English variants included: Goshutes, Go-sha-utes, Goship-Utes, Goshoots, Gos-ta-Utes, Gishiss, Goshen Utes, Kucyut, and Gosiutsi.
These names suggest a closer affinity among the Goshute and Ute Peoples than other Numic-speaking groups, such as the Shoshone and Paiute.
In aboriginal times, they practiced subsistence hunting and gathering and exhibited fairly simple social structure.
[3] Most Goshutes gathered with other families only two or three times a year, typically for pine nut harvests, communal hunts for no more than two to six weeks, and winter lodging which was for a longer period.
[5][6] The Goshutes hunted lizards, snakes, small fish, birds, gophers, rabbits, rats, skunks, squirrels, and, when available, pronghorn, bear, coyote, deer, elk, and bighorn sheep.
Women and children gathered harvesting nearly 100 species of wild vegetables and seeds, the most important being the pine nut.
[1]: 242 Prior to contact with the Mormons, the Goshutes wintered in the Deep Creek Valley in dug out houses built of willow poles and earth known as wiki-ups.
Within this area, the Goshutes were concentrated in three areas: Deep Creek Valley near Ibapah (Ai-bim-pa / Ai'bĭm-pa - "White Clay Water" referring to Deep Creek) on the Utah-Nevada border, Simpson's Springs farther southeast, and the Skull (Goshute: Pa'ho-no-pi / Pa'o-no-pi) and Tooele Valleys.
[1]: 222 The Goshute diet depended on the grasslands, and consisted mostly of rats, lizards, snakes, rabbits, insects, grass-seed, and roots.
There were five divisions or subtribes:[10] Other sources are listing following Kusiutta / Goshute (Gosiute) divisions or regional groupings: The Western Shoshoni speaking Ely Shoshone Tribe of Nevada called all Goshute after one of their important bands Aibibaa Newe ("White chalky clay Water People"), the Duckwater Shoshone Tribe (Tsaidüka) know them as Egwibaanɨwɨ (literally "Smell Water People") - maybey referring to their desert culture survival techniques.
[11]: 4 In 1849, the pioneers started building permanent structures in Goshute territory, beginning with a grist mill commissioned by Ezra T. Benson.
[11]: 10 After the Timpanogos suffered the massacres at Battle Creek and Fort Utah, many of the survivors came and combined with the Goshutes, intermarrying and assuming leadership roles.
The treaty did not give up land or sovereignty but did agree to end all hostile actions against the whites and to allow several routes of travel to pass through their country.
To the east is a nerve gas storage facility and to the north is the Magnesium Corporation plant which has had severe environmental problems.