Timbisha

The Timbisha, whose name means 'rock paint' and who were once called the Panamint Shoshone, have held the Death Valley country of south-eastern California for more than a thousand years. They speak a Central Numic tongue of the Uto-Aztecan family, carried into the Great Basin by the Numic expansion of the 1300s, and were divided into small districts of family bands, each led by a headman and named after its principal spring-side village.

In one of the driest lands they lived on mesquite, pine nuts and wild seeds, moving between seasonal camps with their woven baskets. Long before any European entered the valley, Coso obsidian from their hills travelled the trade trails to coastal peoples such as the Chumash.