The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation (Montana Salish: Séliš u Ql̓ispé, Kutenai: k̓upawiȼq̓nuk) are a federally recognized tribe centered on the Flathead Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of Montana. The tribe includes Kutenai, Bitterroot Salish, and Upper Pend d'Oreille people, the later two are Interior Salish peoples.

The Bitterroot Salish were referred to by Euro-American explorers as Flathead Indians. This name was originally applied to various Salish peoples after Europeans misinterpreted their identifying Coast Salish Sign Language sign to mean that they practiced artificial cranial deformation. This sign involved pressing both hands to the opposite sides of the head and meant, "We the people.”

The peoples of these tribes originally lived in the areas of Montana, parts of Idaho, British Columbia, and Wyoming. The original territory comprised about 22 million acres (89,000&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>) at the time of the 1855 Hellgate treaty.

Demographics

The tribe has about 7,753 citizens members with approximately 5,000 tribal citizens living on the Flathead Reservation. Their predominant religion is Roman Catholicism. 1,100 Native Americans from other tribes and more than 10,000 non-Native Americans also live on the reservation.

Culture

thumb|Arlee Celebration Powwow

The People's Center Museum opened in 1995 in Pablo, Montana. Now called the Three Chiefs Cultural Center in Pablo, Montana, hosts rotating exhibitions of Salish and Kootenai cultural artifacts. The museum is supplemented with an oral tradition of storytelling that explains the significance of the pieces on display and shares the stories of the people who lived in the time before and during the European invasion.

Every July, the tribes host the Arlee Powwow in Arlee, Montana.

In a move to self-identify and push back against the effects of the Indian Termination policy, namely assimilation, in 2016 the tribe chose to change their name from the anglicized "Salish-Pend d'Oreille" to Séliš-Ql̓ispé. The change was part of a wider movement to include more Salishan in the community's daily lives.

For the Séliš-Ql̓ispé, language and culture are entwined — through oral histories, food practices, horticulture, environment, and spirituality. By reviving the language, they hope to also reclaim their identity, their health, and their culture.

Community efforts to revitalize the Salishan language and culture, aside from efforts to teach classes on language (in some cases, full-immersion into the language with no falling back onto English), include such things as virtual tours and museums, such as the Sq'éwlets, which is a Stó:lō-Coast Salish Community in the Fraser River Valley.

Government

The tribe is headquartered in Pablo, Montana.

Priorities

The Tribal Councils in 2021 and 2022 identified the top issues for the government to address.

Cultural values focuses on integrating traditional cultural values and languages into daily life. They work to foster business ownership among tribal members. They have the ability to direct necessary resources to combat homelessness, hunger, and addiction. They facilitate earning opportunities and jobs for tribal members. They have proclaimed climate change to be a risk and have multiple avenues for mitigation and adaptation. They can direct resources toward addressing mental health.

Reservation

The Flathead Reservation in northwest Montana is more 1.2 million acres

thumb|KwaTuqNuk Resort

The tribes own and jointly operate a valuable hydropower dam, called Séliš Ksanka Ql'ispé Dam, formerly known as Kerr Dam. They are the first Indian nation in the United States to own a hydroelectric dam. CSKT operates the only local electricity provider Mission Valley Power. They own S&K Electronics, founded in 1984, and the internationally operating S&K Technologies, founded in 1999.

Other tribal businesses are the KwaTaqNuk Resort & Casino in Polson, county seat of Lake County and most populous community on the reservation, and the Gray Wolf Peak Casino in Evaro, Montana.

History

Early territory

thumb|upright 1.1|Territories of the Salish (Flathead), Salish-Tunaxe, Kutenai-Tunaxe, Pend d'Oreille, and Semteuse (ca. 1700)

The Flathead and the Pend d'Oreille both agree that the Flathead once occupied a large territory on the plains east of the Rocky Mountains. This tribal homeland included the present-day counties of Broadwater, Jefferson, Deer Lodge, Silver Bow, Madison and Gallatin and parts of Lewis & Clark, Meagher and Park. This was about the time when they got the first horses.

