What Did the Paiutes Eat?

Used the pinyon pine nut as an important food. Ate big and small animals, birds, reptiles, fish, and insects. Gathered and ate wild seeds, plants, roots. Caught fish and small animals.

Where did the Paiutes live?

Like a number of other California and Southwest Indians, the Northern Paiute have been known derogatorily as “Diggers” because some of the wild foods they collected required digging. They occupied east-central California, western Nevada, and eastern Oregon.

What did the Paiutes use for shelter?

Wikiups: The Great Basin Paiute tribe lived in temporary shelters of windbreaks in the summer or flimsy huts covered with rushes or bunches of grass called wikiups. The materials used were sagebrush, willow, branches, leaves, and grass (brush) that were available in their region.