Flathead (people)
The Bitterroot Salish or Salish , better known as Flathead , are a Native American tribe of the Salish language group who lived on the Fraser and Columbia Plateau. It belonged culturally and linguistically like the neighboring Lower Kalispel (Lower Pend d'Oreille) , Upper Kalispel (Upper Pend d'Oreille) , Spokane (Sqeliz) and Coeur d'Alene (Schitsu'umsh or Skitswish) to the Southern Inland Salish and was therefore culturally part of the cultural area of the plateau .
The "Bitterroot Salish" or "Flathead" are also the namesake of this language group, because they called themselves Seliš , Selish or Salish - "the people". To distinguish them from the other Salish peoples (and to overcome the outdated and misleading tribal name "Flathead") they are increasingly referred to as "Bitter Red Salish" after their preferred retreat, the Bitterroot Valley .
In addition to the Flathead Reservation , the tribe was also namesake for Flathead County , the Flathead River and Flathead Lake , formerly known as Salish Lake , and the Flathead National Forest .
"Flathead" (German: "Flat head / Flachkopf-Indianer") is otherwise a designation that is used without any precise ethnological meaning. It denotes tribes that have the custom of sculpting the skull by artificial means in early childhood. This is a misleading name for the Flathead tribe, as the flattening of the forehead area by means of skull deformation was unknown to them.
Today, together with Upper Kalispel (Upper Pend d'Oreille) , some Upper Spokane and the Ksanka Band (K̓upawi ¢ q̓nuk) of the Lower Kutenai, they form the federally recognized tribe of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation on the Flathead Reservation ( Pablo-Salish & Kootenai Reservation ) in Lake County of western Montana ; Today (2013) the tribe has approx. 6800 members, of which approx. 4000 live within the reservation.
Culture and history
Semi-nomadic way of life
At the beginning of the 19th century, their livelihood was based primarily on hunting and collecting wild plants, especially the Camas onions ( Camassia quamash ), which they dug with digging sticks. The Flathead were semi-nomadic, in Vierpfahl- tipis lived or mat-covered huts. They lived in peace with all tribes except the Blackfeet . They may have come into conflict with them while migrating east of the Rocky Mountains in the 18th century. The Blackfeet, or Blackfoot as they are called in Canada , drove them back across the mountain range to western Montana (others attribute this to a smallpox epidemic ), where they made their home in the Bitterroot Valley . It is certain that their chief Cheleskayimi (Three Eagles) met the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1805. The two Americans noted that the Flathead had 450 cabins and around 500 horses.
Takeover of the horse and horse breeding
These horses, which they probably received from the Shoshone , allowed them to cross the Rocky Mountains to hunt buffalo. Cheleskayimi's father, Big Hawk, was killed on one of these hunts in Upper Missouri .
The number of tribal members was later estimated at 600 for 1780. They not only succeeded in taking over and developing horse breeding from the Plains Indians, but also in maintaining a kind of buffer zone between the inland Salish in the west and the equestrian nomads in the east. They acted as dealers and intermediaries. They also traded with the whites, especially in furs. The point of contact was the Saleesh House, which was later called the Flathead Post . The British fur traders tried to prevent the Flathead from trading with the Americans coming from the east.
Attempts to proselytize the Flathead
Iroquois came from there too , albeit in an unusual role. Shining Shirt, who may have been one of them, came to the Flathead as a missionary in the 18th century - apparently before the Flathead had horses. Several Iroquois followed, and they announced to the Flathead the arrival of white religion teachers in black dresses. They stayed with the Flathead because they did not want to return to their homeland after 1815 as agents of the British. Under their leader, Old Ignace La Mousse, a group of two dozen Iroquois came to the Flathead in 1820, and they gained considerable influence (see also: "Prophet's Dance" of the plateau cultures ) .
In the 1830s, under the leadership of these Iroquois, already strongly assimilated to the Flathead, several delegations asked to send missionaries to St. Louis . The Jesuit Pierre De Smet came to them in 1841 and founded the mission station Saint Mary's Mission in the lower Bitterroot Valley. The Jesuits tried to turn the Flathead into farmers.
At the same time they proselytized among the enemy, the Blackfoot. In doing so, however, they disappointed the Flathead, who viewed the missionaries' religion as a kind of medicine against their enemies when hunting buffalo. The Blackfoot launched massive attacks in the 1850s, including west of the Rocky Mountains, which reduced the number of Flathead to 300 to 400.
Assignment of the tribal areas and establishment of the reserve
Along with the Pend d'Oreille (also known as the Upper Pend d'Oreille or Upper Kalispel ), the Kalispel (also known as the Lower Pend d'Oreille or Lower Kalispel ), and some Kutenai , the Flathead signed under their chief Victor on July 16 1855 the Treaty of Hell Gate (a town near Missoula ) with the Governor of the Washington Territory Isaac Stevens . 2,240 square miles of land north of the Bitterroot Valley were to serve as the Flathead's reservation. The mission station Saint Ignatius was in this Jocko reservation . It should cover 1,242,969 acres (1 acre = 4047 m² = around 0.4 hectares). The treaty was ratified on March 8, 1859.
But most of the Flathead refused to leave their territory. The future President James Garfield was commissioned on November 14, 1871 to negotiate a contract with Victor's son Charlot (or Charlo) in which they recognized the withdrawal. But Charlot refused despite urging and additional promises. However, two sub-chiefs named Arlee and Joseph Nine Pipes submitted, and they moved to the reservation with part of the tribe. They were joined by Baptiste Penn 80 from Upper Spokane , who were allowed to stay by the US government.
