[3] Before the reservation era, they traditionally lived in the central Sawtooth Range of Idaho and the mountains of what is now northwest Wyoming.

Despite a complete lack of evidence, the Tukudeka were blamed for the murders, and the US Cavalry attacked the tribe in what would be called the Sheepeater War.

"Doc" Allen claimed to have found the last-living Sheepeater living among the Crow Tribe, a 115-year-old woman whom he communicated with in sign language.

His book The Sheepeaters was later considered by later anthropologist Ake Hultkrantz to be almost entirely fabricated, and a source of myths and folklore describing the Tukudika as impoverished pygmies without guns or horses.

... Their personal property consisted of one old butcher knife nearly worn to the back, two old, shattered fusees which had long since become useless for want of ammunition, a small stone pot and about thirty dogs on which they carried their skins, clothing, provisions, etc., on their hunting excursions.

... One of them drew a map of the country around us on a white elk skin with a piece of charcoal, after which he explained the direction of the different passes, streams, etc.

Their pedestrian way of life was well-suited for spending summer at high-elevations where migratory animals like bighorn sheep, elk, and deer abounded, and they could also harvest calorie-rich edible plants like white bark pine nuts.

In contrast, horse-mounted Shoshones were much more dependent on bison hunting on the plains, which offered a major source of wealth for trade, but was also a resource that other tribes coveted, leading to conflict through much of the 1800s.

The Tukudika were smaller in numbers than the other Shoshone, but judging by Russel's account lived a prosperous life by relying on a variety of food resources.

This likely represents the period when the Wyoming Tukudika merged with the Washakie band of the Eastern Shoshone to reside on the Wind River Indian Reservation.

Later anthropologists Are Hultkrantz and Demetri Shimkin reported that members of the Tukudika formed an enclave within the Trout Creek area near Fort Washakie.

[10] Since Tukudika were aware migratory patterns of deer and elk and bighorn sheep, they likely migrated out of high elevations to spend winter at the mouth of mountain canyons where they spill out to the plains, or in the basins themselves.

Other recent excavations have suggested that certain snow-free areas within the Wind River Range may have been used by Indians in mid-winter for up to 12,000 years.

The hunters would then spook the animals further into the narrowing part of the spiral trap, with the assistance of a ceremonial leader stationed in a pod along one of the corral walls.