Coeur d'Alene

• CATEGORY: Tribe
• CULTURE AREA: Plateau
• LANGUAGE GROUP: Salishan
• PRIMARY LOCATION: Northwestern Idaho
• POPULATION SIZE: 2,554 (Coeur d’Alene Tribe Enrollment 2020)

The Coeur d’Alene, an Interior Salishan-speaking people, call themselves Schitsu’umsh, meaning “Those who were found here" or "the discovered people." They occupied an area east of the Spokane River, around Coeur d’Alene Lake and all its tributaries, including the headwaters of the Spokane River, with eastern boundaries to the Bitterroot Mountains. The group had three distinct geographical bands with a population of approximately 3,500 until the smallpox epidemics of 1831, 1847, and 1850 reduced the population by half. After acquiring horses in the late 1700s, they, like the Flathead and Nez Perce, adopted a war ethos. At the time of European American contact, they had adopted many Plains traits, including the hide tipi, scalp-taking, reed armor, and Plains-style clothing and ornaments. Their culture was further influenced when they ventured annually onto the western Plains for hunting bison and trading roots, salmon pemmican, bows, and hemp. However, they are considered Plateau Natives or Plateau Indians.

They possessed bilateral descent, sexual equality, a strict division of labor, polygyny, rule by consensus of opinion, and elaborate ceremonialism that emphasized the Bluejay Ceremony, First-Fruit Ceremony, and Midwinter Ceremony. Other aspects of their culture included shamanism, the vision quest for skill-related tutelary spirits, an animistic belief system with a complex pantheon, the sweathouse complex, a trickster, and social control by public opinion and threats of sorcery.

The first mention of the Coeur d’Alene was by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in 1805, and their first contact with European Americans was with David Thompson, who surveyed the area in 1811. The first permanent White settler was Father Nicholas Point, who, in 1842, established a Catholic mission on the banks of the St. Joseph River called Mission of the Sacred Heart. It was built by the Coeur d’Alene from 1843 to 1853 under the supervision of Father Anthony Ravalli and was later moved to the present Cataldo site; it is the oldest standing building in Idaho. The area was periodically exploited by encroaching settlers and miners, a situation which in 1877 caused the Sacred Heart Mission to be moved to its present location at De Smet, Idaho. On November 8, 1873, an executive order established the Coeur d’Alene Reservation, and the existing boundaries were ratified by Congress in 1894; it covered an area of 345,000 acres. In 1908, the Mary Immaculate School for Native Americans was constructed by the Catholic nuns of the Sacred Heart Mission and functioned as a boarding school for Coeur d’Alene girls until 1974. Students were only permitted to speak English, and while they studied for half the day, they were also required to cook, clean, repair uniforms, and anything else the school needed to stay in operation. The structure burned down in 2011.

The Coeur d’Alene, a sovereign nation created by executive order, was consolidated on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation on the southern portion of Coeur d’Alene Lake, Idaho. Tribal headquarters, containing the tribal archives, museum, and library, is southwest of Plummer, and the elected tribal council administers finance, planning, natural resources, a tribal farm, education, and social and health services. Other services owned and managed by the Coeur d'Alene Tribe include Red-Spectrum Internet, Benewah Market, and Benewah Auto Center. The Coeur d'Alene Tribe employs about one thousand people. Pacific Crown Timber Products was a major employer of reservation residents until the company closed in 2004. Additional monies are gained from the successful management of agriculture, minerals, and water recreation facilities on adjacent Coeur d’Alene Lake. The reservation's main revenue source is the Coeur d'Alene Casino Resort Hotel, which opened in 1993.

Bibliography

Chalfant, Stuart A. “Ethnological Field Investigation and Analysis of Historical Material Relative to Coeur d’Alene Aboriginal Distribution.” Interior Salish and Eastern Washington Indians, vol. 4, edited by D. A. Horr, Garland, 1974.

"Culture." Coeur d'Alene Tribe, www.cdatribe-nsn.gov/culture. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.

"History." Coeur d'Alene Tribe, www.cdatribe-nsn.gov/our-tribe/history. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.

Marr, Carolyn J. "Assimilation through Education: Indian Boarding Schools in the Pacific Northwest." University of Washington Libraries, content.lib.washington.edu/aipnw/marr.html. Accessed 2 Nov. 2024.

Peltier, Jerome. Manners and Customs of the Coeur d’Alene Indians. Peltier, 1975.

Ross, John Alan. “An Ethnographic and Ethnohistorical Survey of the Proposed Washington Centennial Trail Corridor.” Archaeology of the Middle Spokane River Valley: Investigations along the Spokane Centennial Trail, edited by John A. Draper and William Andrefsky, Center for Northwest Anthropology, Dept. of Anthropology, Washington State University, 1991.

Ruby, Robert H., and John A. Brown. A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest. 3rd ed., U of Oklahoma P, 2014.

Walker, Deward E., Jr. American Indians of Idaho. Anthropological Monographs of the University of Idaho, vol. 2, U of Idaho P, 1971.