August 11, 200909-76
A Shoshonean Cultural Celebration will take place at the Colter Bay Visitor Center on August 12 and 13. Cultural speakers and exhibits of traditional and modern Shoshonean arts will interpret the rich history and the present-day influence of the Shoshone peoples. Programs, times, and locations for special events are listed below.
August 12
- 9:00 a.m., Tipi Demonstration, by Laine Thom, behind the Colter Bay Visitor Center
- 12:00 p.m., We Shall Remain: Goshute, a video playing in the Colter Bay Visitor Center auditorium
- 3:00 p.m., The Eastern Shoshone Tribe of the Wind River Reservation: Yesterday and Today, by speaker Gloria St. Clair, Colter Bay Visitor Center back deck. The Eastern Shoshone people migrated from the Great Basin to the High Plain to present-day Wyoming during the last 600 years. They became a buffalo hunting culture in the high plains. In the 1800s they were settled on the Wind River Indian Reservation and were later joined by the Northern Arapahoe tribe who now share the reservation.
- 7:00 p.m., Sacajawea, by speaker Ken Thomasma, Colter Bay Visitor Center amphitheater
August 13
- 9:00 a.m., Flint Knapping Demonstration, by artist Willie LaMere, Indian Arts Museum guest artist area
- 12:00 p.m., We Shall Remain: Northwestern Shoshone, a video playing in the Colter Bay VC auditorium
- 3:00 p.m., The Language and Culture of the Shoshone People of the Fort Hall Indian Reservation of Southeastern Idaho, by speaker Drusilla Gould, Colter Bay Visitor Center back deck. The Shoshone and Bannock are two different tribes with two different languages. Historically, they traveled in small groups and mixed with each other on hunting trips. Today they share the same reservation in southeastern Idaho. The lifestyles of both tribes were influenced by Plains cultures as evidenced by the introduction of the horse for transportation and hunting. The horse allowed them to range farther and hunt more effectively, leading to material riches.
- 7:00 p.m., Archaeology of Grand Teton NP, by speaker Jacquelin St. Clair, Colter Bay VC amphitheater
Speaker Gloria St. Clair was born in 1954 and raised by her maternal grandparents, Richard and Lydia Engavo of the Eastern Shoshone tribe of Fort Washakie, Wyoming. She attended Central Wyoming College and received her degree in Native American Studies. She was a Shoshonean language instructor at Fort Washakie elementary school and is now the cultural interpretation specialist at the Eastern Shoshone Cultural Center.
Speaker Drusilla Gould is a native speaker of the Lemhi and Fort Washakie Shoshonean dialects and an enrolled member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribes of Fort Hall, Idaho. She has been involved in teaching, preserving, and promoting her native language for more than 25 years.
The Shoshonean peoples of the Eastern Great Basin and Western Plains hunted seasonally in what is now Grand Teton National Park and left behind a rich archeological record. Their modern-day descendants still live in the region and have maintained their languages and cultural practices.
