Traditional Foods of the Great Basin Tribes

The Great Basin (Nevada, Utah, eastern CA/OR/ID, WY) — arid, high desert — shaped a sophisticated foraging-hunting cuisine among Shoshone, Paiute, Ute, Washoe, Goshute, and Bannock peoples.

Plant Foods (Staples — 70–80% of diet)

• Seeds: Indian ricegrass (Achnatherum hymenoides), wildrye, saltbush, shadscale → ground to flour for mush, cakes, soup.
• Pine nuts: Pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla, P. edulis) — high fat/protein; harvested in fall; cached.
• Roots & tubers: Camas (Camassia), bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva), yampa (Perideridia) — roasted in earth ovens.
• Fruits/berries: Serviceberry, chokecherry, currant, gooseberry, wild strawberry — fresh, dried, pemmican.
• Greens: Cattail shoots, arrowhead, watercress, lamb's quarters.

Animal Foods (Supplemental — 20–30%)

• Large game: Pronghorn, mule deer, elk, bighorn sheep — communal drives, bow/arrow, nets.
• Small game: Rabbit (jackrabbit, cottontail), ground squirrel, marmot, birds (sage grouse, waterfowl).
• Fish: Trout, suckers, chub — weirs, traps, spears, nets (Pyramid, Walker, Bear Lakes).
• Insects: Grasshoppers, crickets, Mormon crickets (Anabrus) — driven into trenches, roasted — high protein.
• Reptiles: Lizards, snakes (occasionally).

Processing & Storage

• Earth ovens (pit roasting) for roots, pine nuts, game.
• Drying racks (meat, berries, seeds) → caches in rock crevices, baskets.
• Pemmican (pounded dried meat + fat + berries) — long-term, portable.

Seasonal Round

Winter: cached foods, pinyon camps. Spring: roots, greens. Summer: seeds, berries, fishing. Fall: pine nut harvest (communal), hunting. Mobility followed resource phenology.

This diet was nutritionally complete, sustainable, and resilient — until displacement, livestock competition, and water diversion disrupted the resource base.