Southern Paiute people

The Southern Paiute, Nuwuvi in their own language, are an Indigenous people of the Colorado River basin, with homelands spread across southern Nevada, northern Arizona and southern Utah. Their language, Colorado River Numic, is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, close enough to Ute that speakers of the two understand each other. Today Southern Paiute bands live in scattered communities across this region, several of them on federally recognised reservations.

The name Paiute is linked to paa, the Ute word for water, a reference to the people's preference for living near springs and streams. Where water allowed, families farmed floodplains in spring, using small reservoirs and irrigation ditches to grow maize, squash, melons, gourds, sunflowers and beans, and later wheat. They also gathered bitterroot, wild carrot, wild onion, chokecherries and tiny waada seeds, which were ground into meal, while men hunted waterfowl, rabbits and bighorn sheep.

Basketry was central to daily life and was passed from mother to daughter, according to one estimate for at least 9,000 years. Women wove conical burden baskets for gathering, winnowing trays, and pots and water jugs sealed with clay and resin, and in marshy areas they also made duck decoys, nets and rafts. Homes were built from woven cattail mats set over willow frames.

The Southern Paiute were not organised as a single tribe. Groups of roughly 10 to 50 related people moved and worked together, meeting other groups for trade, games and ceremonies. A headman, chosen for his knowledge of the land and his family ties, suggested each day's plans; people followed him only while his advice proved sound, and leadership could pass to someone else. Sources count between 16 and 31 traditional bands, many named for places such as Kaibab, Moapa, Shivwits and Panguitch. Sacred lands, Puaxant Tuvip, include Mount Charleston in Nevada, regarded as the place of creation, and the Colorado River and Grand Canyon.

The first recorded European contact came in 1776, when the Franciscan friars Silvestre Vélez de Escalante and Francisco Atanasio Domínguez crossed the region looking for a route to California. Before the 1850s the main threat came from raiders such as the Navajo and Ute; the Navajo in particular seized Paiute women and children to sell as slaves. From 1851 Mormon settlers took over Paiute land and water sources; relations were at first peaceful, but cattle herds ate the seeds and drove off the game on which families depended. Silver mining at Pioche from 1869 drew on cheap Paiute labour in harsh conditions, and children were sent to assimilationist schools. By the early 1900s the Southern Paiute numbered roughly 800.

In the 1950s federal termination policy stripped the Utah Paiute of their health, education and agricultural support. A restoration act passed by Congress in 1980 recognised them again, uniting the Cedar City, Indian Peaks, Kanosh, Koosharem and Shivwits bands as the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah. Other recognised Southern Paiute tribes include the Kaibab Band in Arizona, the Las Vegas and Moapa tribes in Nevada, and the San Juan Southern Paiute, whose base lies within the Navajo Nation. Colorado River Numic, counted at around 920 speakers across its dialect chain, is classed as critically endangered.

Our maps for 1530, 1600, 1650, 1700 and 1715 draw an approximate Southern Paiute territory north of the Colorado River. On the 1650 map it borders the Shoshone, the Ute and the Hopi, with the Northern Paiute to the north-west.