Welcome to Payahuunadü
This is a guide for how to recreate responsibly on the lands of the Nüümü and Newe peoples.
The Nüümü or Paiute people and the Newe or Shoshone people have inhabited Payahuunadü for time immemorial. Payahuunadü means "land of the flowing water" and refers to the Eastern Sierra region including the Owens Valley. Today, the Bishop Paiute Tribe is the 5th largest tribe in California with over 2,200 members. Although our present day reservation is only about 875 acres, the history and culture of the Tribe are written all over the landscapes around Bishop and the surrounding areas that make up our traditional lands.
The Environmental Management Office put together this guide in the hopes that it can be a starting point for those who wish to recreate in this area with respect towards the land and its original inhabitants.
When you recreate near Bishop, whether you live here or are visiting, the Environmental Management Office of the Bishop Paiute Tribe asks several things of you.
The first is that you learn about Paiute history .
The second is that you educate yourself on how to recognize and protect cultural sites .
I. Learn about Paiute history.
A great place to start learning about Paiute history is the Owens Valley Paiute-Shoshone Cultural Center located at 2300 West Line Street, Bishop CA 93514. Please visit the hyperlink to the Cultural Center's website for hours and more information.
To learn more about the history of land and water in Payahuunadü please visit this StoryMap created by the Owens Valley Indian Water Commission as well as this webpage on their website. Below is a limited timeline to introduce you to some of our history. Keep in mind that Paiute history is much more expansive than this timeline can encompass.
A brief timeline to get you started:
15,000 years + B.P. (before present)
Indigenous peoples make use of the Volcanic Tablelands. 1
pre-settler contact
Contrary to common settler narratives that Indigenous people didn’t “utilize” the land and therefore land dispossession was justified, the Nüümü people independently developed an agricultural system that endured over 500 years and involved ditch construction, rock clearing, and the use of water-control features to irrigate a variety of consumable plants in the Owens Valley. 2
1856
A. W. Von Schmidt surveyed land in the northern Owens Valley for the Department of Interior and documented the existence of extensive “Indian ditches” and irrigated fields in the area. Shortly thereafter settlers arrived in the area and came into violent conflict with the Paiute people. 3
1904
The City of Los Angeles became interested in the Owens River as a potential source of water for the rapidly growing population of the city. 4
1912
The U.S. government set aside over 67,000 acres of land in the Volcanic Tablelands to be considered for settlement by Paiute people in the Owens Valley. The land would later be removed from trust and determined to be unsuitable for a reservation. 5
1933
By this time the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had procured 95% of all farmland in the Owens Valley and the water rights associated with those lands. 6
1937
Congress authorizes a land exchange between the U.S. Government and the City of Los Angeles that trades 1,391.38 acres of City of Los Angeles land for 2,913.5 acres of land held in trust for the Owens Valley Paiute. From the 1,391.48 acres the Bishop, Big Pine and Long Pine Reservations are carved. However, the issue of water rights associated with these lands was not resolved during the exchange, rather the federal government and the City of Los Angeles agreed to resolve the issue of water rights at a later date. To this day the Tribes are still in dispute with the City over water rights. 7
Today
The Bishop Paiute Tribe operates as the 5th largest California Tribe with one of the smallest land bases of 875 acres.
1 Basgall, M., Giambastiani, M. A., & Delacorte, M. G. (1995). Prehistoric use of a marginal environment: Continuity and change in occupation of the Volcanic Tablelands, Mono and Inyo Counties, California. Davis, Calif: Center for Archaeological Research at Davis.
2 Haverstock, G. J., Jayko, A. S., Williams, H. C. (2022). The Archaeological Identification and Radiocarbon Assay of Pre-Colonial Nüümü (Paiute) Agriculture in Payahuunadü (Owens Valley), California. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 42(1), 23-40.
3 Cavelle, J. (2016-2023). Water and Culture: Recovering Owens Valley Paiute History [Exhibition]. Owens Valley Paiute-Shoshone Cultural Center, Bishop, CA, USA.
4 Reisner, M. (1993). Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water (pp. 52-103). Penguin Books.
5 Executive Order 1529. (2010, May 12). Wikisource. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_1529
6 see 4
7 see 3 and A History of Water Rights and Land Struggles. (2018). Owens Valley Indian Water Commission. https://www.oviwc.org/water-crusade/
II. How to recognize and protect cultural sites.
Cultural sites (petroglyphs, old dwelling sites, artifacts, scatters of obsidian, arrowheads, grindstones etc.) are part of how we are able to trace the Indigenous history of Payahuunadü. Unfortunately, some of the cultural sites around Bishop have been destroyed by people recreating and exploring the area. People take obsidian points or arrowheads home with them, graffiti on rocks covered in petroglyphs or pictographs (Teinüümümui is our word for petroglyphs) and dismantle dwelling sites in order to create better landings when bouldering. The destruction of these sites is concerning to us as it is an attempt at literal erasure of our history on the land. It is also illegal to collect, damage, or disturb cultural sites on federal/public lands and those who do so can face fines or jail time .
We ask that you are mindful of cultural sites as you move through the area:
- Recreation areas near Bishop contain sensitive cultural sites. We ask that you stay on established roads, trails, campsites and climbing areas.
- If you find an artifact (e.g. arrowhead, obsidian point or scatter, pottery fragment/shard etc.) leave it be. Please do not touch or move it. Do not take it home with you.
- Do not graffiti on any cultural sites or any part of the landscape. Do not touch touch any cultural sites. In particular, do not touch petroglyphs or pictographs as it damages them .
- Please do not post pictures or locations of cultural sites on social media.
We want you to enjoy recreation in Payahuunadü, just not at the expense of Paiute history and cultural sites.
While some cultural sites have signs like this one, please be aware that many do not have any signage and are in areas that you may come across while recreating.
Please scroll through the slideshow below to learn more about how to identify cultural sites. While these slides tend to show cultural sites in the Volcanic Tableland, cultural sites are everywhere throughout the Owens Valley.
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III. Be considerate of plants and animals.
The Bishop area is home to many different sensitive and culturally significant plant and animal species. In addition to following Leave No Trace principles and guidelines from the BLM, Forest Service, or Climbing Rangers we ask that you consider how you might be impacting the ways that local Indigenous people interact with species or how species fit into our cultural practices. Here are some examples for you to think about:
- In one incident, a climbing rope left up in Pine Creek resulted in the death of a Golden Eagle. Eagles are sacred. The convenience of fixed or left gear may not be worth the risk to wildlife.
- Tribal members have noticed non-Indigenous folks harvesting medicinal plants in the area without proper protocols and to the extent that there is little left for local Indigenous people. Other times, medicinal plants are destroyed when people drive off established roads/trails in OHVs or cars. You may be impacting cultural practices without realizing it.
- The Happy Boulders, Sad Boulders and Buttermilks used to be areas where Indigenous people lived. More recently, local Indigenous folks would hunt rabbit, an important food source, in these areas. Now, those ecosystems no longer support rabbit populations. How might your presence in an area be impacting wildlife? How might the presence of your dog be impacting wildlife ?
- Bouldering pads stashed in more remote bouldering areas can be torn apart by marmots or, if left for longer periods of time, degrade and enter waterways. Stashing pads is leaving a trace.
If you would like to go beyond Leave No Trace, we highly recommend checking out the Indigenous Field Guide . It is a much more expansive guide for recreation through an Indigenous lens.
IV. Next Steps
Thank you for taking the time to read through this guide! The Environmental Management Office encourages you to always seeks out information about local Indigenous communities wherever you go to recreate. Here is a summary of how you can start recreating more responsibly in Payahuunadü:
- Stop by the Owens Valley Paiute-Shoshone Cultural Center located at 2300 West Line Street, Bishop to learn more about Paiute history.
- Review Section II of this guide to learn how to recognize and protect cultural sites.
- Be considerate of plants and animals wherever you are recreating.
- Check out the Indigenous Field Guide.
Please click on the link below if you would like to provide feedback for this guide.
