Flathead (tribe)
The Flathead, also known as the Inland Salish, are a Native American tribe primarily located in northern Idaho, eastern Washington State, and Montana, where they share a reservation with the Kutenai people. The name "Flathead" is considered a misnomer, stemming from early European misunderstandings and does not relate to the practice of head flattening seen in some coastal tribes; the people prefer the term "Salish." Historically, the Flathead were nomadic, engaging in hunting and fishing, with significant cultural influences from Plains peoples, particularly noted for their buffalo hunting practices. Their traditional dwellings evolved from longhouses to tipi-like structures, and they relied on horses acquired through trade for their lifestyle.
Culturally, the Flathead are connected through the Inland Salish dialect, distinct from other Salishan languages. Their belief system includes a rich tradition of shamanism and reverence for spirits, with rituals focused on hunting success and daily life. The tribe faced significant challenges, including conflicts with the Blackfoot and devastating smallpox epidemics in the 18th century, which drastically reduced their population. Despite these hardships, the Flathead have worked to preserve their cultural heritage and maintain their identity, now recognized as part of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes on one of the largest reservations in the United States. Today, they celebrate their history and traditions through annual events such as pow-wows and the maintenance of cultural sites like the Flathead Indian Museum.
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Flathead (tribe)
- CATEGORY: Tribe
- CULTURE AREA: Plateau
- LANGUAGE GROUP: Salishan
- PRIMARY LOCATION: Montana, Northern Idaho
- POPULATION SIZE: 27,819 Flathead Reservation, MT (2020 Decennial Census)
The Flathead, or Inland Salish, are related to the Shuswap, Thompson, Wenatchi, Columbia, Okanagan, Sanpoil, Colville, Kalispel, Spokane, and Coeur d’Alene. They live in northern Idaho, eastern Washington State, and Montana. The Flathead share their reservation with the Kutenai (or Kootenai), around Flathead Lake near Dixon, Montana. A Flathead Indian Museum is maintained in St. Ignatius, Montana, and a traditional powwow of the Flathead/Kutenai Indigenous Americans is held annually in early July. They are united by their common use of the Inland Salish dialect, as differentiated from the dialect of the Coast Salish peoples.
The name "Flathead" is a misnomer, apparently deriving from Europeans’ descriptions of people holding their hands on either side of their faces, a sign-language gesture that was misunderstood by the settlers. The name has nothing to do with a tradition of "flattening heads" of children, which was practiced among other western coastal peoples. The people themselves prefer "Salish."
Around 2000 BCE, internal migrations of Indigenous peoples forced some Salish to the area of Bitterroot Valley, which is considered to be the Indigenous homeland. By around 1700 CE, the Salish language dialects became a kind of lingua franca of the West Coast, since there were Indigenous Americans who could be found as far away as present-day Montana who could understand them.
The Inland Salish are to be sharply differentiated in their cultural development from their coastal cousins. The Inland Salish were strongly influenced by contact with peoples of the Plains culture grouping, notably through the practice of hunting buffalo, and were largely nomadic in the summer as they engaged in hunting and fishing. While the Flathead remained in the Rocky Mountains, they fished the many tributaries of the Columbia River, but they shifted to buffalo hunting as they moved eastward. The women traditionally prepared food and made clothing, while the men hunted, guarded camp, and made weapons. As with other Plains-dwelling Indigenous nations, the domestication and use of the horse revolutionized Inland Salish life, allowing far more wide-ranging travel for food. The Flathead got most of their horses, according to Flathead tradition, from trade with the Shoshone. For dwellings, the Flathead used the traditional Salish longhouse structures until they adopted a tepee-like structure later in their Plains development. Unlike other Plains peoples, they never used skins around the conical pole frame but spread vegetation and bark around it and then partially buried the base.
Constant wars with the Blackfoot forced the Flathead/Inland Salish people to flee to various locales. Peace was established between the Blackfoot and the Flathead through an intermediary, Pierre Jean de Smet, a Jesuit missionary who lived with the Flathead between 1840 and 1846.
Ceremonies and religious life were generally simple among this group. The Flathead consider themselves to be the descendants of Coyote, whom they believe to be responsible for the creation of human beings. There was a belief in countless numbers of spirits, and supernatural powers were consulted to ward off the evil effects of others’ power and the evil spirits of animals. There were dances and prayers directed to the sun and moon, largely for success in hunting and for general success in life. Power was demonstrated by wealth and luck, and men often carried a pouch containing symbols of their various powers. Shamanism was practiced as a healing and supernatural art. An interesting aspect of Flathead oral tradition was the arrival of "Shining Shirt," possibly an Iroquois, who acted as a prophetic figure announcing the coming of the “black robes” (the Jesuits). Other Iroquois followed, and it is possibly from their influence that Catholic Christianity was established among the Flathead.
Historical estimates of the population of the Inland Salish people vary from four thousand to fifteen thousand; they were decimated by smallpox epidemics between 1760 and 1781. In 1805, the Flathead chief Three Eagles encountered Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, who immortalized the Flathead people in their journals. The explorers noted the significant linguistic differences between the Flathead and others they previously encountered, and they even hypothesized that the Flathead may have descended from a legendary Welsh prince said to have visited the Americas prior to Christopher Columbus. Although relations with the settlers were always friendly, by the 1850s, both war with the Blackfoot and the settlers’ diseases had reduced the Flathead's numbers to fewer than five hundred. It would take decades for the Flathead's population to rebound.
The Flathead people first requested missionary educational support in 1841; the earliest respondents were the Jesuits, who formed mission schools that had wide-ranging and extensive influence on Indigenous American life. In 1891, Chief Charlot sold the traditional Bitterroot land, and the Flathead people were moved to the reservation lands that they now share with the Kutenai. In the twenty-first century, the majority of people who identified as Inland Salish—officially categorized as the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation—continued to live on the Flathead reservation in Montana. The reservation is among the largest in the United States, and the Indigenous Americans actively work to preserve their cultural heritage.
Bibliography
Bigart, Robert. "Patterns of Cultural Change in a Salish Flathead Community." Human Organization, vol. 30, no. 3, 1971, pp. 229-237.
Fahey, John. The Flathead Indians. University of Oklahoma Press, 1974.
"The Flathead." Northwest Coast, edited by Wayne Suttles, vol. 7 of Handbook of North American Indians, edited by William Sturtevant, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978.
“Flathead Reservation CCD, Lake County, Montana.” US Census Bureau, data.census.gov/profile/Flathead‗Reservation‗CCD,‗Lake‗County,‗Montana?g=060XX00US3004791123. Accessed 8 Jan. 2025.
Johnson, Olga Wedemeyer. Flathead and Kootenay. Arthur Clarke, 1969.
Ruby, Robert H., et al. A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Revised ed., University of Oklahoma Press, 2013.
Waldman, Carl. "The Flathead." Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes, Facts on File, 1988.
"Who We Are." Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes, cskt.org/our-story/. Accessed 8 Jan. 2025.