Guchuntikka

Guchuntikka recalls the Guchundeka', the Buffalo Eaters among the Eastern Shoshone. Their country included Wyoming's Green River and Wind River valleys, beside the mountain routes of the northern Rockies. Shoshone expansion had reached the northwestern Plains by about 1500, and the development of an equestrian bison-hunting economy tied these valleys to a much wider grassland world.

This position was contested. Warfare with the Blackfeet, Crow and Assiniboine between about 1780 and 1825 helped shape the Eastern Shoshone's later concentration in central Wyoming. Their seasonal organization allowed families to disperse into smaller winter bands and reunite for collective hunts. Bison meat was especially important in the eighteenth century, complemented by fish, elk, deer, roots and berries. Trade introduced iron for weapons and tools. The Buffalo Eaters' history thus joined mountain-valley resources with hunting, exchange and conflict on the Plains.