
f It's connected to the two lakes down by Twin lake. There are so manysprings and rivers and streams. Wine Creek, a little Indian village. I'vebeen through there when we came up through town.
f People lived here.
m All these other springs and connected to the mountains.
Comments on Connections between Kiel Ranch and otherPlaces:
f Powwow, mesquite gathering.
90 m Through kinship.
m Gathered at places where there is water because a long time ago wedid not live together as we do now. People came into this place and visited.Those people would have been from Moapa, Pahrump and other Paiutes.There might have even been some Hualapai coming overto raid.
m It is part of this whole network in here. There were springsand ponds in this whole valley at one time. Probably interconnected.
f It is connected to Moapa, Ash Meadows andPahrump.
f Powwow, mesquite gathering.
m Up north in the Nevada Test Site there are pinion trees.40 miles to the west there is a canyon which is a very sacred site, CornSprings. It's connected to Lorenzi park as well.
Comments on Connections between Stone Mortar Siteand other Places:
f Big springs complex and another spring further in thevalley. f Connected to places over the Hill (Potosi Mountain). There peoplehad pow -wows. f Connected to other places for gathering food and then come up here togrind it, dry the meat. The water was nearby. Indians had wicki -upsmade of willows and bushes, skins. On the mountains there are caves.. They got pine -nuts in September; in October basket willows and in the spring they gatherthe early food like cactus berries (April), yucca plant (roasted then) and in the summerthey gather berries.
f Camping around water; a lot of people lived here.
Responses to Q11b: "How is this place connected to theothers you mentioned ?"
Lorenzi Park:
f Connection of water.
m All connected as part of an underground system of water.
91 f Trails connected from my place to Mt. Charleston, fromRed Rock to the South. Chemehuevi go there for ceremony, they also came up herefor ceremony and go to the Colorado river for fishing.
f Water flows from here to other places.
m I imagine it was connected to other places. Lotsof people came to visit or stay and the Salt Song trail does go through this area.
f I guess they used it for the same thing, a place to stay, orstopped by on the way to Mt. Charleston to water the horses and have lunch.
m It is part of the whole chain throughout thisvalley.
Kiel Ranch:
f Water uses; they always lived by the river.
m Through food and water.
m People moved back and forth. f People used this place to move to other places and visiteach other. f Water use, always lived near the water.
m They're all pretty much the same culturally; basket weaving, recreation, arrow ceremonies. Big cottonwoods provide plenty of shade.Plenty of water and wildlife, like an oasis.
Stone Mortar Site:
m Springs are a blood vein for people and plants.
f Through the underground water system; all the springs in the area areconnected. f Indians would go to different places and see the mountains and gothere. Sometimes they used this knoll to overlook the valley. They used to govisit. All places had names and they know where to go.
92 Responses to Q12: "Which, if any, of the followingfeatures is an important part of why this place is significant to Indian people ?"
Table 4.6. Important Indian Features: Response SummaryTable `'%v. ?, :.k;:rf .;:;: :r.. #','::'':.' >.,::::::::k: ;ÿ:,ß ":',,'+,,, -:
::<.:.w,.,3§ ..:::..N.4}.v.:.,...... :.»:..v...... :.:....v..:y. ....:,Yew,.Kie Ranch,....,:.:....»...... ,:.:.. ::,:::<: Yee{Lor.egi..Perkt,:.»<>, »:::::: ::.A»:::5 ::5 ..:,»l OJ ::>:5::, :.:::.:: :::: ::...... _....Yes , «.::::. . :,:.4 .::.1}.»: N.Q.<.Stone.Martar..SÍtG 1:> 1 r
}:V,:;:$v::M1:'' ,t';::::ÿn}i :M1}.L}: ti<.f 'r}:iti{ilv;T,j:};:'{i:i;i<:: : :::.. } i:}. : ti<`v:}t:{:i}' áy . 8 ;: :...... M.:}.::.}.. ::.::ti. ... : !.! :?:;:. xcfi' .....::a.A: . ::kR. :: R:7 y83 í' ..::... '.
.,.::::vitt:»v::v.nJR-{1.4... :4R5 x':.::..». -::-..:»:. - .ti.:tV..::'v:...`CJJ:.;::lFA`tF.:¢l.SO.iv::.en,Siw.v...... :wx.:.::.t»
Yes.'Stone..Morter Site 4 2 G
h:,fi}'':íri:S}:4}:;. :^::.':.¿:ti{ :;::;:::í m3r .T ;.:: 4 ::.`.#f 3E-.e'"':'r''':':::::.... S.C öe.}3}'3k%'t?f;:,C;:;:
Yes :.l.or.enzi..Perk :::. , ::..:..<:.S... ° - 7 Yes ' Stone .M.Qrtar.Site 4:: 2: 6
: .:.:;::;;3::;<:.ti :.::.:. . .:. :!Fit;:fiÉ:::::'.ti? .,:}::: r :,.:.<;+':., ; . }.`,:,`::: . b".é: . :R. ,.1 ..
4.....:::.::5.::;:.,.:::::.<:.9 : Yee:i Stene::Märkär.:.Site. 4 :::2:::::.6
. ::.:: ::.:.:.:. ::::... :.::::::..::::::: : :>:::::fi.. :.:.:.::4 1. . .:..: :.: :..:. .Y.:er{Kie.l Ranh } :.. . .
N.Q.>.t.orenzi.Park
.:ç.;. ...}::.:;:i::''::::ri:;::::i:i;:::>i,»:;'i:;.:k, ; y{'iY.';:,:+ i::;::::i}}r.},.:$h;}i'r'{ : i.';tiy. .::}::w: : .;} }U }ÿ.;::%: ::::'1.^k.;%3:::`.:}.r.it.s R or:3r.: # '}:::: :A:'+.':'''t. 'h k#:"':wf'}£# .:..:` kS :{ `ti: b C': : < ....:....::...... i» x: ::::::::: r.:.,..:. ..::::.:.:::::::::::.::.::.:...::::.::::::.::::.Y:es :StänenM.A.hai .:Iit :::::::::::..:::::.:::.:,..::4 }::::::::.::.2.:::.::.:.r::.Q
...... __ -.... --- -....------:. --...... - - .. - .
..:...:.....»....::...... iVgt.er.enzi.:.P.:erl..... 2:>:::..:...n2, lo}Kiel.Ranch 1: 1
93 Uses of Water
Table 4.7. Indian Use of Water: Res i onse SummaTable Q;7:`'': .z ea;V;W v.4P.-: kErc,MOI aC= FC:= ;; YesLorenzi Park 51 51 10 Yesr;Kiel Ranch 31 4 7 Yes Stone Mortar Site 41 11 5
No < Stone Mortar Site 11 1
Table 4.8. Indian Use of Water at Stone Mortar Site: ResponseSummary Table Stone Mortar Category Male Female Total Food /drink 3 3 Medicine 3 3 Ceremony 3 3 Other Don't know No response 2 3
Comments on Uses of Water at Stone Mortar Site:
f Chaparral for medicine drink It cures sores on your body, red fire ants' bites.
m Anywhere you found water you found the people.
f They used water for a lot of things. Water is a very powerful medicine, sacred, it has power. If anything doesn't have water it would die. We're like that and animals too. If you don't feel good they would sprinkle it as a blessing. You also give mother earth the water.
f Water was used for cooking, to boil the greasewood for medicine.
f Water used for making porridge, sweat lodges, and purifying ceremonies.
94 Table 4.9. Indian Use of Water at Lorenzi Park: ResponseSummary Table Lorenzi Park Category Male Female Total Food/drink 5 5 10 Medicine 4 4 8 Ceremony 3 3 6
Other 1 1 2 Don't know
Comments on Uses of Water at Lorenzi Park:
m Blessing ceremonies. f Greasewood medicine, Mormon tea, turpentine bush, it cures yellow jaundice. f Drinking; also animals cannot survive without water and will dieoff without it. Water is powerful to us.
m We go to where there's water because we need it to survive. Iheard of trails to go from one place to another. For example, one trail from Pahrump toMoapa would be connected on hunting parties to gather water. Plants here werealso used for medicine but unsure of how.
f Turnar is Indian spinach good for the blood need water to take away poison in plant; birthing ladies need water. Water also used for painting and tattooing,for poultices, and Indian tea, used in the sweat lodge, for farming and for tanning hides.
f Irrigated gardens, drinking water, washing clothes, bathing, used inmedicine, get end of feather and sprinkle water over you like a priest would in church, Grandma's brother was an Indian doctor, lived in Shivwits, Keno was his name.
m Used water when medicine person produced plants for medicine; forpurification and sanctification of area in ceremony; for bathing and enjoyment.
f Camping, hunting, powwow; I liked it better before change.
95 Table 4.10. Indian Use of Water at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table Kiel Ranch Category Male Female Total Food/drink 4 3 7
Ceremony 2 3 5
Medicine 3 1 4
Other 1 2 3
Comments on Uses of Water at Kiel Ranch:
m For drinking, cooking, swimming, also to sooth excessive heat here as well as the other springs.
f Camping, hunting.
f We cook with water, drink it and bathe with it, used for mixing and diluting medicine used to sprinkle in ceremonies.
m To mix with medicine -water was part of the medicine. If it was a real clean spring, exceptionally clean, they would have gone to it for mixing medicines. Water is part of a blessing ceremony. They offer everybody water and everybody drinks.
m To boil some of medicine like creosote.
m Life, survival, use sage to say prayers, bless the water.
f Camping and hunting.
