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Image 1
1. Washakie and Shoshones in early camp scene,
William H. Jackson, 1871 (Wind River Archives, Central Wyoming College)
 Taken
by professional photographer W. H. Jackson, who traveled through
Wyoming with the Hayden Geological Survey in 1871, this photograph
highlights an aspect of daily life that has since changed significantly,
though perhaps not as rapidly as often thought. This camp scene,
typical, even after reservation boundaries were well established,
shows the relatively mobile nature of daily life that marked reservation
living at this time. This mobility, shifting home base until the
or camping in higher elevations in the summer to hunt, continued
well into the first decades of this century. For many it changed
only gradually with the start of permanent living quarters and housing
developments:
Things are happening today that I was told, “it might
happen.” And sometimes it amazes me, my grandmother told
me, and I didn’t believe her at the time, how it’s happening—those
stories that they told long ago is happening today....You see
the White man told me a different story. And the Indian told me
too, another story. And you kinda get caught in the middle. And
they tell you that a long time ago—Indians are not supposed
to live in villages. “And I asked her [my grandmother] why
is it? And she said, “You will find out later, as the years
go by, you will find out why.” Now, I look at it—they
have more problems at their villages than they did living at their
own lands and homes. They never had that kind of problems when
I was growing up, ‘cause there was no such thing as villages.
(Pansey St. Clair)
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