Southern Paiute Indians

The Southern Paiute came to the Grand Staircase-Escalante area from the Great Basin around 1300 A.D. The Paiute people lived together in small bands consisting of several families.

Some bands lived along the Santa Clara, Muddy, and Virgin Rivers while others lived near springs at the base of the Vermilion Cliffs. Paiute is sometimes translated to mean "water willow people."

These people were extremely well-adapted to life in the arid climate of the desert. They hunted both large and small game including deer, mountain sheep, pronghorn, rabbits, beaver, porcupine, prairie dog, gopher, squirrel, quail, ducks, and lizards.

They gathered wild berries, nuts, seeds, roots, and tubers. The people that lived along the rivers grew small plots of corn, sunflowers, squash, melons, and gourds.

In summer and winter they built wicki-ups for shelter. Made from willow, juniper bark, and other material, wicki-ups could be thickly layered for cold weather or thinly layered as protection from summer heat.