Finally, in 1891, the remaining Flathead had to give in to the pressure of the growing number of settlers. Charlot led the tribe to the Flathead Reservation, where he was recognized as hereditary chief of the entire tribe. He died a traditionalist in 1910.
Today's situation in the reserve
On April 23, 1904, the privatization of the reserve began. 2,378 Indians received between 80 and 160 acres of land, depending on whether they were to be used for agriculture or livestock farming. Since the largest herds of horses comprised up to 3000 animals, this was another massive break in the way of life. As a result, most of the Indians refused to participate in the program. The area not claimed by them was considered a surplus and was released for settlement. This was 404,047.33 acres , 60,843.04 acres went to the state of Montana - for schools, 18,523.85 acres were reserved by the federal government. A total of 1,757.09 acres remained for the tribe for church, school, agency, etc. 485,171.31 acres were divided into 4834 parcels. The entire privatization program was completed in 1908. An irrigation project was supposed to help the Indians convert to agriculture, but in 1980 it turned out that only twelve percent of the irrigated land was in Indian hands.
In 1910, the non-Indian land was opened to homesteaders , which means that the land was distributed for a fee. In Kalispell and Missoula, 81,000 people were registered, and on May 2, 1910, 3,000 lottery tickets were awarded. However, only 403 of them paid and took possession of the property in question. Of the 3,000 lot owners identified on September 1st, only a fraction took possession of the land, apparently in anticipation of full clearance. In fact, from October onwards, the government gave every country that reached and thus claimed it after a deadline (“shoot-the-gun-and-gallop-to-your-chosen-site”). The Indians soon became a minority.
With the change of political direction and the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, life on the reservation changed. Every two years a tribal council was elected, a council . On August 5, 1966, the Confederate Tribes succeeded in winning a compensation payment of $ 4,431,622.18 for the 12,005,000 acres ceded in 1855 . Since the Indians had been deprived of rights to use the rivers through dam construction, their subsidies through corruption and parts of their property through mismanagement of the administrative organs, the government had to compensate for this according to several court orders.
On September 30, 1977, only 618,758.51 acres were officially Indian, of which only 567,319.54 were also Indian.
In 2006, the Confederate tribes of the Salish and Kutenai were granted the historic treaty right to hunt bison north of Yellowstone National Park in parts of the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness for cultural reasons .
The Flathead Reservation ( Pablo-Salish & Kootenai Reservation ) in Lake County, Montana is now the home of the Confederate Salish, Kutenai and Pend d'Oreille Tribes ( Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation ). Around half of the Indians registered in the tribal role live in the reservation. In 1980 there were 5,937 members, in 1989 6,669.
Of the 7005 registered tribal members, around 4500 live in or near the reservation. Many work in the timber industry, and a non-Indian sawmill employs many men. Income also comes from levies on the Kerr Dam on the Flathead River, which is on reservation. There is a resort on Flathead Lake in Blue Bay , but there is also a tourist recreation area in Hot Springs . Tourists come to the National Bison Range in Moiese and the Saint Ignatius Mission, which has existed since 1854.
The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council decided in 2010 not to attend the 100th anniversary of the reservation's opening to the homeland program. Chief Charlo had resisted this opening for two decades. This means that the plans that have been prepared since 2008 and that were developed together with the Polson Flathead Historical Museum have to be changed.
Revival of language and identity
Their language, the Séliš (Salish), is a dialect of Montana Salish ( npoqínišcn-qlispé-séliš , also: Kalispel – Pend d'Oreille , Kalispel – Spokane – Flathead or Spokane – Kalispel – Bitterroot Salish – Upper Pend d'Oreille ) and is one of the southern inland Salish languages ; other dialects are the Npoqínišcn of the Spokane (Sqeliz) and the Kalispel (Qlispé / Qalispé) of the Upper Kalispel (Upper Pend d'Oreille) , Lower Kalispel (Lower Pend d'Oreille) and the Chewelah .
Since 1976, two cultural committees have been trying to run language programs, one for the Kutenai who do not belong to the Salish, one for the other tribes. The use of the Salish languages has increased again, but whether the languages can be saved is unclear. As there were numerous connections with whites, the tribal identity has often passed to the reservation itself, more than to any of the original nations.
See also
literature
- Robert H. Ruby, John A. Brown: A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest. University of Oklahoma Press 1992, pp. 76-78 and 37-39
- Adolf Hungry Wolf : Charlo's People. The Flathead Tribe of Montana , Invermere ( British Columbia ): Good Medicine Books 1974
- Barry M. Pritzker: A Native American Encyclopedia. History, Culture and Peoples . ISBN 0-19-513877-5
- James D. Keyser: The Five Crows Ledger: Biographic Warrior Art of the Flathead Indians , University of Utah Press: Salt Lake City, 2000, ISBN 0-87480-659-3
- Deward E. Walker Jr. (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians , Vol. 12 Plateau . Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D. C. 1998 ISBN 0-16-049514-8
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ See Adolf Hungry Wolf : Charlo's People, The Flathead Tribe of Montana , Invermere: Good Medicine Books 1974.
- ↑ Sean Reichard: Crow Tribe Wants to Join Tribal Hunts of Yellowstone Bison. Article on yellowstoneinsider.com, February 16, 2018, accessed February 18, 2020.
- ↑ CSKT Council pulls out of Flathead Reservation homesteading centennial celebration , in: Missoulian, March 4, 2010 .
This article is based on the article Flathead ( Memento from July 1, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) from the free encyclopedia Indianer Wiki ( Memento from March 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) and is under Creative Commons by-sa 3.0 . A list of the authors was available in the Indian Wiki ( Memento from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ).