The Sheepeaters were a band of the Shoshone tribe, thought to have disappeared in the 1870s.The group was so named because their primary food source was bighorn sheep. Much about the Sheepeaters remains a mystery.
It is believed that they were seminomadic. They followed the bighorn sheep as they migrated from high elevations in the summer, back down to lower valleys in the winter. The Sheepeaters were a pre-equestrian culture. Their dogs served as pack animals. They used bows and stone-pointed arrows to hunt.
The two Wyoming regions the Sheepeaters called home were the Wind River Mountains and the area occupied today by Yellowstone National Park. Sheepeaters were reluctant to engage with outsiders and fur traders and trappers fabricated fantastical legends about them.
Beginning in 1948, Swedish anthropologist Ake Hultkrantz documented Sheepeaters’ religious practices. His sources were descendants of the band.
See the Ake Hultkrantz papers at UW’s American Heritage Center. for more information.