According to Paiute oral history, the Si-Te-Cah, Saiduka or Sai’i are a legendary tribe whose mummified remains were allegedly discovered under four feet of guano by guano miners in what is now known as Lovelock Cave in Lovelock, Nevada, United States. Although the cave had been mined since 1911, miners didn’t notify authorities until 1912. The miners destroyed many of the artifacts, but archaeologists were still able to retrieve 10,000 Paiute artifacts from the cave. Items included tule duck decoys, sandals, and baskets, several dating back over 2000 years.
According to the Paiutes, the Si-Te-Cah were a red-haired band of cannibalistic giants. The Si-Te-Cah and the Paiutes were at war, and after a long struggle a coalition of tribes trapped the remaining Si-Te-Cah in Lovelock Cave. When they refused to come out, the Indians piled brush before the cave mouth and set it aflame. The Si-Te-Cah were annihilated.
Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, daughter of Paiute Chief Winnemucca, wrote about what she described as “a small tribe of barbarians” who ate her people in her book Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims – she wrote that “after my people had killed them all, the people round us called us Say-do-carah. It means conqueror; it also means “enemy.” “My people say that the tribe we exterminated had reddish hair. I have some of their hair, which has been handed down from father to son. I have a dress which has been in our family a great many years, trimmed with the reddish hair. I am going to wear it some time when I lecture. It is called a mourning dress, and no one has such a dress but my family.”
A written report by James H. Hart, the first of two miners to excavate the cave in the fall of 1911, recalls that in the north-central part of the cave, about four feet deep, “was a striking looking body of a man “six feet six inches tall.” His body was mummified and his hair distinctly red.” Unfortunately in the first year of mining, some of the human remains and artifacts were lost and destroyed. “The best specimen of the adult mummies was boiled and destroyed by a local fraternal lodge, which wanted the skeleton for initiation purposes.” Also, several of the fiber sandals found in the cave were remarkably large, and one reported at over 15 inches (38 cm) in length was said to be on display at the Nevada Historical Society’s museum in Reno in 1952.
The Paiute tradition asserts that the Si-Te-Cah people practiced cannibalism, and this may have had some basis in fact. During the 1924 excavation of the cave, a series of three human bones were found near the surface towards the mouth of the cave. “These had been split to extract the marrow, as animal bones were split, and probably indicate cannibalism during a famine.”
Dutch W
Mommy I don’t like Pailutes……Shut up and eat
Diana A
The tule ducks were dated 1200bc. The oldest artifacts. There was.obviously a full large lake presrnt at the time. Or, WHY WOULD THEY NEED THE DECOYS TO CATCH DUCKS?
I am a cultural practitioner, i live my life practicing my cultural traditional gathering and teachings. I make reproductions of the artifacts indicated in the cave. I was stunned to find the cave also contained bigfoot giant remains. Btw, red hair is a dimorphisum of blavk hair.. My 75% bloodline mother had red hair. I look 100% Native CA indian and hv black hair.
You can refer to Indians by saying, this Indian tribe said this and that Indian tribe said that, but takung their words out of context without hearing/ listening/knowing their connection to the land is like randomly cutting and pasteng. Cutting and pasting to lead ones to believe what you want.
Mike B
yup.the body of water was an great inland sea called the mowitch sea.incidentally mowitch is shoshoni for mule deer.
Chuck S
Diana, I am a history buff and I would love to learn more about your tribe and their history. Is there a book or something I could learn more from?
Thank you,
Chuck Schlabs
caschlabs@icloud.com
June P
I have red hair, but alas, I am not a giant.
Mike B
saidyuka/duka is shoshoni for buffalo killer/eater(it’s all about context)one of the major shoshoni tribes.saydocarah does indeed mean conquerors,but that was what the war tribes called themselves.with exception to the bannatee,saydocarah are not paiute.the word saydocarah comes after the shoshoni (then they were the nokonie,the homeless people)got the horse and came and cleared their homeland of all others that had been squatting since the shoshoni had been driven out by chinook and sahaptin slavers during the great drought.most white men call all shoshoni paiute,but the paiute were their poor cousins.the hohandika,the earth eaters,the have no meat,the walking people.incidentally,that does not describe sara’s father who rode knee to knee with shoshoko and tavibo all during the shoshoni wars.the paiute were incapable of the kind of violence it would take to take out a clan of bigfoot.of course the war tribes were perfectly capable of that kind of violence.they had to be.
