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194 SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHROPOLOGY
Large herbivores were taken in late summer or
early fall and the meat products were properly
dried and otherwise prepared for winter use. The
horse was of utmost importance in the survival
strategy during the historic period. The nature of
the communal buffalo hunt has been explored by
many writers and does not need to be repeated
here.
A few simple statements by a White boy, Nick
Wilson, who spent about two years with Chief
Washakie's Wind River Shoshoni group beginning
in August 1856 are particularly revealing
with regard to a pattern of winter survival. During
the first winter with the Shoshoni on the
Jefferson River in Montana, Wilson (Wilson and
Driggs, 1919:35) notes:
Most of the buffaloes by this time had left for their winter
range; but once in a while we saw a few as they passed our
camp. The Indians did not bother them, however, because
we had plenty of dried meat, and for fresh meat there were
many white-tail deer that we could snare by handing loops
of rawhide over their trails through the willows.
Washakie's group had prepared early for winter
and were well aware of what would be available
on hoof Preparations for Wilson's second
winter with the Shoshoni were even more revealing
OVilson and Driggs, 1919:62, 68).
The Indians killed a great many elk, deer, and moose
while in this valley, and the squaws had all they could do
tanning the skins and drying the meat. I asked Washakie if
he was planning to winter in the valley. "Oh, no," he replied.
"The snow falls too deep here. After the buffalo get fat, and
we kill all we want for our winter use, we will go a long way
west out of the buffalo country, but where there are plenty
of deer and antelope.
Finally the time came for us to begin killing buffaloes for
our winter's supply of meat. We did not have to hunt them,
however, for we could see them at any time in almost any
direction. Many a time I went out with Washakie to watch
the hunters kill the buffaloes. Washakie wanted only five
and we soon got them; but it took mother and Hanabi a
good many days to tan their hides and get the meat ready
for winter.
The following comments provide insights on the
quantity of food reserves required (Wilson and
Driggs, 1919:74).
When mother and I went to packing up for our return,
we found that we did not have pack saddles enough for all
of our camp outfit. Besides our tepee, bedding, clothing, and
utensils, we had sixteen sacks of dried meat and two sacks of
service berries. This was too much for our eight pack-saddles.
Mother said that we could get along if we had two more
saddles so I told her to use mine for one and I would ride
bareback. She did not like to do this, but she finally consented,
and another boy let us have his saddle, so we packed
ten horses.
The Shoshoni prepared for winter by collecting
and drying surplus meat for use in the cold
months. The fact that buffalo were around, but
not hunted because of an adequate supply of
dried meat, argues for a planned accumulation
of winter surpluses well ahead of time. The winter
presence of the animals was not a dependable
event from year to year, hence the accumulation
of surpluses early in the season. Wilson's observations
are particularly valuable because he was
a member of a pioneer family in the Great Salt
Lake area and lived through several harsh years
under conditions that emphasized the need for
careful preparation for winter survival.
The strategy of processing bison for winter use
by drying, pemmican manufacture, or some related
technique is believed to have some time
depth based on archeological evidence. It certainly
characterizes the late prehistoric period
and probably some of the Archaic period. Animal
population studies indicate a high incidence of
late summer and early fall bison kills during these
time periods on the High Plains (Reher, 1970,
1973; Prison, Wilson, and Walker, 1978) and
some form of drying of meat products seems to
be the only dependable method of preserving
meat taken at this time of year. Drying of meat
has the advantage of significantly reducing the
bulk and thereby increasing portability and ease
of storage. The subjects of meat drying, pemmican
manufacture, and daily human caloric requirements
have been treated elsewhere (Prison,
1967; Wheat, 1972) and are only mentioned here
as part of the discussion, for the central theme of
this paper is the Paleo-Indian winter subsistence
strategy.
In contrast to the evidence for late prehistoric