Note 617 — Chapter XIII

The Shoshones, who inhabited by themselves the interior basin between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra-Nevada, have now dwindled to 17,000 individuals, just managing to subsist by fishing and gathering roots on infertile soil. They are composed of twelve tribes, of which the more important are those of the Shoshones, the Utes (Fig. 40), the Piutes or Pai-Utes, and the Comanches. Buschmann (Die Spuren d. Aztek Sprache, etc., Berlin, 1859) was the first to draw attention to the affinity of their dialect with the Sonoran-Aztec linguistic group (see p. 535), while Gibbs (loc. cit., p. 224) was the first to point out their probable migration from the region situated between the Rocky Mountains and the Great Lakes towards the deserts of the Great Basin. Brinton (Amer. Race, p. 119) confirms this observation, arriving at his conclusion from new facts.