SHOSHONE LAND 



clans foregather on a warm southward 

 slope for the annual adjustment of tribal 

 difficulties and the medicine dance, for 

 marriage and mourning and vengeance, 

 and the exchange of serviceable informa- 

 tion ; if, for example, the deer have shifted 

 their feeding ground, if the wild sheep 

 have come back to Waban, or certain 

 springs run full or dry. Here the Sho- 

 shones winter flockwise, weaving baskets 

 and hunting big game driven down from 

 the country of the deep snow. And this 

 brief intercourse is all the use they have of 

 their kind, for now there are no wars, and 

 many of their ancient crafts have fallen 

 into disuse. The solitariness of the life 

 breeds in the men, as in the plants, a cer- 

 tain well-roundedness and sufficiency to its 

 own ends. Any Shoshone family has in 

 itself the man-seed, power to multiply and 

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