Uses of Plants
Table 4.11 Indian Uses of Plants: Res s onse Summa Table :. ;:{.::i:}:{' '+ '.ti ': v:i.4.....:...... ti4::':'.:{.:iti:ti:..::.". . ': {..k'i:ti:::{:{tPi.r\};;,;, ii::i:::::;4:}\:,F{, ;i%,:,v,¡:}¡''y:;
Yes Kiel Ranch 34 41 7
k 4K 6: :Yes ','Stone Mortar Site ¢ 2 ? , i
.... . lrv.;...y...... r...n...... n....r.....x...... :...... v...... ;... :.sy. mL.ti.tx...;v.m:. ;..vx .v...... n ,No :; Lorenzi Park :: ; 1; 1; .. Table 4.12. Indian Uses of Plants at the Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table Stone Mortar Category Male Female Total Site Medicine 2 4 6
Making things 2 3 5
Food 2 3 5 Ceremony 2 2 4
Comments on Uses of Plants at Stone Mortar Site:
m Ceremony to give thanks; cottonwood used to make cradle boards and handles for their gourds.
m Chaparral, sage brush.
m Greasewood and saltbrush used for medicinal purposes.
f Making things -they would make baskets if you find straight pieces of squaw bush (use stems). We gather it in October and use it also as fire -wood to start fire. medicine - chaparral and greasewood. I talk to it, boil it and run into a strainer; then put it in a bottle. It's good for kidneys, bones and skin. But you need to talk to it and ask for help.
f Greasewood was used for fuel and also for medicine. It has four names (darth oak, chaparral, creosote bush, (yatump in Paiute); yucca fruit was used for food and cooked underground; jimson weed is the oldest plant I know of.. they speak about it...it has a white blossom and you need to speak to it but 1 never talked about it to my children because if you speak improperly to it, it stays with you for life. Mesquite used for food, medicine, ceremony, and making things; willow for making things; creosote dyes had medicinal uses has hallucinatory effects and it's like a drug... the Paiute name for it is Momomp; Indian berry (Ho' hup hve); roots of coyote melons and gourds (now destroyed) were used as medicine for stomach ache and also for diabetes. They are very bitter and they study them now at Reno for medicinal purposes; Prince's plume (we call it spinach) you need to wash it after you cook it because it's bitter. It grows in the spring and needs a soil with high selenium content.; mesquite beans we gather the seeds in August; snake weed or match weed (yu- anumba) was used to start fires but also a sacred plant; sap of greasewood was used to make a little ball connected to needles obtained from cactus and used to begin weaving patterns for baskets.
97 Table 4.13. Indian Uses of Plants at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table Lorenzi Park Category Male Female Total
Food 4 4 8
Making things 4 4 8
Medicine 3 3 6
Ceremony 2 3 5
No response 1 1
Comments on Uses of Plants at Lorenzi Park:
m There is no sign of native plants here.
m Mesquite beans were pounded; some trees were used to weave baskets and make pots; I imagine they used this site for medicine and ceremony but I'm not familiar with this specific site here.
m Willows cattails, arroweeds.
f Willows used to make powwow shade and baskets.
f Indians used to plant corn squash and melons; I don't know where they got the seeds...when they plant a garden in the desert they need a lot of water and shade so they plant trees.
f Sweat lodge, funerals, to burn offerings, storing food Certain shamans use it for blessing, for camping, making cradle boards, fires cooking and homes.
f Would have been like the Kiel Ranch before it was made into a park.
f None here... but screwbeans and mesquite were used.
Table 4.14. Indian Uses of Plants at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table Kiel Ranch Category Male Female Total Food 3 3 6
Medicine 4 1 5
Making things 3 1 4
Ceremony 3 3
98 Comments on Uses of Plants at Kiel Ranch:
m Indian spinach, mesquite beans, willows for baskets; cattails are very edible; arrowweed for arrows; fuel from mesquite and cottonwood.
m Grapes, kinds of mesquite for food. Ephedra tea, yatump. Yatump branches used by dancers to tie belts -like sage but not burned. Arrowweed to make arrow shafts, cradle boards, yellow sap boiled for thumb on awl; willow used to make shelter and baskets; cottonwood used to make fire, drum shells; mesquite makes fire its roots make cradle board; yatump tar for thumb on needle, cactus awls.
m Screwbean, mesquite, datura, shelter, baskets.
m Cattails for mosquito bite, and boiled to get rid of pink eye.
f Wild grape jelly jam, pine nuts, cactus berry.
f Willows used for basketry; agave, mesquite beans, Indian tea and pommegrate used for food purposes; the local weed is poisonous and you need to know what you're doing with that (it has hallucinatory effects). When you deal with poisonous weeds you need to know how to handle them.
f Pine nuts, corn.
Uses of Animals
Table 4.15. Indian Uses of Animals: Res onse SummaTable +;p ..,..r.,. . yytirx,:.,.ti. ,{d }'{4} \',2i}..; .,1. vy,.??' .;::Y 4:.?: ;Y,:rv':r ? \:: , 'J±;$.+ :.,;:{Y+}'.':{{i?: ,ti+¡v:v<:;\::.^;$., r+?7`.,:Viti::': ? :'t;:;ó Q . . }. :} p: a%S1 .. :. !E>: .:..:i r... .:::..?.....r3j,a`:3 a:ckE?sì-:6,.-.. :,ï`itE:',d'. 3 £G. .< <: itE:-. .:...... :: f `.. t:aS= r Yes Lorenzi Park ; 5; 5:: 10
Yes l Kiel Ranch 3 7 .. .. .w..,,.,...,,,.,:...:,,..:...:..,.,.::.:.:.,,..,....:,...... :,,.: { Yes #Stone Mortar Site 4{ 2} 6
99 Table 4.16. Indian Uses of Animals at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table Stone Mortar Site Category Male Female Total Food 2 4 6
Clothing 2 2 4
Tools 2 2 4
Medicine 2 2
Ceremony 1 2
Other 1 1
Comments of Uses of Animals at Stone Mortar Site:
m There used to be animals all around. Chemehuevis wore buckskins.
m Deer, antelope, mt. sheep, bone used to make tools to tan hides; turtle eggs; rabbit, cottontails.
f Tools made out of rabbit heads; skin boiled, rabbit coats.
f Antelope skins were used for shoes and blankets. Bones were used to scrape off skins. Chuckwalla were used for medicine (general medicine). In the legend he's one of the strongest animals in the desert. We can't talk about them in this timeof the year; only in the winter, otherwise snakes come out and bite you.
f Cottontails used for wounds. If you eat the meat it prevents the swelling; people also used the bones of cottontails (a person in Indian religion was once killed by the bones of cottontails).
f Deer utilization of all parts of the deer; turtle rattles, soups, jerky; prairie dogs for meat and lizards and snakes.
100 Table 4.17. Indian Uses of Animals at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table Lorenzi Park Category Male Female Total
Food 5 5 10
Clothing 5 4 9
Tools 4 2 6
Medicine 2 2 4
Ceremony 2 1 3
Comments on Animal Uses at Lorenzi Park:
m Rabbits' parts were used for tools (bones).
m Paiutes and Chemehuevis would eat any animal they caught. Indians used all the parts of animals, for example bones for tools and antlers also; with bones they would make rattles and gourds, as well. Jack rabbits' skins were used to make aprons and buckskin cloths. Also feather caps were made.
m Rabbits for food, ceremony and clothing; bone marrow for medicine, fox for clothing.
f Blankets were made out of rabbit skin, and food from head.
f They eat it and use the skin for clothing and sometimes shelter. The only medicine animal is a chuckwalla in the hills.
f Eat doves, ducks, geese; medicine: eagle hawk claws and roadrunners.
f Turtles; rabbits for blankets, bird bones for whistles.
f Rabbit capes, turtles for food and dippers, and turtle parts are good medicine.
101 Table 4.18. Indian Uses of Animals at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table Kiel Ranch Category Male Female Total
Food 4 3 7
Clothing 3 1 4
Tools 2 1 3
Medicine 1 1 2
Ceremony 2 2
Other 1 1
Comments on Uses of Animals at Kiel Ranch:
f Furs, jerky, deer hide tepee, burden basket for pine nuts.
f Medicinal purposes: lizard tails -my grandmother did operations in the eyes with lizard tails. She turned the eyelids upside down and then operate on the cataract. My family was medicine oriented... different people have different skills. There wasn't a particular succession in the medical profession. Tools- different implements were made out of deer, for ex. ribs were used as sharpeners to tan the skins. Needles to was were made out of smaller bones (not only of deer). Clothing: deer skins used for clothing; rabbits...that's our main blanket, like fur -coat.
f Shoes, gloves, cradles.
m Making shoes, shelter, clothing, some bones from the animals were used for skinning the animals bones for personal attire.
m Rabbit, quail, dove, squirrels, chipmunks, ducks for food. Quail tops for ceremonial baskets. Rabbit fur for clothes and awls out of bone from rabbit.
m Birds, rabbits, quails, doves.
m Rabbits, quail, fowl, birds looking for algae, rabbit clan and tortoise clan.
