Secret Valley Paiutes

Secret Valley, as seen from the lower end of Secret Valley.
Secret Valley, as seen from the lower end of Secret Valley.

The Paiutes of Honey Lake/Secret Valleys were known as the Wadatkut.

The Secret Valley band consisted of 20-30 people. Ike Northrup who passed away in 1953, is one of the best known members of this tribe.

In the summer they made their home at the north end of Secret Valley, near the old McKissick Ranch, near Karlo. In the winter, they would relocate in the Honey Lake Valley, east of Litchfield. By the late 1890s,  some members of tribe would find seasonal employment there on the nearby Gibson Ranch.

For more information see Francis Riddell’s  Honey Lake Valley, Paiute Ethnology,  Nevada State Museum, Occasional Papers No. 3, 1978 . Riddell grew up in the Honey Lake Valley during the 1930s, as his father was hired to work on plans for the troubled Bly Tunnel at Eagle Lake. While attending school at Missouri Bend, Francis found arrowheads in the school yard and that was the beginning of his career in archaeology.

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One thought on “Secret Valley Paiutes”

  1. Wrong, Secret Valley was the Village site of the Kammutakuta Band of Northern Paiutes. Paiutes were Patralineril and all Northrup’s are Kammutakuta. The Paiute boundaries were dynamic and shared with neighboring Bands during Hunting and Gatherings.

    See Cultural Synthesis by BLM.

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