The tribe consisted of at least four bands. Respectively, they had winter quarters near present-day Helena, near Butte, east of Butte and in the Big Hole Valley. Lewis and Clark came there and asked for horses, but they eventually ate the horses due to starvation. The Flatheads also appear in the records of the Roman Catholic Church at St. Louis, Missouri, to which they sent four delegations to request missionaries (or "Black Robes") to minister to the tribe. Their request was finally granted, and a number of missionaries, including Pierre-Jean De Smet, were eventually sent. The Flatheads are also located in Sula, Montana.

thumb|A Flathead delegation in Washington, D.C., with interpreter, 1884

The tribes negotiated the Hellgate treaty with the United States in 1855. From the start, treaty negotiations were plagued by serious translation problems.

After the 1864 gold rush in the newly established Montana Territory, pressure upon the Salish intensified from both illegal non-Indian squatters and government officials. In 1870, Victor died, and he was succeeded as chief by his son, Chief Charlot, aka Charlo, Claw of the Little Grizzly. Like his father, Charlot adhered to a policy of nonviolent resistance. He insisted on the right of his people to remain in the Bitterroot Valley. But territorial citizens and officials thought the new chief could be pressured into capitulating.

Over time, the real reason for the Hellgate treaty meetings became clear to the Salish and Pend d'Oreille people. Under the terms spelled out in the written document, the tribes ceded to the United States more than twenty million acres (81,000&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>) of land and reserved from cession about 1.3 million acres (5,300&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup>), forming the Jocko or Flathead Indian Reservation. Conditions had become intolerable for the Salish by the late 1880s, after the Missoula and Bitter Root Valley Railroad was constructed directly through the tribe's lands, with neither permission from the native owners nor payment to them. of the US federal Indian termination policy, the Flathead Tribes were able to resist the government's plans to terminate their tribal relationship in Congressional hearings in 1954.

In 2021 the Bison were returned to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes

Notable tribal citizens

  • Corwin Clairmont, artist and educator
  • Marvin Camel, boxer, WBC & IBF Cruiserweight Champion
  • Debra Magpie Earling, author
  • Terese Marie Mailhot, author
  • D'Arcy McNickle (1904–1977), noted writer, Native American activist, and anthropologist
  • Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, artist

See also

  • Alameda's hot springs retreat
  • Kootenai Tribe of Idaho
  • Ktunaxa Kinbasket Tribal Council

References

Further reading

  • Bigart, Robert, and Clarence Woodcock. In the Name of the Salish & Kootenai Nation: The 1855 Hell Gate Treaty and the Origin of the Flathead Indian Reservation. Pablo, Mont: Salish Kootenai College Press, 1996.
  • Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. Ktunaxa Legends. Pablo, Mont: Salish Kootenai College Press, 1997.
  • Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. The Salish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005.
  • Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation. A Brief History of the Flathead Tribes. St. Ignatius, Mont: Flathead Culture Committee, Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 1979.
  • Johnson, Olga Weydemeyer. Flathead and Kootenay; The Rivers, the Tribes, and the Region's Traders. Northwest historical series, 9. Glendale, Calif: A. H. Clark Co, 1969.
  • Salish Kootenai College. Challenge to survive : history of the Salish tribes of the Flathead Indian Reservation (2008). Volume 1, From Time Immemorial, Traditional Life. Volume 2, Three Eagles and Grizzly Bear Looking Up Period, 1800-1840. Volume 3, Victor and Alexander Period, 1840-1870.
  • Official site of the Confederated Tribes
  • Official site of Nkwusm Salish Language Institute
  • Treaty of Hellgate (1855)
  • Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian, Northwestern University, Digital Library Collections, "Kalispel", Page 51
  • Flathead Indians historical and genealogical resources, Family Search