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Skull Valley Band of Goshute - Utah (U.S.)

Native American

image by Donald Healy, 31 January 2008

The band
The flag

See also:

The Band

map image by Peter Orenski based on input from Don Healy

Skull Valley Band of Goshute - Utah

Possibly the most foreboding landscape in the United States is the area called the Great Basin. It is the remains of a long gone seabed that now covers the states of Nevada and Utah plus areas of surrounding states. The cactus and creosote bush covered deserts of Arizona are lush in comparison. Even plants struggle for their existence in the Great Basin. Its largest water source is the saline Great Salt Lake.

Before the advent of the white man, the Great Basin was home to several Tribes of peaceful Indians. The harsh conditions of Great Basin sort of enforced a peaceful coexistence since the search for food so preoccupied the people, intertribal warfare would have been an unprofitable luxury they could not afford. When the whites arrived in the area, they saw the Native population digging in the soil for root crops and thus called them "Digger Indians". Amongst those lumped together under this derisive term were the Goshute of Nevada and Utah.

The small Skull Valley Band of Goshute, numbering under one hundred in residence on their small reservation are the easternmost representatives of the Goshute Nation. They are located in western Utah, west of the Great Salt Lake.

The Flag

Over this parched land of the Skull Valley Band, flies a white flag bearing an adapted version of their tribal seal. Across the white field stretches the brown mountains that form Skull Valley. Rising behind these mountains is a large yellow sun with thirteen yellow rays emanating from it. Below the hills is the tribal name in red stretched out letters. "Skull Valley Band" appearing on the first line, a smaller "of" below the double Ls in "Valley" and a slightly bowed "Goshute" on a third line. No information is available as to the designer or date of adoption.

The tribal seal is round and provides a blue background for the sun whose rays now add up to 23. The name of the Tribe is placed in a black band surrounding the graphic in pale yellow letters and does not appear in the central graphic at all.

© Donald Healy 2008
information provided by Peter Orenski, 31 January 2008