Twelfth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

Visions and dreams have played an essential role in socioreligious grouping across the North American Plains and Intermountain West. The distinct Indigenous band would elicit encounters with guardian spirits to gain knowledge and medicine. Power, or puha, as the Eastern Shoshone called it, was an essential cornerstone of the socioreligious organization. Furthermore, puha was much more dynamic than a categorical structuring tool. Puha is scarred upon the landscape. Sandstone outcroppings with dramatic anthropomorphic beings serve as signatures of shamanic rituals, ceremonies, and perceptions of sacred space. The Eastern Shoshone did not utilize religious texts to sustain their religious identity, yet, these images across the Wind River and Big Horn Basins are distilled into the lifeways and worldviews as dynamically as a religious text. They provide orientation and documentation of the Eastern Shoshone’s relationship to their natural and spiritual environments. This study explores how these images carved into the landscape can assist in understanding a distinct socioreligious dynamic and how these can be utilized to display the shift and loss of contemporary Eastern Shoshone sociocultural identity.