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[First Page] [143], (1) Lines: 0 to 48 ——— 4.5pt PgVar ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [143], (1) 7 The Lemhis, Salmon, and Treaty Rights Shoshone-Bannock Indians entered into the Fort Bridger Treaty of 1868 in the most solemn good faith and under its terms millions of acres of land were turned over to the white man’s government. If the white man and his government now are truly dissatisfied with the Treaty and entertain plans to renounce it, as a matter of simple justice they should also entertain plans to refund the lands to us which they acquired through the Treaty. . . . Governor Don Samuelson of the State of Idaho and his officials have taken the position that the white man’s word “fish” is not in the Fort Bridger Treaty and that only the white man’s word “hunt” appears therein; therefore, on this 100th anniversary of the Fort Bridger Treaty it is illegal for us to now take fish. . . . Indian hunting and the taking of fish and game animals is very little. But our Treaty is very big. Joseph Thorpe Jr., Chairman, Fort Hall Tribal Business Council, 1968 On July 14, 1968, Gerald Tinno, a Lemhi descendant and enrolled member of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, ascended the Yankee Fork River hoping to catch some salmon to store away against the coming winter months. Near Eightmile Creek, up the Yankee Fork Road from Sunbeam, Idaho, Tinno succeeded in spearing a chinook salmon with his “straight-point” fishing spear. But the fish never made it to his freezer; both it and the tool he used to take it were confiscated by a game warden who charged Tinno with violating Idaho state fishing regulations.1 Thus began Idaho’s legal challenge to the Lemhis’ longstanding use of traditional fishing grounds. As enrolled members of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes of Fort Hall, the Lemhis enjoy hunting and fishing rights provided for in the Fort Bridger Treaty, concluded on July 3, 1868, roughly a century before Tinno speared the chinook near Eightmile Creek. Because the treaty, negotiated by Gen. Christopher Augur at Fort Bridger in Utah Terri143 [144], (2) Lines: 48 to ——— 1.25pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [144], (2) tory, guaranteed signatories “the right to hunt on unoccupied lands of the United States,”2 the crux of the Tinno case revolved around whether the right to hunt, by definition, implied the right to fish; the Shoshone word for hunting subsumed the two pursuits. Like many Lemhis, Tinno had been raised with a familiarity of the Salmon River and its tributaries. His grandmother, a longtime resident of Salmon, showed him where to fish when he was young and instructed him in the traditional techniques used to harvest salmon. Every year after removal to Fort Hall, Lemhis like Tinno had made the long trek north to the Salmon River country to take fish in the same manner and at the same places that their ancestors had before them.3 Indeed, the method employed by Tinno would not have been unfamiliar to his Lemhi ancestors. The“straight point”he used was a spear or pole with a detachable hook connected to it with line to retrieve both the hook and the fish snagged with it. The earliest non-Indians to encounter the Lemhi Shoshones noted the use of the very same practice, among others.4 When the Corps of Discovery stayed among the Lemhis in August 1805 after reuniting Sacajawea with her people, Captains Lewis and Clark, as always, diligently recorded their observations of the Salmon River country and the people inhabiting it. On August 21 Clark documented the Lemhi technique of spearing salmon in his diary: Their method of taking fish with a gig or bone is with a long pole, about a foot from one end is a strong string attached to the pole, this string is a little more than a foot long and is tied to the middle of a bone from 4 to 6 inches long, one end sharp and the other with a hole to fasten on the end of the pole with a [barb] to the large end, the[y] fasten this bone on one end & with the other, feel for the fish & turn and strike them so hard that the bone passes through and catches on the opposite side, slips off the end of the pole and hold the center of the bone.5 A half century later, in 1855, Mormon missionaries established a mission, which they named...

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