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The public lands in the western United States are valued and considered significant by many individuals and groups. Native American tribal cultural and historical perspectives are different than they are for other user groups, given the tribes’ long historical ties to the land. Tribal beliefs and actions are often silent and unseen by the public, and are often misunderstood, denied, or ignored by the general public and by state and federal land managers. This is largely due to Indian displacement that occurred on what became public lands. In the Great Basin region, the removal of Native peoples from their indigenous homelands onto reservations made room for Euro-American settlers, ranchers, miners, and others, and for federal claims of ownership to the public domain. The removal of Indian people from their lands, whether forcible or voluntarily, generally stripped them of authorized use of those lands, creating a need for Native peoples to return surreptitiously to utilize necessary subsistence resources and traditional locations.
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Public Lands and American Indians: Traditional Use and Off-Reservation Treaty Rights
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As part of the multilayered debates over public land use, American Indians and tribes are finally—and increasingly—voicing their concerns. For decades, as Americans “discovered” the wonders of the natural landscapes in the West, non-Indian activities have received the focus of attention. But Indians have always had a presence there, taciturn but active. Indian people were the original inhabitants of vast lands throughout the West. Since time immemorial, Native people have lived in the northern Great Basin region; these people, who are now known as the Bannock, Shoshone, and Northern Paiute, called themselves the Newe or the Numa, which translates to “the Indian people.” The sovereign Newe bands all lived within Bia Sogope, which means “our big lands” in Shoshoni, referring to the entire aboriginal territory of the Newe. As Euro-American settlement expanded into Indians lands in the nineteenth century, the federal government took ownership of those lands and transferred portions of them to states, private citizens, and even private companies. The United States retained and
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