2 CHAMBERLIN— PLACE AND PERSONAL NAMES [Januarys, 



The Gosiute at present are essentially self supporting. They 

 engage in agriculture, raising especially oats, wheat and hay with 

 some garden truck. The land, until very recently, was divided up 

 and worked by the individuals or families separately ; but in the 

 Skull Valley colony it is now worked in common under the direction 

 of a superintendent appointed a short time ago by the Government. 

 A school has also been established among them. Especially during 

 the haying season, the men hire out as hands on the neighboring 

 ranches. Occasionally they take contracts for getting out timber 

 from the mountains for fence posts, fuel or other purposes. 



]\Iuch of what was distinctive of the original Gosiute is fast pass- 

 ing away and in a few years will be forever beyond reach of the 

 investigator. This fact becomes well impressed upon the mind of 

 the person who has occasion in his inquiries to contrast the knowl- 

 edge and point of view of the old men and women with that of the 

 members of younger generations whose memories do not run back 

 to the time before white dominance in the region and the new mode 

 of life consequent upon it. 



Place Names. 

 The territory formerly claimed by the Gosiute is arid and deso- 

 late, only a small portion of it even today having been reclaimed by 

 irrigation. It was because of this generally desert character of the 

 region that the name Gosiute came to be applied to the tribe, the 

 word — in its etymologically more correct form Kutsipiittsi or 

 Gutsipiutsi, whence Gosiutsi — meaning literally " desert people."- 



" Kufsip, primarily ashes and secondarjly parched or desert earth, -1- iittsi, 

 people (-ill + nominal ending tsi) . The Gosiute speak of themselves 

 simply as ;//;(, ordinarily without special ending, the n here being probably 

 the pronominal indicative of the first person. They also use ni'zmna with a 

 similar force; but this word seems often now to be applied for Indian in 

 general as contrasted with other races. 



It may be mentioned here also, that the usual explanation of the name 

 Paiute as meaning "Water Ute " (pa, water) is probably erroneous. There 

 is a well-defined tradition among the Shoshone of a time when they formed 

 one people with the Ute, Paiute and other basin tribes and bands. The 

 explanation given the author is that at the time of the breaking up, one band 

 that went ofiF to the South was very large and hence was given the name of 

 " Big People," Pia Uta, whence Paiute. 



