Sheepeater Band of Shoeshone

The Sheepeater Indians are actually a part of the Shoshone Tribe and were also known as the Mountain Shoshone. Their name may have come from the fact that they were hunters and eaters of Rocky Mountain sheep.

Brief History
The Mountain Shoshone or Sheepeaters were located in the Yellowstone and northern Rocky Mountains along the Idaho-Montana border. Some of them settled in the Lemhi Valley near Tendoy, Idaho. A reservation was established for them in 1875, called the Lemhi Reservation, and approximately 700 Shoshone, Sheepeater, and Bannock Indians were placed on that reservation.

The Lemhi Reservation was never very successful and in 1906, 474 Indians from the Lemhi Reservation were moved to Fort Hall Reservation in eastern Idaho. Some of the Shoshone, especially those under Chief Tendoy remained in the central Idaho area near Salmon. Chief Tendoy died in May 1907 and was buried near Tendoy, Idaho.

Bands and Groups of the Sheepeater Tribe

 * Chief Tendoy's Band

Records
Many of the records of the Sheepeaters, 1875-1906, are included in the records of the Lemhi Reservation. Subsequent records mostly are at the Fort Hall Reservation, where many of the descendants of the early Sheepeaters now live.

There is also an Indian burial ground on a bench near Tendoy, Idaho.

Agency Records

Correspondence and Census