Chuck S
Thanks Mike! I love hearing about that kind of history! I am like a 1/8 Cherokee, and am very ashamed that I do not know much about the history of not just Cherokee but all tribes in general.
Sincerely,
Chuck Schlabs
caschlabs@icloud.com
Jane M
Thanks for native information. So ancient and fascinating. I hate the way we talk about the USA being melting pot, but natives rarely come up. Cool info. Thanks so much!
Eddie M
The melting Pot they refer is a political one. History (which I taught) is criminally slanted to omit the History of The America’s and what existed and had existed for thousands and thousands of years before any European , Asian or African arrived. I have zero trust in our political government…I love my country but, the current Government is only interested in “melting” new immigrants and so called refugees into our “pot” to acquire an endentured debt vote. They literally could care less about the original American and their History. Unfortunately their vote does not carry enough weight to be of political interest therefore their History is given the same weight of importance. My Great Grandmothet was Cherokee and as a teacher I literally had to dig for information….And that should not be the case.
Michael K
Kwashiorkor syndrome can cause reddening of dark hair during times of famine from malnutrition. 1So I guess Cannibalism also would be around in those conditions as well.
June P
Wow, that’s interesting. Could be what happened with these beings.
David D
Go Paiute’s!! I’ll bet there really wasn’t anything quite like having these creatures terrorize your people, eating them, and then, finally destroying them! Good job! I only wonder, what ever happened to the relics and artifacts. Hmmm, I’ll bet they all but disappeared into some far off-corner of a museum someplace. The stories of these giants’, have been around for more than several millennia, just look at the drawing Wes posted the other day from Steve Quale. Fricken people-eaters! For a looong time, in our past, we had to deal with these things! My favorite account is of a shepherd, named David! On a side note to all of you first-nations’ people; there will be a Day of reckoning, when all of those “civilized” folks’, will have to give an account for the way they treated you. I almost pity them when they face that Day! This planet is soaked with the blood of countless millions’, and there will come a Day. In the mean-time, enjoy what you’ve been given, wisdom, knowledge, love for your families, and just live your lives. If part of your life is exploring Squatch; enjoy it. There are many things that I will one day get answers for, but in the time I’m here, I study, pray, and hope, (absolute assurance). Plus I hope (balancing of probabilities’), that I NEVER run into one of these giant, smelly, hairy, should be extinct but ain’t, remote dwelling hippy dudes’!! And I probably won’t. Happy Hunting! David.
David D
Speaking of relics. I heard, not sure exactly where, but, I heard that the “Skull and Bone’s” society, got it’s name from the stolen body of Crazy-Horse, or was it Geronimo? Can’t remember now, I’ll have to look it up, or ask my youngest. Creepy bustards’ have been digging up people and boiling their bones, for a long time. Just ask the Australian Aborigines’. They know all to well, what it’s like to be hunted down and massacred! All in the name of “science” so-called. Yep, it’s that very “humanitarian religion of evolutionism, that’s to blame. After all, all they wanted to find is a “missing link”!! WOW!!
Mike B
they were doing that shit long before darwin.they do it still.the american slave owners used the bible as their excuse for owning human chattel.modern day white supremacists use the same passages to excuse the same bullshit.but this is neither the time nor the place for this discussion.just remember,the word religion covers an awful lot of sins . good day .
Tam C
Right… Skull & Bones of Yale University. It was Geronimo I think, and his ancestors sued the Bush family to regain possession of his skull (or remains) a few years ago. I don’t know what happened as it didn’t seem like mainstream news wanted to follow the story.
Jan W
It was said to be Geronimo’s skull. There was a lawsuit, but of course, money won and the skull was never returned.