102 Archeology
Table 4.19 Indian Use of Site: Res i onse SummaTable
3 ; ' Yes NozKielRanch 2 1 { 3 Table 4.20.Indian Use of Site at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table Stone Mortar Site Category Male Female Total Hunting 1 4 5 Gathering 1 4 5 Camping 1 3 4 Ceremony/Power 1 3 4 Living 3 3 Other 1 1 Comments on Archaeology of Stone Mortar Site: m Grinding mesquite beans...I would think they camped here seasonally. f For food and for resting. In the grinders they would clean and pound the food, but when it rained they used them to collect water for drinking. They would also hold sacred powerful medicine meetings here. f There is evidence of grinding mortars for mesquite seeds, beans... this site was also used for gardening, planting corn, beans and squash. It was also used for ceremonial purposes. For example when a person dies, after one year there is a pow -wow (not like the "ear -ring selling" pow -wows of today). You need todestroy blankets, buckskins both of the deceased and other bought at the supermarket. My mom and her grandfather did...people used to mourn over the dead people but my kids never saw that kind of mourning... here there are also beads and arrowheads. m Mesquite grinding, lookout point for travelers. 103 Table 4.21. Indian Use of Site at Lorenzi Park: Resuonse Summary Table Lorenzi Park Category Male Female Total Living 4 5 9 Gathering 4 3 7 Hunting 4 2 6 Ceremony/Power 3 3 6 Camping 2 3 5 Don't know 1 1 Comments on Archaeology of Lorenzi Park: f They would have a home here to stop on their travels for water on way to gather food. m They might have used plants for ceremonies but can't tell today since it's all gone. m You have to dig deep to find any Indian artifact now! f Old fire places, camping places, lithic scatter, pottery, arrowheads, grinding stones, old spears, atlatls, Indian ceremonial paints, buckskin; no burials here, they would have designated a burial place away from spring in the hills...when funeral was conducted they would stay here, but would carry a body a great distance away from home. Would burn materials of the person behind the home of the person away from the body, so there might be funeral beads here. f No evidence of this. m Social gatherings and funerals. 104 Table 4.22. Indian Use of Site at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table Kiel Ranch Category Male Female Total Gathering 3 1 4 Living 3 1 4 Hunting 3 1 4 No response 1 2 3 Camping 1 1 2 Other 1 1 Comments on Archaeology of Kiel Ranch: m For socializing and enjoying the natural terrain of the spring; telling stories to their children. f Ceremony: they could have used this site also for ceremony because of the closeness to other sites (like death ceremonies). Farming -it was a good place (shade, water, camping area); since they started pumping it everything went out. m As far as farming is concerned there may be something under the surface. Geologic Features Table 4.23. Indian Use of Geolo is Features: Res s onse SummaTable .. :: :x:;:.'. n+,+..; Y.¡,.%:2ï;ii.^;::iiY'il..!:::;?:{i::.;. `r$}.Y}::'::4:::;{:v;:' '\.i w :r<. :f:\k.''.:.::r.;,.;+:;: . :k.,,:,;:, .::.,. ö . .. yo-:a a;a-:G.=xk_.;, 6 3,.,,rAC;.¿a,-1f._yjx.ct...... 'M1'.v, `Yes f Lorenzi Park # 5 3 8;'. :Yes Kiel Ranch 31 31 6 Yes Stone Mortar Site 1 3 2 5' No Response }Stone Mortar Sitei 1 1 ..:...... ,... M. v.:..... N.:...... :...,..,..,..., ...... ,...... ,...... ,... ..,:v.....:M.:...,,..M,.w...,,. No Response Lorenzi Park 1 1 Lorenzi Park 1> 1' NO k } , No 105 Table 4.24. Indian Use of Geologic Features at Stone Mortar Site: Response Summary Table Stone Mortar Site Category Male FemaleTotal Communicate with other Indians 1 2 3 Ceremony 1 2 3 Communicate with spiritual beings 1 2 3 Seek knowledge or power 1 1 2 Teaching other Indians 1 1 Territorial marker 1 1 No response 1 1 Comments on Geologic Features of Stone Mortar Site: f Tell the kids so when they grow up they can come. m I imagine this was the center for most mesquite pounding. They would teach the young because they would not know how to process the beans. f At Sunrise Mountain (meaning woman laying down) there is a cave, although now it is destroyed...you could become a medicine man in there but this stopped in the `SOs. f This place is a working site. Foods of all kinds were brought here to pound and grind. It's also a site for teaching younger people the art of preparing foods. All bands used this site and it was likely a meeting place. 106 Table 4.25. Indian Use of Geologic Features at Lorenzi Park: ResponseSummary Table Lorenzi Park Category MaleFemaleTotal Communicate with other Indians 2 3 5 Teaching other Indians 1 4 5 Communicate with spiritual beings 2 2 4 Seek knowledge or power 2 1 3 Territorial marker 1 2 3 Ceremony 1 1 2 No response 2 2 Other 2 2 Comments on Geology of Lorenzi Park: m Gathering for marriages. f Used rocks to build a fire. f Rocks can be used for healing power; they have their own power. Round ones can be used for a sweat. m It is hard to say whether there was anybody here because it's all destroyed and there is little evidence. f Hills are a source of protection and a view source. Hills are probably where the kids came to play from all of the camps. They probably did a lot of things here in the winter, probably came here for lessons in culture; had sweats here. The outdoors was their library. Shamans and parents would pass this on constantly for the welfare of the people. f Nice quiet peaceful area; a place of peace. They would talk with spiritualbeings here. 107 Table 4.26. Indian Use of Geologic Features at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table Kiel Ranch Category Male FemaleTotal Ceremony 2 1 3 Other 1 2 3 Seek knowledge or power 1 1 2 Communicate with other Indians 1 1 2 Territorial marker 1 1 2 Communicate with spiritual beings 1 1 Teaching other Indians 1 1 No response 1 1 Comments on Geology of Kiel Ranch: m Soil for planting Mountains for hunting in high country. Spring for relaxation, and ceremonial preparation. f They would seek knowledge and power from other singers; lot of elders knew a lot about religious stuff and people could congregate and get to know each other. It was also on a trail way. They knew where the springs and resting areas were. People would use it also to communicate with each other. People here would receive them and have dinners /ceremonies. m Farming the land. This is different than many other Indian sites. m Bless water, funerals, food gathering ceremony, marriage ceremony. Access Response to Q41: "Do you think Indian people would want to have access to this place ?" Table 4.27. Indian Access: Res i onse SummaTable .. }:ti v,{w ti.}}};.;.¡tiC;.;rx : a'+.r: : A :::::4'+:+nti.. \ +h:,.:;. y;.}:::i:i0:::}':::.4:::::?+titi?::ti^:::::.;'{:.. n*. :i:+.,;;.F,;:.:.}}:.}::::..:::.:., n. . .::h:::: ... 4:...... }:. . .. :::h: .;:'¿'w{iii: 4:ti:n;.;..;:.:::..:'v:i ...... ;Kÿi C:: ':.5:::...fi::..h+r )r.:,,...... n.:.Y:...:. r.... r..:.::::. . ':.{vriv'}::}::::r :titi - ...... ` 3 ...... Plifen . a`?ay; `! i ae,:-'?.;Y 73k'a:;5 ... Yes Lorenzi Park 5:i 3 8 ;Yes Kiel Ranch 3 4ÿ 7 Yes `Stone Mortar Site 2 2; No Response >; Lorenzi Park x 108 Response to Q42: "If yes, why would Indian people want to come to this place ?" STONE MORTAR SITE: m For traditional learning, pow wows and demonstrations of mesquite processing. f To reclaim this place for spiritual reasons, to bring this place tobacco or prayers as some kind of gift. f To visit relatives living here at the Indian Colony. f Because this place belonged to our ancestors a long time ago. We should think about it this way and take care of it We want to come here for ceremonies or prayers. If you fix it like a park, white people would see howIndians used to live and they would understand why we don't want to give it away. It would make them think of their ancestors, too. Younger generations could come here and catch a song or a dance and this would give them strength. Maybethey could pick up their language, too. They could come here at night. We are taught not to be scared of the night and they might hear something. m Because it's part of their culture. Itsomething that connects them to the past and reminds them of who they are. It gives them an identification to the land. f To teach children about grinding mesquite. LORENZI PARK: f To learn Indian ways. m They should be able to come and camp and perform ceremonies here. They have had powwows here before and they were good Tribes have good relations with the city of Las Vegas parks department, but it needs to set areas aside for private ceremonies. f To reclaim this place, to come back to the old stomping grounds. To have a cultural program here. m Because it's a connection to their heritage and a source of where they come from, a connection to mother earth. Younger generationsdon't realize where they come from. It's a connection to the past. m If it was brought back to its natural state, I could bring back the kids and teach them here. 109 f For picking berries and to take care of this place. f To come see this place. m If they have special ties to this area, then they would come forspiritual and ceremonial reasons. KIEL RANCH: f To have bonfires. m I would like to see a class or lesson about the history of thisplace and see it restored to its natural state This would be a good lesson for all of ourpeople, especially children. m Maybe some Paiutes would come here for spiritual purposes. Iwould want to come back and check on the whiteman's restoration of this place. f It has to do with their history, their background. This is where manypeople came through and gathered with people of the same or other tribes. f To make bonfires, baskets, and tepees; for learning Indian ways. m Indian people should have priority access to this place. They knowthe land and that their ancestors lived to pass that knowledge on. They would want to come here to enjoy this place, to reflect on their heritage, and to pass this on totheir children, and for socializing. Evaluations of Specific Features by Site: Water Responses to Q15: "How would you evaluate the condition of the water?" Table 4.28. Condition of Water at Stone Mortar Site:Response Summary Table .,. ..t4W;,..y } : } }..t ..,:..:: }:4 }:i' }'{i.,. ..ti1:i }. '.'ri'k'2{{LL:{ii{: uY +:: u .{...... :::...:..:{{.y..... G}::: }Y nv...,::: }í: }:::.:: x.....;:} }:. }}Y. {.;. ' }}}:} }x +4: v:. }:v \ ; /:.: 4 ^. };ti., }:}:: ., }. \.};; i.,};} }'} ;'v:>:.7 \:w\ : }:.' ::¡}:i.,> i'. Poor > Stone Mortar Site 2 1 3 No Response Stone Mortar Site = 1 s 1 Good iiStone Mortar Site 1 Excellent Stone Mortar Site 1 1 110 Responses to Q16: "Is there anything affecting the condition of the water?" Table 4.29. Factors Affectin Water at Stone Mortar Site: Res i onse SummaTable TM:VrtilAs;,s-stsz% :Yes 1Stone Mortar Site 4 1 5¡ 1No Response 1Stone Mortar Site 1 1 11 Table 4.30. Condition of Water at Lorenzi Park: Res i onse SummaTable .