Tümpisa (Panamint) Shoshone Dictionary

This dictionary is primarily of the Death Valley variety of what has come to be known in the linguistic and anthropological literature in recent years as Panamint (e.g., Freeze and Iannucci 1979; Lamb 1958 and 1964; McLaughlin 1987; Miller 1984), or sometimes Panamint Shoshone (Miller et al. 1971). In the nineteenth century and up to the middle of this century, it was often called Coso (sometimes spelled Koso) or Coso Shoshone (e.g., Kroeber 1925; Lamb 1958). In aboriginal times and even well into this century, Panamint was spoken by small bands of people living in southeastern California and extreme southwestern Nevada in the valleys and mountain ranges east of the Sierra Nevada. Thus, Panamint territory included the southern end of Owens Valley around Owens Lake, the Coso Range and Little Lake area, the southern end of Eureka Valley, Saline Valley and the eastern slopes of the Inyo Mountains, the Argus Range, northern Panamint Valley and the Panamint Mountains, northern and central Death Valley, the Grapevine Mountains and Funeral Range, the Amargosa Desert and area around Beatty, Nevada (see Maps, pp. x-xi; also Kroeber 1925:589-90 and Steward 1938:70ff).