Native Influence

In English, So-So-Goi translates to The People Who Traveled On Foot. You might know them better as the Shoshone. This is the story of the last days of the Northwestern Band of Shoshones. They still have living descendants but most of their people were massacred on 29 January 1863. This is both the largest massacre of Native Americans on what would become the Contentinental US and also probably the least well known. It got little press in part because it occurred during the American Civil War. Their territory included parts of modern day Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho and Utah. Shoshone records of the incident call it Boa Ogoi . The year 1825 marked the insidious beginning of the end. They ran into White trappers in the area and likely thought not much of it. The trappers seemed to live much like they did and functioned much like they did. The So-So-Goi tolerated them and were happy to trade with them for valuable items, like Western knives. The So-So-Goi wintered in an area they ...

My American father grew up on a farm in Indiana. My German mother grew up in a large and cosmopolitan European city known as Danzig (a "free city") at the time, currently known as Gdansk, Poland. I grew up between their two worlds, where their worlds met. I grew up on the edge of town where sprawling suburbs ended and trees and undeveloped lands began. When I was a child, behind my childhood home there was a patch of undeveloped woods. After I grew up and moved away, it was turned into more housing. Studies show that Indigenous or Tribespeople who move to cities remain much more aware and knowledgeable about flora and fauna in their environment than average AND they pass this heightened awareness onto their kids. They and their children are much more likely to know the names of the tree species and bird species (etc) around them even while living in the city than other residents. Daddy was like that and it took me a while to attribute it to his Native heritage ...