$ Mer.m1W. $ $ $ $ tle Mr1 t .-$ ILorenzi Park 1 21 31 10k or Fair Lorenzi Park 21 11 3 Good iLorenzi Park 1: 1 2 3¡ 1Excellent :::Lorenzi Park 11 1 ¡ Responses to Q16: "Is there anything affecting the condition of thewater?" Table 4.31. Factors Affectin Water at Lorenzi Park: Res onse SummaTable at:4 á 24 0 á: á . á n 1,13..0 ¡Yes 1Lorenzi Park 51 41 9 No 1Lorenzi Park I; 1 11, 1 . Table 4.32. Condition of Water at Kiel Ranch: Res onseSummaTable ElirRarm"IrrS. Vv!rl2111 I TM Itat ¡Poor 1Kiel Ranch 3 11 4 1Kiel Ranch 2 1: 2 10k or Fair k No Response 1Kiel Ranch 1 11 1 Responses to Q16: "Is there anything affecting the condition of thewater?" Table 4.33. Factors Affectin Water at Kiel Ranch: Resonse SummaTable tf aaa. t ' 5 t t 1Yes IKiel Ranch 7 ...... 111 Evaluations of Specific Features by Site: Plants Responses to Q19: "How would you evaluate the conditions of these plants?" Table 4.34. Condition of Plants at Stone Mortar SiteResionse SummaTable 9 :.: 484#fa.8:84:718 slyz 65,111! W171 ,11 j .871,18, 1n0101, ok. 2 2 Poor Stone Mortar Site $ $ , Stone Mortar Site 2 2 Good : $ $ ...... :Ok or Fair 1Stone Mortar Site 1:1 1 :Excellent :iStone Mortar Site j 1 1 Responses to Q20: "Is there anything affecting the conditions of these plants?" Table 4.35. Factors AffectinPlants at Stone Mortar Site: Resonse SummaTable '#.7:::?;#,:::111:711#*#:;: :1.4:::.7,:888»"#1:1k."1.34:;;;:;11r 8 4 .318 ireft.$7,:etiWIN mffl Yes IStone Mortar Site Table 4.36. Condition of Plants at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table ?:...7:7E7""8:887 : k :88* :. ;1:r : I: $ : 12 $. Poor Lorenzi Park 3 4 7 2 2 Excellent Lorenzi Park $ IGood I:Lorenzi Park :: ::: 1 1 Responses to Q20: "Is there anything affecting the conditions of these plants?" Table 4.37.Factors Affecting Plants at Lorenzi Park: Response Summary Table ::::,1#13,7:111:::;111;1?:;k:;:;1:::;1.3.1,:"1::11#1811:;:71:74%###..4.81,48,7:7. c .;il LZ' r4MA 1,4. .0. g 16 E. , '4 8k E *- 7 3 ;Yes Lorenz' Park z 4 4 8 No 1Lorenzi Park 1 1 Don't Know '_?:Lorenzi Park 1 1 Responses to Q19: "How would you evaluate the conditions of these plants?" Table 4.38. Condition of Plants at Kiel Ranch: Resonse SummaTable -3*, $ ; ; 8#' .Good 1Kiel Ranch 6 Iii Ok or Fair Kiel Ranch $ 1 112 Responses to Q20: Is there anything affecting the conditions of these plants?" Table 4.39. Factors Affecting Plants at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table : 3 ..3 $ 3Kiel Ranch 3 3 6 .iYes , Responses to Q23: "How would you evaluate the condition of these animals/habitat ?" Table 4.44. Condition of Animals/Habitat at Kiel Ranch: Res £onse SummaTable ii<7Y+yC,<{:;,/.ti};:':: ::;} :: \ K ;£.,¡v,\i?:;: r; \},, :;: ;ti' :' '' ;; }.; Y. ":}:: i \\t. ",:" L. LS., v: ^: i?:}t.t''"rN.:::iY.} F,. .t iñ a.as::,,.: :.c2Y _..; ra s.s i j:#'-...;£s k TM Fa 2: Ok or Fair :KielRanch 21 2 Excellent : Kiel Ranch 2: 2 :Poor :Kiel Ranch r 1 1 :No Response `: Kiel Ranch:: 1 11 1 ;Good Kiel Ranch1 1 1 Responses to Q24: "Is there anything affecting the condition of the animals /habitat ?" Table 4.45. Factors Affecting Animals /Habitat at Kiel Ranch: Response Summary Table . ::;p,' ;r.'i;!ç;L'';:;:::'J.;}}.L,}.j:::6v:n v}:S'>y'.°:. . \ J..:.::;Y,.;:;:y:jw:??; :.>::,... J{ :.ktS.: öi . p .;t-. a'}s p..5E 'a. '.£s-'' . . ::. ¡f . .. F 9-- 9£á3£ts%.: .9 79 < Yes' Kiel Ranch 3 Evaluations of Specific Features by Site: Archeology Responses to Q27: "How would you evaluate the condition of this site ?" Table 4.46. Condition of Site at Stone Mortar Site: Response SummaTable ...... v:::::::.: ..a ...... r:::v:.:V::F.::::. :.:hV:::: yxx:: w::::+::u::..L::::.:::::X:}x.::. :...... :....:: w.::>:::f::: +.ti:::ti:+.;ÿ;.;.;.} .. L::: n%;Y;j v: ..t+. :: Y :y :.}}.X:}....J L::: ,+:.}...: }:.}::v v; .;. ;.::+.: ...... :::: }:::::: ...... t...... v: ::: : ntt' ::: w::::: : .t:::: .:.L.,v::..:J+::;.,. or: 'ï t: :r.;,:;}.ti.pp::1.:,L .'Y: : :r.: . .. J, . ..L.L:.:.:nw.}..; .v.... ::::::.}}..,,,.,'....:...A::::::.+.;h..;: . :...... { Qt ...... n ...a. .x.. a ..S. .n ... 9 :.. a.x:%i% i:+p.::iö.:.. . : . "ni: . . .. :`.'l'i:':;$:'v :Good {Stone Mortar Site Poor 1 Stone Mortar Site 1 1 2 , Ok or Fair :'Stone Mortar Site { 11 1 Responses to Q28: "Is there anything affecting the condition of this site ?" Table 4.47. Factors Affectio Archeoloat Stone Mortar Site: Res onse SummaTable : ?nk. ::ihY }:}: +: }: ;:i ¿:r.L,':¡;:;:' +. +.; + }ï ?i:.; +x +.: :.v:: :.Y.nv.....: r: i'J'v :rv: ::::}':}4:'L' ::iP: i. i4L. .. . "S::iiti::.: r,T. +r..: ::} }i: ;. }': ,;,;..v J:: : .i: LV .:... L.... n{. \., 4 : :;:;;1} ;:,:;v,`;..{,. i } ¡ };.,C:, ¡< ;: : ;.'::,.}:.:..p, ti;:,`;k`'::.+ :Yes 1 Stone Mortar Site >: 4 ' 1 5 No :Stone Mortar Site If 1 114 Responses to Q27: "How would you evaluate the condition of the archeology?" Table 4.48. Condition of Site at Lorenzi Park: Res a onse SummaTable a i.Lorenzi Park ii 2. 4 Poor . g Ok or Fair Lorenzi Park 2:, 1 3 :: 4.) Good iiLorenzi Park , 2 ii: :...... ; , No Response Lorenzi Park .:: 1 ii 1 Responses to Q28: "Is there anything affecting the condition of the archeology?" Table 4.49. Factors Affectin Archeoloat Lorenzi Park: Res s onse SummaTable ::: sy 41419:.*d;K::::V: " . ; . dz. :.: 5.$ 41: 9 !Yes ilLorenzi Park , .. . i Lorenzi Park No , .ii Responses to Q27: "How would you evaluate the condition of the archeology?" Table 4.50. Condition of Site at Kiel Ranch: Res onse SummaTable iKt.,;?;;;:;:i* tak: o p 4 , p t oi; ; t % a , ,0 Poor Kiel Ranch 11 211 3 No Response 1Kiel Ranch 2:: 1 :1 3 1 :. , :Kiel Ranch 1:i. 1 ;Good 1:. ::. Responses to Q28: "Is there anything affecting the condition of the archeology?" Table 4.51. Factors Affecting Archeolo at Kiel Ranch: Response SummaTable 4:::::1:;444444. :49*.,:aw.:::akaxs:: .; 0,a 1.9c;' k Z";C:- . , Yes Kiel Ranch 2 No Response Kiel Ranch 2 1 3 No KielRanch fi 1 1 15 Evaluations of Specific Features by Site: Geology Responses to Q31: "How would you evaluate the condition of the geology?" Table 4.52. Condition of Geolo .at Stone Mortar Site: Res onse SummaTable .4t:ittALt$ y :: S s. o z, :WA gr1111 o . : Good !Stone Mortar Site ¡Stone Mortar Site 2 NoResponse J 2I. Poor 1Stone Mortar Site 1 1 Responses to Q32: "Is there anything affecting the condition of the geology?" Table 4.53. Factors Affectin Geoloat Stone Mortar Site: Resionse SummaTable :v.tktk.:*. »A. 44;. tiEZEV;O:,..*:::$:t.E: ; o t.....M11111:.7: ssss:. atilkffl o ; e ; kA;:st.; ::t 4 2 R 7. A 4 21 4 :Yes iiStone Mortar Site Z. No Response 1Stone Mortar Site 21 2 Responses to Q31: "How would you evaluate the condition of thegeology?" Table 4.54. Condition of Geolo at Lorenzi Park: Res s onse SummaTable ;.; % ss..:,:s..s.::::.:ss.:::. 8 * :Poor 1Lorenzi Park 2. 5 .No Response i:Lorenzi Park 1 21 3 Responses to Q32: "Is there anything affecting the condition of the geology?" Table 4.56. Factors Affectin Geoloat Kiel Ranch: Res I onse SummaTable 4 NT\v"73T**3;':?mri"fi-w"MITFTSW'r*al 'EA C71 'Yes ,Kiel Ranch 2!. 5 No Response Ranch 1 1 No KieIRanch . 1 1 Comprehensive Evaluation of Sites and Management Recommendations Responses to Q33: "How would you evaluate the condition of this place?" Table 4.57. Evaluation of Condition of Place: Res s onse SummaTable ;Good !Stone Mortar Site M 3 :Poor iStone Mortar Site 2 Ok or Fair 1Stone Mortar Site 1:: 1 :Good iLorenzi Park 2 2 4 :Poor Lorenzi Park 10 2:1 3 4".)k or Fair f.Lorenzi Park 21 : 2 , Excellent ,Lorenz. Park . li 11 1 Good ¡Kiel Ranch 3: 3 No Response *WI Ranch 21 2 :Poor jKieIRanch 1 1 Ok or Fair 1Kiel Ranch 1 1 117 Responses to Q34: "Is there anything affecting the condition of this place?" Table 4.58. Factors Affecting Condition of Place: Response Summary Table / s 6 ri:OZ..4r.' 'Yes ;Stone Mortar Site 5 No 1Stone Mortar Site 1 1 Yes ,Lorenzi Park 41 3í 7 No :Lorenzi Park Iii. 1 2 Don't Know j:Lorenzi Park . Yes íKielRanch 1:1 3 4 No Response Kiel Ranch 2 No Kiel Ranch s 1 1 Factors Affecting the Condition of the Sites Responses to Q34a: "What in your opinion is affecting the condition of this place?" STONE MORTAR SITE: m Dumping trash, construction, factories, and smog. f The surrounding development, the road to the top, air pollution, and humans not knowing what they're looking at. f Just leave it alone. f I don't like to see it like this. There's trash and broken bottles. I'd like to have a trail, an Indian trail, but also a road for cars to see it. I'd like to have signs saying "don't touch." m With proper management this could be a good site. f The roads. LORENZI PARK: m White development. f White changes are not natural. 118 f Smog and exhaust from cars. Not humans directly because theygenerally are sensitive to the environment. m The crunching of civilization moving on it. f People. f Too many people. KIEL RANCH: m A place takes time to regain itself Outside development isaffecting it. m Construction, encroachment of housing and business, pollution. m It is in the middle of an asphalt jungle. It's so confined by roadsand buildings. f Not enough care, no pruning down of fruit trees. Recommendations for Restoration STONE MORTAR SITE: Water f Leave it as it is. f Plant a garden. f It needs to be given water. Plants m Maybe a revegetation program However, the place looks pretty natural. Limit development and don't expand the golf course. m Bring the water back to save the plants. Animals f The animals are long gone. However, what remains should remain. m Leave them alone; don't move them or cage them. 119 Archeology f If you find any artifact, don't bother it. m Fence it off. f Leave it the way it is so other people can use it. Geology f Leave it as it is.This place possesses a beautiful view of the valley. LORENZI PARK: Water f Use the water. m I recommend that the city of Las Vegas try and restore the waterback to the way it was 100 years ago. It used to be clear; now it is cloudy. f Clean up the water. f Make it cleaner. m I hope it stays here forever. I would suggest to do studies andplanning, but, hopefully it would stay here forever, as long as someone doesn't pump it out, which could happen, too! m Tear everything out and start it over again. Take the non -native plants, flowers and houses away. f Clean it up and stop throwing things in. f You can't do anything but have a sign saying not to come or throw trash. m Not logical now. Plants m Talk to botanists at the UNLV and create a native plant garden, a demonstration garden to the general public. 