Great Basin Indians: An Encyclopedic History

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306 T Temoke Kin Clique. Historically speaking, the first known Western Shoshone named Temoke—“the Rope”—was described as a “friend of the Dog-faced people,” that is, whites. He, along with “Buck,” Po-ongo-sah, as well as other early postcontact Shoshone leaders (see Tutuwa), signed the infamous treaty in 1863 that remains controversial to this very day (see 1862 Treaty with the Western Shoshone). “Chief Tim-oak,” as he was called by Major Powell and S. W. Ingalls, federally appointed Indian agents sent to Nevada in 1873 to relocate nonreservation Great Basin Indians onto the “Muddy” or Moapa Reservation in the southern part of the state, led 172 Western Shoshone in Ruby Valley, Nevada (S. Crum 1994a, 35). Although Jack Harris (1940a, 77) wrote that Chief Temoke was “only a local headman who had gathered a numbers of camps about him,” and Julian Steward (1938, 149–50) characterized him as a “mere citizen,” who at the end of his life enjoyed relating “interesting stories of the wars and of his travels and trading journey to the east” and, despite not being afraid of whites, had had a “political and military career [that] was . . . as brief as it was spectacular, lasting not more than seven years between 1854 and 1863.” The eponym of the Temoke kin clique, however, probably deserves a better accounting. His authority, first, was such that “the Rope” might hand over a fellow Shoshone accused of killing American emigrants to Colonel J. B. Moore, in charge of Fort Ruby, in November 1883. And this first Temoke was also said to have become so enthusiastic about the prospects of Western Shoshone becoming farmers that he sent personal representatives to Indian agent Levi Gheen in March 1873, requesting seeds to help change his people’s time-honored foraging ways (S. Crum 1994a, 31). Indeed, this Western Shoshone was listed as a farmer in the 1880 Census (O. Stewart 1980, 250). Stewart (ibid., 253–54) also learned through archival research that Chief Temoke in 1873 was the “Chief of Alliance” over twelve others, and that on June 17, 1869, he importantly signed a “consenting clause” to the Treaty of Ruby Valley prior to President Grant’s signature on October 21, 1869, which, according to an Indian agent, averred, “Ruby Valley is considered by the Indians their capital or cepter place—their great chief resides there.” Additional facts about “Chief Temoke” can be found in another publication by Julian Steward (1941, 264). There we learn that, for example, he wore his hair in a long braid on the side of his head and with feathers and claimed to be bulletproof (see Booha). And in one account of his death, Chief Temoke died as a result of having violated supernatural instructions contained in the dream that inaugurated his acquisition of power (see Booha). Steward, on the other hand, claimed Temoke died at the hands of a kinsman, an incident allegedly stemming from a social courtesy, his failure to properly offer food from an iron kettle hanging over a tripod in 1891 to another person. In yet a third version of the legendary Chief Temoke’s death, the t e m o k e k i n c l i q u e 307 Indian agent Lorenzo Creel reported that it occurred as a result of the accidental discharge of his own gun (Tuohy 1984, 119). Be that as it may, Special Inspectors Powell and Ingalls, who were sent by the federal government to purchase land for “homeless” Indians in Nevada (see Colonies ), made clear that “old Timoke” not only was farming, but had helped survey the “six-mile-square” Ruby Valley Reservation that never came into existence (S. Crum 1987a). Joe Temoke then assumed the mantle of Western Shoshone “traditional chieftainship ” following the death of “the Rope.” According to a local historian, Joe Temoke was the son of Chief Temoke’s brother (Patterson 1972). Along with marrying his uncle’s daughter as well as his parallel cousin Mary Temoke’s sister—a polygynyous if not politically double marriage (see Kinship)—Joe Temoke, according to Richard Clemmer (personal correspondence), also died at the hands of a kinsman. According to the Western Shoshone historian Steven Crum, “Joe Temoke became the first chief of the revived informal treaty council” (1994a, 83). “Chief Joe Temoke,” moreover, would take up the cudgels against a Ruby Valley white rancher named Wines who attempted to force the Western Shoshone off the aforementioned surveyed , though otherwise seemingly phantom, “six...