Camas Prairie Homecoming 2012
The Camas Prairie Homecoming is held the 1st full weekend of June. This event happens during the Chamber of Commerce Camas Lily Day’s.
The Shoshone- Bannock Tribes are located on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Southern Idaho, between the cities of Pocatello, American Falls and Blackfoot. The Tribes are composed of Several Shoshone and Bannock bands that were forced to the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, which eventually became the Shoshone- Bannock Tribes. Aboriginal to areas that are now the states of Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Montana.
Fort Hall Reservation was created by an Executive Order by President Andrew Johnson in 1867. What is the Fort Bridger Treaty? This is a treaty of peace between several bands of Shoshone and Bannock people and the United States of America. The treaty confirmed the Fort Hall Indian Reservation (Idaho) and the Wind River Reservation (Wyoming). The Federal government agreed to provide provisions and services.
Present Tribal Government- Created by Congress through the Wheeler-Howard Act (Indian Reorganization Act of 1934). The Shoshone Bannock Tribes Adopted a Constitution and By-Laws and a Federal Corporate Charter in 1936. The governing body is composed of seven elected Tribal Members.
check out Shoshone- Bannock Tribes website for current news highlights and community events!
http://www.sbtribes.com
Food for Survival
Camassia quamash, known in the Shoshone language as p·sigoo (literally “water sego”) and commonly known as camas, is a traditional staple food of the Shoshone-Bannock people. Camas is a member of the lily family and grows best in open valleys and parklands between 5,000 and 7,000 feet in elevation. The plant’s prevalence throughout Idaho is evidenced by the many “Camas Prairies” and “Camas Creeks” which dot maps of the state. Native peoples dug up the plant’s nutritious bulbs in late spring and early summer. They were then baked, roasted, dried or eaten raw. North of the range of pinon pines, camas was the most important vegetal food gathered by the native peoples of southern Idaho. Shoshone-Bannocks also gathered numerous other wild roots, including sweet sage, onions, carrots, and bitterroot.1
The area commonly known as the Great Camas Prairie, situated in modern Camas County, holds a particularly important place in Shoshone-Bannock history and life. The Great Camas Prairie was much more than a food source for the Shoshones and Bannocks. Indeed, its importance as a gathering place and crossroads for an extensive regional trade network rivaled its value as a subsistence site during the historical period. Each year in late May and June, Shoshones and Bannocks by the thousands from across their extensive aboriginal range converged on the prairie as the distinctive blue flowers of the camas came into bloom. Visitors from far and wide, including Cayuses, Umatillas and Nez Perce, also made their way to the prairie to, in the words of one Idaho territorial governor, “trade and have a general frolic.” Some Shoshone-Bannock groups remained on the Great Camas Prairie throughout the summer, leading Fort Hall agent Henry Reed to remark that they “spend from one to three months there most agreeably.”
Come on out and support your community. See old friends……….meet new ones. Relax and enjoy yourself.