120 f Leave as is. f Plant indigenous trees, have native botany and native trails, like at Parker in GRIT. m Bring back the original vegetation. m Have some water flowing out. f The ones they planted here are taken careofnicely. They are different kinds than the ones that were here before. The plants are all gone. They had to get ridofthe older ones. f Don't destroy them. m Introduce native plants. Animals m Create a native animal zoo. f Leave as is. f Have an interpretive center. m I don't want to bring back the animals and restrict them in here in cages or like a zoo. Birds come here ontheir own whenever they want. m You can't get animals back because there are too many people in this area. The only thing you can bring back isthe water and plant life. f The wild ones are all gone. Leave them as they are. f Don't hunt them. Archeology m Leave it. f Leave as is. f I would like to see the site interpreted, maybe a kiosk explaining things. 121 m I wouldn't stress too much this feature. I would stress the importance of the water and the lake. I would use it to bring children to learn about the old ways; probably there was a good -size encampment here because of the twin- lakes. m Hard to do. There's not many people that would use it for power /medicine. I don't think the spirit could come back We could help the spirit to come back It's almost impossible because of the damage and everything else that's been brought in. f Keep it clean and burn some of the bushes. f Protect it. Geology f The park should be more natural. f Leave as is. f Draw an interpretation panel of how the hills used to look. m I'd like to see more trees native to this area. f Leave it as it is. f Should be protected. m There 's nothing we can do about it. KIEL RANCH: Water m Limit contaminants. m Clean up the non -native plants. This would provide water and get rid of brown water. m Make certain that neighboring asphalt areas do not drain into the pond. Clean up salt cedar and dead trees on ponds. Leave the pond as it is. 122 f I would recommend to clean out the bottom of the water; we have lots of springs and we have to clean them. This is 99% clear water. Nevada has a lot of alkaline water, but I don't know the content here. m This place is of primary importance. They could actually reconstruct this ranch as it was 100 years ago. Water is the primary source for life. I would recommend the springs be cleaned up. Plants m Leave cottonwood and mesquite. m Remove non -native plants and stimulate growth of willows. m Leave the area alone and let it come back naturally. f I would prune them and fertilize those that need to be fertilized. m Create a demonstration garden here with signs about the plants. Some have medical purposes, some are edible, and some are poisonous. Animals m Animals would come back if you cleaned up the water and plants. m Leave them alone. m This place is so urbanized. If there is an abundance of animals then they should be relocated to other areas. Archeology m Leave to local tribe. m Leave it alone and don't take anymore. m Clean up the junk and leave Indian artifacts alone. f The Paiutes of the surrounding area would know what they want to dowith it since it's inside their land -use area. m There's arrowweed here for bows. You could make a Native American interpretive center. 123 Geology m Leave it to nature. The construction may have pushed the water babies out. m Leave it alone. f Only if opened up to the Paiute people, otherwise leave it as it is. m I'd prefer the professional geologists work with the Indian monitors side by side to finalize reports, not only at this spring, but at others, as well. Evaluation of Big Spring and Recommendations for its Management Responses to Q1: "In your opinion is the Big Spring like or unlike the other two spring sites you have visited ?" Table 4.59. Com arison of Bi. S i rinto Other Sites: Response Summary Table :..:>.',af..`.. =': t :`''ii >' : 3 i .-.Ñötc: t f ?daO No 1;: 1': Responses to Qla: "If yes, in what ways are they similar ?" f They have the same trees, animals, and were used by the Paiutes, historically. m They all have water except for the Twin Lakes. They probably have some type of vegetation and animal life. f All three are natural springs. All are places where people did similar things, and were not kept up well, unlike Kiel Ranch. f They have the same plants, like screwbean and Indian spinach. m All are similar in importance. f This area is a meeting place for all the springs and an oasis in the desert. They are all tied together. They have underground stream beds. The Chemehuevi and Mohave believe a great force spirit poked his medicinestuff in the ground and created the springs. Ocean woman was the greater force and sheformed the land, too. My brother said that when she came across she swung her hair and it created the earth. She also swung her arms, 124 too, for the land. She made the land at Ash Meadows. Her messengers, coyote and wolf were sent out to see how she was doing. The world, earth, and water are three in one, so the Big Springs is like that. It is the essence of the world, water and land. People are then attracted to it, and over the generations it becomes a special place to us. m They have the same bloodline, the same water. The water in both sides of the street is together with the water under the street and it runs to the underwater. It doesn't belong to anybody other than the creator. It's the same bloodline, the blood of the earth. It's not a private land. They didn't have nothing when they came(haiku).They need to talk to their creator to see whether this is their land! They might claim all the filth they put on, for instance the fertilizers. They destroy our water under mother earth!! This brings up all the diseases. But Indians know how to cure those diseases, but if we tell our medicine to the white men, they would use it for money. That's why we don't tell. f One was like the water, everything up in Red Rock is green. It may have been underground until they pumped out everything. We didn't see any water, but we saw Mesquite and Mormon Tea, so there must be more water underground. m The Big Springs was many springs together. It was the mother of all springs in this region. It was a major camping area and there were large gatherings there. More so than at other springs because it was a great ceremonial area, and also a sacred site. m All springs are important and so comparable. I wouldn't want to see them widen the highway. Responses to Qlb: "If no, in what ways are they different ?" m Today they're different. The park is open to everybody and has the most changes. f Lorenzi Park is kept well. f More trees and bushes. f It is different than the others because they are tributaries to it The big springs is the center, it receives from all round from the mountains and from he springs in the area. Ash meadows is like this, too. f The part was where people were all the time, making the water look so dirty and smelly, it shows they don't take care of it. 125 Responses to Q2: "If the Highway 95 is expanded and 200 feet of the Big Spring Edge are taken, in your opinion, what will occur to the site ?" f The site would be destroyed. m That site would probably be pretty much destroyed. If there are any artifacts there people don't have the sensitivity training to leave the site alone. I think they'll take out whatever they think they need to use. f I would say it was a good place where the Indians came together before and it would take away form the place if 95 is expanded. f Take away the property. m Expansion will also hurt the other springs. f Well, they don't let us in right now, and will they recognize this report? If they listen, I would like to make them not destroy it because there is no place like it. It is unique; there is no other like this in the desert. Perhaps the people on the other side would be willing to move if they received a good price. You can build newhomes, but the big spring has been there since time immemorial. Give people a good price for their homes and let them move somewhere else. m I wonder who has the authority to do that.. Who is it? If they do something wrong, spirits would punish them. It might be called park or whatever, but 6 inches below the surface it still belongs to the Indian people. I think this was a burial site among the Southern Paiutes. f It would just ruin the whole thing and take the plants out and maybe somewhere there is a burial or Indian ruin; they have to watch out forthat. It's more than likely. That's the way it looks to me. Its right for the Paiutes to say weshould protect it. They should ask the elders, those in Vegas. They just go on their own, and now they don't have no elders in Vegas. m It would destroy the sacredness of the area. m It will damage an important cultural site. Responses to Q3: "Should the Highway 95 take a portion of the Big Spring site ?" f Do not destroy, leave it the way it is. 126 m No, I think that the site is a fairly decent site inasmuch as we can see of it. They have destroyed all the sites in Las Vegas. I'd like to see them take the north side and leave the south side alone. The people are not native, something that is foreign to be moved. I have the most concern of the site itself and not the northern part of the highway. f Just leave it as it is and let nature have it. f No way, birds and animals need to be kept safe, not destroyed. m No. f The only other oasis of its kind is Ash meadows. It is irreplaceable. I know my relatives, those in the past and ones alive today, would like to see it protected. It could be enhanced but not turned into a park I would leave it alone, maybe clean out the salt cedar. I think Indian people should have access to the Big springs. Other people would like to come too. Maybe when we see a tree 's dignity we see our own dignity, and so we do not want to harm it. I think our men think of the earth as their mother so they put their survival in terms of protecting the earth. I would like to have the Water District make an agreement with the tribes to let them use it. They need to let the tribes know what they are doing. I would like to see Indians study it to preserve it. The water district has preserved one of the last cultural resources in the Las Vegas area. Make a video of it have a native person give talks on its significance The old people would laugh and think that it's funny that this is in the center of the world's greatest gambling city. m If they take the other side they would take houses, causing another problem. f If they have to do it, they have to do it. I don't like the idea of it. I don't know what the other Indians think of it. I think they would have to leave the water there. The water might still come back itself If they leave it, it might come out of somewhere else. I wish we'd all get together and put our heads together and talk about it. Maybe we can make it stronger instead of in a group like this. I don't like it in a way. I don't want them to move the Indian artifacts and things like that. m I am opposed to the removal of land at the Big Springs site. I recommend that the Water District try to restore to original condition and to coordinate with native Americans interpretation at Lorenzi Park Work together with each park having some aspects of Native American interpretation. m I wouldn't want to see the highway widened. Tell them to go the other direction and pay the people with houses a good price. 