Nevada Folk Arts Roster – Lesson Plans and Activities
COMMUNITIES AND CULTURES: NATIVE AMERICAN
Objectives
The student will observe the weaving and oral traditions of the people of the Washoe and Paiute
groups of Native Americans.
Community/Cultural Background
Native American groups lived on the North American continent for thousands of years prior to
settlement by explorers from other parts of the world. Each of these groups has a unique culture,
with different languages, art forms, dance, music and instruments, traditions and ceremonies,
clothing, foods, and styles of homes.
The tribes native to Nevada include the Northern Paiute and Southern Paiute, Washoe and
Shoshone. The Northern Paiutes live primarily in central and eastern California, western Nevada,
and eastern Oregon; and the Southern Paiutes live in northwestern Arizona, southeastern
California, southern Nevada, and southern Utah. The Washoe live in the Carson and Washoe
valleys, the Truckee Meadows, and their ancestors lived around Lake Tahoe, migrating to Carson
Valley during the winters. The Western Shoshone ranged from central Idaho, northwestern Utah,
and central Nevada and in California in Death Valley and Panamint Valley. The Nevada/Utah
Shoshone were called the Gosiute or Toi Ticutta (cattail eaters).
All adapted similar cultural ways of life as a response to living in the Great Basin. Like many
Native Americans, they derive their culture from oral tradition and pass it on as a way of
maintaining identity. Their traditions include storytelling, the time, place and symbolism of
ceremonies, songs and dances, basket weaving, other crafts and skills, and everyday knowledge,
such as how to make weapons and other household items, what plants to harvest for food and
how to prepare them, and what plants and herbs are used to make medicines.
People and place have close associations in Great Basin culture, and many of the traditional ways
of the Paiutes, Washoe and Shoshone are connected to the natural environment through
expressions that include plants, animals, and land. Traditional legends and other stories describe
the creation of the Great Basin’s valleys and mountains, its water sources and rock formations.
Native Americans weave, both literally and figuratively, plant and animal materials – willow,
bracken fern root, bird feathers – into baskets, songs, dances, clothing, stories, and jewelry.
Communities and Cultures: Native American
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