High in the remote mountains of Idaho and the Greater Yellowstone region lived a little-known people called the Sheep Eaters, or Tukudeka — a group often misunderstood, misidentified, and nearly erased from history. For generations, they survived in the high country by hunting bighorn sheep, moving with the seasons, and avoiding contact with the outside world.

In 1879, that isolation came to an end. Accusations of murders, raids, and stolen livestock sparked Idaho’s last Indian war, drawing the U.S. Army deep into some of the most rugged terrain in the American West. What followed was not a traditional war, but a campaign of pursuit, ambushes, survival, and surrender — shaped as much by rumor and fear as by confirmed facts.

This episode explores who the Sheep Eaters really were, what we know from archaeology and firsthand accounts, and how a misunderstood people became entangled in a conflict that quietly ended an ancient way of life. It also asks an uncomfortable question historians still debate: were the Sheep Eaters truly responsible for the violence blamed on them, or were they convenient scapegoats in a region already on edge?

This is the story of the Sheep Eaters, their history, their war, and the unanswered questions left behind in the mountains.

Sources for Research

https://www.intermountainhistories.org/items/show/180

Article by Andy McGinnis, University of Idaho

The Sheep Eaters

By William Alonzo Allen

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoMoGJClpTQ

The Sheepeaters, Mountain Indians of the Greater Yellowstone Region

Video by; This is Yellowstone

https://www.intermountainhistories.org/items/show/887

Article by Emmaretta Barnett, Brigham Young University

https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/taylorarchive/b08-PayetteNationalForestLiterature10.pdf

Article by Michael H. Koeppen

Collection of Articles in One Link

Forgotten Tragedies of an Indian War, By Aaron F. Parker

The Sheepeater Campaign, By George M Shearer & Col. W.C. Brown

Moccasin Tracks of the Sheepeaters, By John Carrey

https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/twrs/Parker__1968_Indian_Wars.pdf

The Sheepeater Campaign; An Archeological Perspective, by Ricky L. Roberts, Weber State College

https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/taylorarchive/b08-PayetteNationalForestLiterature79.pdf

Sources for Photos

Drawings on Cliffs by the Sheep Eaters

Photo by Crest, Cliff and Canyon

https://frishmanphoto.wordpress.com/2021/07/27/sheepeater-art/

Rocky Bar Mines

https://idahohistory.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p265501coll1/id/507/

Captain Edward Farrow

https://www.lib.uidaho.edu/digital/fisher/items/fisher286.html

‘High in the Sawtooths’

CC; 2.0 Brent - DSCF1345

Photos of Soldier Bar Today (Airfield)

Private Eagan’s Grave Today

https://www.shortfield.com/listing/soldier-bar-usfs-id/

Private Eagan’s Grave

Region Map (Vinegar Hill)

https://objects.lib.uidaho.edu/taylorarchive/b4-NewsArticles-016.pdf