| CURRENT WEATHER: Clear, 37° |
|
|
|
||
|
||||
|
November 28, 2003
NYE COUNTY HISTORY Pahrump's link to the pastVALLEY HAS STRONG CONNECTION TO THE AMERICAN INDIAN (PART II)
By BOB McCRACKEN The Southern Paiute called themselves the Numuvi, which in their language means "the people," or "the Indians." Before the arrival of the whites, most Southern Paiutes lived in small family groups. Such groups considered themselves to be members of a band. Bands varied in size. Some extended families were large enough to be a band in and of themselves. At one time, there were 19 important bands in Southern Paiute territory, which extended from the Nevada border area of Southern California and included Southern Nevada, northwest Arizona and southwest Utah nearly to the Green River. One such band was the Parumpats, who occupied the Pahrump Valley and the west slope of the Spring Mountains. North of them were the Kwiengomits, who lived at Indian Springs, and to the east were the Pegesits, who occupied Red Rock, Mount Charleston, the Las Vegas Valley, and as far south as Hoover Dam. As whites moved into their territory, Southern Paiute people were forced into larger groups in order to survive. Formerly somewhat distinct bands in the Southern Nevada-Southern California area were consolidated into the Las Vegas Band. Such consolidation is best seen as part of the fading away of the traditional Southern Paiute way of life. The Southern Paiute did not have a writing system. Everything about their way of life - technology, religious beliefs, literature, dreams and longings, history and deep understanding of the natural world - was carried in the heads of their elders. When an elder died, that individual's knowledge was gone. But each generation passed its knowledge on to the next. After about 1850, each generation passed on fewer memories than had the previous generations. After the whites came, they soon took the good land, killed the game, dug in the mountains for gold and silver, built towns and roads, introduced wine and whiskey (to which many American Indians were chemically intolerant), and introduced diseases for which the native people had little or no immunity. Many men died in conflicts with whites. As a result, the native culture withered. By the time researchers began to seriously study the Southern Paiute way of life in the 1930s, only a shell remained. The most famous Southern Paiute leader of historic times was Chief Tecopa. He was a regional chief whose official function was to organize rabbit drives and the fall festival, a large communal gathering of surrounding Southern Paiute communities associated with the pine nut harvest. Tecopa, whose name means, "wildcat," is said to have been born in the Las Vegas area about 1815; he died in Pahrump in 1904 (one source gives a date of about 1895), and is buried here. The town-managed cemetery bears his name. He had the reputation of being a peacemaker; he advised his people against physically resisting the whites. Likely by the 1880s, much of the labor at the Pahrump and Manse ranches was supplied by Southern Paiutes. By the 1920s, the Southern Paiute way of life had significantly merged with the white ways in the Pahrump Valley. During the 1920s, there were small Indian villages near Pahrump and Manse Springs. Steve Brown once noted that in the 1920s it could be difficult for an Indian man in Pahrump to find an Indian wife locally; men sometimes sought women on the Moapa Reservation or at other localities. By one estimate, there were about 40 Indians living in the Pahrump Valley in the 1930s. By the 1980s, early Southern Paiute traditions were remembered mostly only by older people, and few younger people spoke the language. Richard Arnold, chairman of the Pahrump Paiute Tribe and executive director of the Las Vegas Indian Center, estimates there are between 75 and 100 American Indians with ties to the Pahrump Valley, with about 25 living in the valley. The late Steve Brown lived in the Pahrump Valley much of his life, and worked at local ranches and mines. Cynthia Lynch, whose great-grandfather was Whispering Ben, lives in the valley and at one time hoed and picked cotton on the Pahrump Ranch. Rosie B. Arnold, mother of Richard Arnold, is another long-term resident of Pahrump, as are Clarabell Jim and Alice Jim, who is 90 years old. Until at least the late 1960s, white society systematically tried to obliterate what was left of the Southern Paiute thinking and way of life. Sending Paiute children off to white-run boarding schools was one technique used to sever Indians' ties with their heritage. By the 1920s it was very common for Pahrump Paiute children to be sent to American Indian boarding schools at Fort Mojave and Riverside, Calif., and Carson City. Often, children were not permitted to speak their native languages at boarding school. Small children from Pahrump were sent to the Stewart Indian School in Carson City. Children often ran away, Steve Brown and Rosie Arnold both recalled. Sometimes the children at such schools went for years without being allowed to visit home. At night in the dormitories, old-timers say, you could hear the children crying for their families. Bob McCracken is the author of A History of Pahrump, Nevada and 11 other books about Nye County published by the Nye County Press. Send questions and comments to rdmassociates@yahoo.com. |