127 Figure 29. Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah elder discussing traditional Indian lifeways. 128 Figure 30. Ethnographer interviewing Kaibab Paiute elder. Figure 31. Richard Stoffle interviewing Moapa Paiute consultant. 129 Chapter Five Summary of Findings Big Spring - Highway 95 Proposal This chapter presents findings from the threeinterview forms used to collect the thoughts of Southern Paiute representatives whoparticipated in this study. These forms include: (1) cultural landscape interviews, (2) site specificinterviews, and (3) final evaluation interviews. The data for understanding the first two sets ofinterviews are provided in previous chapters of this report. The data from the final evaluationinterviews are exclusively presented here. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief summary offindings regarding the cultural significance for Southern Paiutes of the Big Spring site and tosummarize the potential impacts of the Highway 95 expansion proposal. The following presentations of findings aredivided by type of interview. Commentaries by the University of Arizona ethnographersfollow the representative's statements. Cultural Landscape - Summary of PaiuteInterpretations The following conclusions can be drawn from theinterviews conducted with the Cultural Landscape instrument. Chapter Three should beconsulted for a full presentation of these responses. According to theseinterviews: there were Indian villages in the 3- Springs Area; Indian people gathered plants, conducted ceremonies,farmed, gambled, and held political meetings in the 3- Springs Area; there are physical and spiritual trails which connectthe 3- Springs Area with other places in the region; Southern Paiutes were created near the 3- SpringsArea; there are other places related to Paiute creationsurrounding and connected to the 3- Springs Area; historic events that are culturally important toPaiutes occurred in the 3- Springs Area; 131 the surrounding mountains, some of which containspirit caves, are connected to the 3- Springs Area; and the Colorado River is connected with the 3- Springs Area. Cultural Landscapes - An Ethnographic Interpretation The above findings suggest to the University of Arizonaethnographers who have extensive experience working with Southern Paiutepeople and their culture, and who have professional experience researching American Indiancultural landscapes, that the 3- Springs Area is: one place in a series ofintegrated springs, and water -related resources which in turn are bound by common creation, a common water source, and a commonrole in the traditional lives of Southern Paiute people; and highly culturally significant because it is located in aSouthern Paiute ecoscape, a regional landscape, and is a stop on a songscape which is calledthe Salt Song Trail. Site Specific - Summary of Paiute Interpretations The following section provides a summary of SouthernPaiute interpretations of each of the visited sites in the 3- Springs Area. ChapterFour should be consulted for a full presentation of these Paiute responses. Stone Mortar Site According to these Paiute people the Stone MortarSite is a place: that is part of a group of connected places in theregion; where Indian people gathered food, lived, camped,and conducted ceremonies; that is important for Indian people as source of water,animals, and plants, as well as for its archeological and geological resources; where the water was used for food, drink,medicinal, and ceremonial purposes; where plants were used for medicine, food,for making things, and for ceremonial purposes; where animals were used for food, clothing,making tools, medicine, and ceremonial purposes; 132 that has archeological sites which are significant to Indianpeople because they were used for hunting, gathering, camping, living, and ceremonies; that has geological features which are significant, to Indian peoplebecause they were used to communicate with other Indians,ceremonies, communicate with spiritual beings, seek knowledge or power, teach other Indians, and as territorial markers. Lorenzi Park According to these Paiute people, Lorenzi Park is a place: where Indian people gathered food, lived, conducted ceremonies,hunted and camped; that is connected to other places in the region; where the lakes are important for Indian people because theyprovided water, animals, and plants, and as archeological and geological resources; where the water was used for food, drink, medicinal, andceremonial and other purposes; where the plants were used for food, for making things,medicine, ceremonial and other purposes; where the animals were used for food, clothing, making tools,medicine, ceremonial and other purposes; that has historic and prehistoric archaeological sites that aresignificant because they were used for living, gathering, hunting, ceremonies, and camping. that has geological features which are significant toIndian people because they were used to communicate with other Indians, teachother Indians, communicate with spiritual beings, seek knowledge or power, as territorial markers, aswell as for ceremonial and other purposes. Kiel Ranch According to these Paiute people, Kiel Ranch is a place: where Indian people gathered food, lived, conducted ceremonies,hunted and camped; that is part of a group of connected places in theregion; 133 that is important for Indian people because it was used as source of water, animals, plants, as well as for archaeological and geological reasons; where the water was used for food, drink, ceremonial, medicinal, and other purposes; where the plants were used for food, medicine, for making things, and ceremonial purposes; where the animals were used for food, clothing, making tools, medicine, ceremonial and other purposes; which has prehistoric and historic archaeology sites that are significant to Indian people because they were used for gathering, living, hunting, camping, and other purposes; and which has geological features that are significant because they were used for ceremonies, to seek knowledge or power, to communicate with other Indians, as aterritorial marker, to communicate with spiritual beings, and for teaching other Indiansand other purposes. Site Specific Interviews - An Ethnographic Interpretation Analysis of the Indian responses to the site specific interviews and participation in the interviews themselves suggest the following: Physically separate and socially private interview locations were appreciated by the Indian representatives, and these interview environments assured independent identifications and evaluations of the sites in the study area. The answers to most questions exhibit clear trends, suggesting common culturally-based responses are being shared in response to culturallyrecognized phenomena. There tends to be a bi -modal response to the conditions of the sites, with a fairly even distribution between good/fair and poor; the bi -modal distribution represents thedual opinion held by many Indian people that they are glad there is something left of their traditional sites, but they are sad that so much damage has occurred. The bi -modal response to the condition of sites is further reflected in the dual observation that all sites have experienced human damage to the specific features important at each site, but that the Indian people have specific mitigation recommendations, especiallyfor the protection of archeological, hydrological, animal, floral, and spiritual elements existing at each site. In other words, Indian people can't bring it back to what it was, but they think there are ways to improve how these cultural resources are currentlymanaged. 134 Big Springs - Summary of Paiute Interpretations The following conclusions can be drawn from the third interviews conducted during the Highway 95 Assessment study. These interviews were not conducted at the Big Springs site because the Las Vegas Valley Water District would not permit Southern Paiute people to visit the site as a part of this study. Therefore, the following responses were derived after Indian representatives had visited the other 3- Spring Area sites and following a "drive around" or "windshield survey" of the Big Springs Site. According to Southern Paiute representatives, the Big Spring site: is similar to other springs and use areas in the 3 Springs Area; is a place Southern Paiutes have historically inhabited, conducted ceremonies, and where they have held gatherings, camped, hunted and gathered plants; is comprised of the same plants, animals, and water as other springs in 3 Springs Area; is connected to the other springs in the area through underground water which constitutes the same bloodline of the earth and spiritually connects generations of Indian users; is the "mother of all springs" and therefore occupies a unique role in relationship to other Southern Paiute springs, regional cultural landscapes, and storyscapes. Big Springs - An Ethnographic Summary and Conclusion The University of Arizona ethnographers associated with this project have a number of summary and concluding points to makeregarding the findings of the study. These conclusions are based on the responses of the Indian peopleinterviewed during this project and the professional experience and knowledge of the ethnographers. Regarding Extrapolation of Findings While it is preferable to conduct interviews at the exact location where a potential impact would occur, this study design afforded the opportunity to place the Big Spring study site into a somewhat broader but highly related context of neighboring springs and associated use areas. The ethnographers are confident that the cultural values described and expressed regarding the neighboring springs and associated use areas can be extrapolated to interpret the cultural significance of the Big Springs Complex. 