The Flathead Indians got their name
from the white men who first came to the Columbia River area.
The Flatheads didn't really have flat heads. But other tribes in the area
made their babies wear cone shaped headdress made of cedar, which forced
their heads to become pointed. The Flatheads real name for themselves
was Salish, or "the people" in their own language.
The Salish were originally
plateau Indians who lived between the Cascade Mountains and the Rocky Mountains
in Montana. They lived as hunters and gatherers, and got a lot of
their food from the rivers. In the spring and summer they mostly
fished and gathered edible plants like bitterroot, mosses, camas, sarvis,
wild onions, and Indian potatoes. They dried some of the fish for
winter and stored some of the food they gathered too. In late summer
and fall the men hunted elk and deer, as well as small game, which they
also preserved for winter. The Salish wasted nothing and used almost
everything on the animals that they could. During the winter they
trapped animals for food and for their skins, and used the food they had
stored over the summer. The Salish lived in permanent lodges built
of cedar planks and beams in the winter and built small shacks
made of straw mats in the summer when it was warmer. These small,
A frame, straw huts could be built very quickly wherever they were fishing
or gathering at the time.
Around 1700 the Spanish arrived
on the pacific coast and with them they brought the horse. Either
through trade or by stealing them, some Indian tribes far to the south
got horses from the Spanish. Over the years the horse was passed tribe
to tribe from South to North.
About 1730 the Flathead Indians
got horses, they probably stole the horses from the Shoshoni Indians who
were a neighboring tribe, and their enemies. Now that they had horses
they could travel much faster and keep up with the buffalo herds, which
were found to the east at the foot of the mountains and out onto the plains.
They moved east to northern Montana to hunt the buffalo, and started to
adopt the customs of the plains Indians. They continued to eat the
same diet they always had but now with the buffalo meat, which they got
from their two big hunts each year, they had much more food. To follow
the buffalo herds the Flatheads needed shelters that were much more mobile
than their traditional lodges. So the Flathead Indians copied their
enemies and started to build and use teepees. In the winter they
continued to use lodges because they were warm and they could fit all of
their winter rations inside of them. Their enemy tribes did not change
much, but the Flathead Indians did move closer to them so they could hunt
the buffalo, which were found mostly in the lands of the Shoshoni and the
Blackfeet tribes.
In 1810 Lewis and Clark had
an encounter with the Flatheads. At the
time the Flatheads had 33 lodges, 440 people, and 500 horses according
to Clark's diary. They now were part of the great horse culture of
the plains. Lewis and Clark bought 13 horses from
the Flatheads and convinced a hunter to guide them through the Bitterroot
Mountains and introduce them to his people who lived on the other side
of the great divide, where they could build dugouts and sail to the pacific
ocean.
About 1820 the Flatheads began
trading with white trappers from the east. They traded furs to the white
man in return for guns, blankets, knives, sharpening stones, beads, tobacco
and whiskey. But the white man also gave them something else! Diseases.
The Flathead Indians had no immunities to the Whitman's diseases and many
died from them. They were also influenced by Jesuit missionaries
from the Catholic Church, especially Father Pierre Jean De Smet, who converted
some of them to the Christian religion.
In 1855 the Flatheads were driven
from most of their lands by the government, except for the Bitterroot Valley,
which they were given by treaty. Within 20 years, the treaty was
broken and the Flathead were forced by the government to move about 100
miles north to the Flathead Valley. They resisted but not in a war
like manner. One of the people who helped with the resistance was
Chief Carlo, who was known for his bravery and wisdom. They were
now given the whole Flathead River valley as a reservation, but the government
did nothing to stop whites from settling on Indian lands.
In 1904, the Flatheads again lost
large amounts of their land through government land sales and allotments
made to former soldiers, railroads and other industries. These reductions
left them with only 1,250,000 acres of land, including the southern half
of Flathead Lake and the southern part of the Flathead River valley. Large
amounts of this land were forested and some was open prairie.
In 1936 on the Flathead reservation
there were some changes. For example the Flatheads, Kootenai, and
the Pend díOreille tribes organized as if they were one tribe. Since
there was more than one type of Indian they needed more than one leader,
So they adopted an elective council of 10 Native Americans.
The present day Flatheads make
their living from many sources including ranching, manufacturing, tourism,
and logging. Logging on the Flathead reservation is done on a sustained
growth basis, which means that the trees that are cut are replaced, so
that they can be cut again when they are full grown.
Tourism on reservation lands
is also a big business, many people
come to KwaTaqNUk resort to hunt, fish, and hike or
to attend the many tribal events held throughout the year. Another
of the reservations achievements is owning one of the most valuable hydropower
producing dams in the Pacific Northwest. They are currently leasing
the dam to the Montana Power Company.
In 1994 the tribes held an agreement
with the government which added about $12 million to the annual tribal
budget. The tribe agreed to take responsibility for their own health care.
They also own and run two special schools, Two Eagle River School and Salish-Kootenai
College, for Indians. Many Indians are now returning to the reservation,
and lots of them have college degrees. With this new generation of
young people, who are doctors, lawyers, foresters, technicians, tradesmen
and skilled future looks bright.
This concludes my report
on “The Flathead Indians.”