135 Regarding Cultural Landscapes The study afforded the opportunity to directly addressthe role or roles of the 3- Springs Area in regional cultural landscapes, ecoscapes, andstory/song scapes. The ethnographers have been studying American Indian cultural landscapes as acultural phenomena for a number of years; however, this is thefirst time a cultural landscape form has been used. Based on an analysis of the Southern Paiute responses to these culturallandscape questions, the following points seem to be confidently known and concluded. The ethnographers are confident that the cultural landscapequestions elicited information regarding material, historical, and spiritual dimensions of land usepractices and their overall relationship(s) to the Big Springs site. The Southern Paiute cultural landscapes identified in thisstudy are a distinct category of cultural resources and should be clearly assessed regardingpotential impacts deriving from the Highway 95 proposal. Regarding Mitigation American Indian people interviewed during this studyexpressed concerns about the possibility of mitigating impacts that would occur to theBig Springs site were Highway 95 to be expanded. Concerns were expressed about all aspects ofthe site, from the hydrological to the archeological resources it contains. These Indian peopleperceive that the Big Spring site is in a fairly decent condition and have expressed recommendationswhich would protect it from further development. Concerns have also been expressed asfar as the cumulative effects of development of water systems in the Las Vegas area are concerned.These mitigation recommendations derived from statements by elders during the study and aresubject to review and approval by each of the participating tribal governments. In general, there is no appropriate mitigation thatwould be sufficient to offset the cultural damages that would occur were the Highway 95 proposal tobe adopted, so the proposal is not considered to be appropriate by theseIndian people and the seven Southern Paiute tribes they represent. The tribes participating in this study also would like tohave an ongoing role in preparing comments and reviewing text for the Highway 95proposal EIS. The tribes participating in this study would like a writtenexplanation from the Las Vegas Valley Water District as to why tribal representatives wereprevented from identifying and evaluating cultural resources at the Big Springs site as partof this EIS. 136 American Indian people interviewed during this study expressed a concern about the future of the Big Springs site even if it is not impacted by the current Highway 95 expansion.The no- action alternative in this EIS studyshould involve the following: Tribal involvement in the on -going management of the Big Spring site's cultural resources. These would include resources that areboth known and perceived to be at this location. It is important to note that recent ground disturbing activities at the nearby Mormon Fort State Park site dug up an Indian grave and associated funeral offerings. Tribal access to the site for ceremony. This site is a sacred location as defined by the Salt Song trail. 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Human Organization 49(2):91 -99. 1992"American Indians and Nuclear Waste Storage: The Debate at Yucca Mountain, Nevada," in Native Americans and Public Policy by F. Lyden and L. Legters (eds.), Pittsburgh: Universitys of Pittsburgh Press. Stoffle, Richard W., M. Evans, and C. Harshbarger 1988Native American Interpretation of Cultural Resources in the Area of Yucca Mountain, Nevada (Interim Report). Las Vegas: Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office. Stoffle, Richard W., D. Halmo, M. Evans and D. Austin 1994Piapaxa 'Uipi (Big River Canyon). Prepared for the National Park Service.Project No. GLCA -R92 -0071. Tucson: Bureau of Applied Research inAnthropology, University of Arizona. 145 Stoffle, Richard W., D. Halmo, M. Evans, and J. Olmsted 1990Calculating the Cultural Significance of American Indian Plants: Paiute and Shoshone Ethnobotany at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. American Anthropologist 92(2): 416 -432. Stoffle, Richard W., D. Halmo, B. Stoffle, A. Williams, and C. Burpee 1993"An Ecosystem Approach to the Study of Coastal Areas: A Case From the Dominican Republic." In Population- Environment Dynamics G. Ness, W. Drake and S. Brechin (eds.) Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Pp 253 -283. Stoffle, Richard W., M. Jake, P. Bunte, and M. Evans 1982Southern Paiute Peoples' SIA Responses to Energy Proposals. In Indian SIA: The Social Impact Assessment of Rapid Resource Development on Native Peoples. C. Geisler, R. Green, D. Usner, and P. West, eds. Pp. 107 -134. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Natural Resource Sociology Research Lab Monograph No. 3. Stoffle, Richard W., F. Jensen, and D. Rasch 1987"Cultural Basis for Sport Anglers' Response to reduced Lake Trout Catch Limits." Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 116(3): 503 -509. Stoffle, Richard W., K. Jones, and H. Dobyns 1995Direct European Immigrant Transmission of Old World Pathogens To Numic Indians During the Nineteenth Century. American Indian Quarterly 19(2):1 -23. 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Ann Arbor: Institute for SocialResearch, University of Michigan. 146 1990b Literature Review and Ethnohistory of Native American Occupancy and Use of the Yucca Mountain Region (Interim Report). Las Vegas: Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office. Sutton, Imre 1985Irredeemable America. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. Torgier, Kim J. 1995Continuous Artifact Tradition from the Middle Archaic to the Historical Present: Analyses of Lithics and Pottery from Selected Sites in Southeast Idaho. Tebiwa vol. 25, pp. 80 -107 Treitler, Inga E. 1994Tribal and Agency Strategies for Assessing Impacts. Practicing Anthropology 16(3):21 -24. Vayda, Andrew P., ed. 1969Environment and Cultural Behavior. Garden City, New York: Natural History Press. Vecsey Christopher 1988Imagine Ourselves Richly. New York: Crossroad. Walker, Deward 1991 Protection of American Indian Sacred Geography. In Handbook of American Indian Religious Freedom. C. Vecsey, ed. Pp. 100 -115. New York: Crossroad. Wheeler, George M 1875Preliminary Report Upon a Reconnaissance Through Southern and Southeastern Nevada, Made in 1869. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. Whitley, D. S. 1994a Ethnography and Rock Art in the Far West: Some Archeological Implications. New Light on Old Art: Recent Advances in Hunter -Gatherer Rock Art Research, eds. David Whitley and Lawrence Loendorf. Institute of Archeology, University of California, Los Angeles. 1994b By the Hunter, for the Gatherer: Art, Social Relations and Subsistence Change in the Prehistoric Great Basin. World Archeology, vol. 25(3). Winthrop, Robert 1994Conflicting Perceptions: Tribal and Regulatory Views of Nature, Risk, and Change. Practicing Anthropology 16(3):25 -28. 147 Appendix A: Cultural Landscape Interview Form 148 BIG SPRING CULTURAL ASSESSMENT LANDSCAPE INTERVIEW INSTRUMENT UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA May 1998 Introduction The reason we are here is to get an overview of the LasVegas Valley. This region is basically everything we can see from here as well as the upper partof the Las Vegas wash, which is located along Mount Charleston and the Spring Mountains (Map1). The purpose of this overview is to talk about how places and events areconnected within the Las Vegas Valley and how this valley may be connected to places and eventslocated elsewhere ( Map 2). We will use the three surrounding springs as our "place" fromwhich to talk about the Las Vegas Valley and surrounding areas. The 3- SPRINGS areaincludes (1) the Kiel Ranch spring which we see southeast of here, (2) the Las Vegas Ranchspring which we see southwest of here, and (3) the Big Spring Complex which we cannot seefrom here but is just over the hill to the southwest of here. Also a part of this complex of springsis the Las Vegas Paiute Indian Colony which had its own spring when it was established. Please see Map3 (80 -81) for orientation. The 3- SPRINGS area will be our point of reference during the following discussion of how places are connected. Because connections between places are kind of abstract, we have provided a number of examples of POSSIBLE connections. We have heard about each of these during previous interviews with Paiute people, but naturally we would like to know what youthink. Your opinion is what is important today. 1. Places Connected by Related Activities. (a) The place may be connected to the place where Indian people lived in the valley because those people came up here to grind mesquite. In other words, the two places are connected by different uses -- one was a living area and the other a food processing area. (b) The place may be connected to a distant spring because the people also went there to use plants and animals. Or.... this was the stopping place for people traveling from one end of the valley to another. 2. Places Connected by Trails - physical and spiritual. (a) The place may be connected to other places by old Indian trails; the trails may have been owned by the families who had trail songs... or ... these trails were used by the people when they went to social gatherings and funerals. (b) The place may be connected spiritually to other places because the Salt Song trail stops there. (Map 4, Salt Song) 1 Places connected by ceremony or historic events. (a) The place may be connected spiritually to other places because people would go to that place to leave offerings that were collected somewhere else. (b) This place may be connected to something that happened here that is part of Southern Paiute history. (c) This place may be connected to other places because it is at /near where Southern Paiutes were created. (d) This place may be connected to other nearby places because it is near to spiritual mountains that contain medicine caves. 4. Places connected because they are the same kind of places. (a) This place may be connected to other places that have the same natural characteristics, like all springs, all power caves, and all mesquite groves. (b) This place may be connected to other places that have the same human characteristics, like all burial areas, all permanent living areas, and all rock painting sites. Like we said, these are a just few possible connections between places that we have learned from Paiutes over the years and in different projects. However, NOW we would like you to tell us what you think about different types of connections between this specific place and other places in the area. LANDSCAPE QUESTIONS (1) Were there Indian villages in relation to this 3- SPRINGS area? (2) If 1yes, =Yes, were the 3- SPRINGS area villages connected with villages elsewhere in the Las Vegas Valley? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (3) If 1yes, =Yes, how were these connected? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (4) Do1 you=Yes, know what the Indian people did when they were here in the 3- SPRINGS area? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (5) If *yes, what kinds of activities - farming * gamblinggathering plants * ceremonies * politicalothers meetings(specify) (6) Do you1 =Yes, know of Indian trails that were connected with the 3- SPRINGS area? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (7) If *yes, can you tell me something about those trails - like where did they go, * werewhy didthese Paiute trails people somehow travel special the trails, to the and Paiute people? How? (8) 1Do =Yes, you know of any songs associated with the 3- SPRINGS area? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (9) *If yes, can you tell me something about the songs - like were they traveling songs * ceremonyother purpose songs, songs or were they (10) Do1 you=Yes, know of any ceremonies that were conducted at or near the 3- SPRINGS area ? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (11) If *yes, can you tell me something about these ceremonies? Ceremony #1 - place , when , why * Ceremony #2 - place , when , why * , when , why (12) Is the 3- SPRINGS area at or near the place where the Paiutes were created?Ceremony #3 - place (13) If 1yes, =Yes, where is the Creation place? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (14) people?Do you know if there are other places in the Las Vegas Valley that are also connected with the Creation of the Paiute (15) If 1yes, =Yes, what and where are those places? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (16) Do you1 = Yes,recall or have hard about events in Paiute history that occurred at or near the 3- SPRINGS area? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (17) Will* you tell me something about those events? Event #1 - date , place , what happened? * Event #2 - date , place , what happened? * Event #3 - date , place , what happened? (18) Is there1 =Yes, a connection between the 3- SPRINGS area and mountains you can see from here? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (19) If *yes, what mountains and how are they connected to 3- SPRINGS area?Mt. #1: name in English , name in Paiute , how connected? ** Mt. #2: name in English , name, name in inPaiute Paiute , how connected? (20) Is there a connection between the 3- SPRINGS area and any section of the Mt.Colorado #3: name River? in English (21) If 1yes, = Yes, what section of the river and how is it connected to 3- SPRINGS area? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. * River Section #2:#1: name in English , name in Paiute , how connected? (22) Is* the 3- SPRINGS area connected to any places or events in the Las VegasRiver Valley Section that #3: we name have notin English already talked about? , name in Paiute , how connected? (23) If 1yes, =Yes, what other connections would you like to talk about? 2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. * Connection #1 - place , event , connection * Connection #1 - place , event, event connection (24) talkedIs 1the = Yes, 3-about? SPRINGS (Use Traditionalarea connected Map to here) any places or events in traditional Southern Paiute territory that we have not already2 = No, 8 = Don't Know, 9= No Response. (25) If *yes, what other connections would you like to talk about? Connection #1 - place , event , connection * Connection #1 - place , event , connection METHODOLOGY FOR ADMINISTERING THIS INSTRUMENT: (1) Read questions ahead of time so you familiarize yourself with the topics and order of questions (2) Look at the map packets before administering the instrument, have them ready and in order when you begin the interview. (3) halfMake -day sure to to spend show with the eachmaps person. when appropriate and let the person think and study them. Don't hurry the process, you have (4) Ask questions slowly and let the person think about them. Appendix B: Site -Specific Interview Form 159 SOUTHERN PAIUTEAT ETHNOGRAPHIC THE BIG SPRINGS RESOURCES COMPLEX, HIGHWAY 95 LAS VEGAS, NEVADA ** *NOTE: You must record a response for every question askedUniversity of Arizona Interview Form in order for data to be correctly coded * ** Interview1. Number: Date: 3.2. Respondent'sTribe /Organization: Name: 3a. Ethnic Group: 5.4. DateGender: of Birth: Male Female 5a. Age 7.6. WhatStudyPlace ofisArea theBirth Sitename (Town, Number of this Reservation): place(ethnographer in English? fill this in): _ /_ /_ 6a. U.S.8a. WhatState ofis Birththe name of this place in Paiute? 9. Please describe the geography of this area or elements which stand out. 10. Would Indian people have used this area? 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 8=10a.1= Don't [permanent]LIVING Know (IF YES) Why or for what purpose would Indian people have used this area? 9= No Response 2= HUNTING 3= [seasonal]CAMPING 4= CEREMONY/POWER 5= GATHERING FOOD 6= OTHER 10b. Comments on 10a: l111. laa.la. Is this place part of a group of connected placesOF(IF ANSWERED (Is YES) this Whatplace 1kindsconnected to l la.)of other Comments to others places ?) given:might this place be connected with and where are they? 1 =YES 2= NO 1= Comment given 8= Don't Know 8 =Don't Know 9= No Response 9= No Response I1 lbb.lb. OF COMMENT(IF ANSWERED GIVEN) 1 TO How 11b) is Commentsthis place connected given: to the others you mentioned? 1= Comment given 8= Don't Know 9= No Response FOR EACH FEATURE PLEASE FILL OUT APPROPRIATE FEATURE PAGE FEATURE13. Would TYPE Indian A: WATER people haveSOURCE used this(List _(Name specific the feature feature)_ from ?table on page 3) 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 14. (IF YES) Why or for what purpose would Indian people have used this Feature(s)_ ? 14a.1= FOOD/DRINK Comments: 2= MEDICINE 3= CEREMONY 4= OTHER 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 1= EXCELLENT 2= GOOD 3= FAIR 4= POOR 9 =No Response 16.15. IsHow there would anything you affectingevaluate the conditioncondition of of the the _Feature(s)_? Feature(s)_? 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 16a. OF YES) What in your opinion, is affecting the condition of ? FEATURE TYPE B: PLANT SOURCE (List features from table on page 3) 17. Would Indian people have used the plants at this particular site? 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 18. (IF YES), Why or for what purpose would18a.1= Indian FOOD Comments people (ifhave given): used these plants? 2= MEDICINE 3= CEREMONY 4= MAKING THINGS 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 1= EXCELLENT 2= GOOD 9= No Response 19. How would you evaluate the condition of these plants? 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 3= FAIR 9= No Response 4= POOR 20a.20. Is there anything affecting the condition of these plants? (IFYES) What in your opinion, is affecting the condition of the plants? 21.FEATURE Would IndianTYPE peopleC: ANIMAL have used SOURCE the animals (List features at this place? from table on page 3) 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 22a.22.1= Why FOOD or for what purpose would Indian people have used the animals in this site? Comments: 2= MEDICINE 3= CEREMONY 4= CLOTHING 5= TOOLS 6= OTHER 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 23. How would you evaluate the condition of these animals/habitat? 1=1= YES EXCELLENT 2= NO 2= GOOD 3= FAIR 9= No Response 4= POOR 9= No Response 24a.24. Is there anything affecting the condition of the animals/habitat? (IF YES) What in your opinion, is affecting the condition of the animals/habitat? 8= Don't Know FEATURE25. Would TYPE Indian D: peopleEVIDENCE have used OF PREVIOUS this site and/or OCCUPATION artifacts? OR USE (Specifically) 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 26a.26.1= Why LIVING or for what purpose would Indian people have used this site and/or artifacts?Comments: 2= HUNTING 3= GATHERING 4= CAMPING 5= CEREMONY/POWER 6= OTHER 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 27. How would you evaluate the condition of this site? 1= EXCELLENT 2= GOOD 3= FAIR 4= POOR 9= No Response 28a.28. Is there anything(IF YES) affecting What the in conditionyour opinion, of this is affectingsite? the condition of this site? 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response FEATURE TYPE E: GEOLOGIC l'EATURES (specifically ) 29. Would Indian people have visited or used this _(Feature)_ ? 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 30.5=1= Why TEACHINGSEEK or forKNOWLEDGE/POWER what OTHER purpose INDIANS would Indian people have used this _(Feature)_ ? 2=6= COMMUNICAl'b TERRITORIAL WITHMARKER OTHER INDIANS 7= OTHER 8= Don't Know 3= CEREMONY 9= No Response 4= COMMUNICATE WITH SPIRITUAL BEINGS 30a. Comments: 31. How would you evaluate the condition of the _(Feature)_? 1= EXCELLENT 2= GOOD 3= FAIR 4= POOR 9= No Response 32. Is there anything affecting the condition of the _(Feature)_? 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 32a. (IF YES) What in your opinion, is affecting the condition of _(Feature)_? MANAGEMENT33. How would youAND evaluate ACCESS the RECOMMENDATIONS condition of this place? 1= EXCELLENT 2= GOOD 3= FAIR 4= POOR 9= No Response 34a.34. Is there anything affecting the condition of this place? OF YES) What in your opinion is affecting the condition of this place? 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response Above you identified specific features at this 35.site. Water What Source:would be your recommendation for protecting each specific feature? 37.36. AnimalPlant Source: Source: 39.38. GeologicalTraditional Feature:Use Feature: 40. What would be your recommendation for protecting this place? 41a.41. Do you think Indian people would want to have access to this place? (IF YES) Why would Indian people want to come to this place? 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response 42a.42. Are there any special conditions that must be met for Indian people to use this place?(IF YES) What special conditions are needed for Indian people who want to come to this place? 1= YES 2= NO 8= Don't Know 9= No Response Comments: Appendix C: Final Evaluation Interview Form 170 Highway 95 Assessment Date Name Interviewer Interview Number Location: OVERVIEW 1. In your opinion is the Big Spring like the two other spring sites you have visited? Yes No If YES, In what ways are they similar? If No, In what ways are they different? 2. If the Highway 95 is expanded and 200 feet of the Big Spring edge are taken, then in your opinion, what will occur to the site? 3. Should the Highway 95 take a portion of the Big Spring site?