The Flathead Indians lived (and continue to reside) in present-day western Montana. The history of the Flathead illustrates how Native Americans adapted to their environment, how they changed when they came into contact with other Indians, and how their cultures were transformed by the introduction of horses onto the Great Plains and the Columbia Basin.
Europeans sometimes used the term Flathead to describe Indians who altered the shape of their skulls by compressing them artificially during infancy, a custom especially popular among peoples of the Northwest Pacific Coast. While some tribes of the region engaged in this practice, the Flathead Indians, ironically, did not. Still, early European traders applied the term to the Flathead because, by contrast to the modified, more pointed skulls of neighboring tribes, the naturally shaped skulls of the Flathead Indians appeared level.
The Flathead lived among a multitude of peoples who inhabited the interior Northwest between the Rocky Mountains and the Cascade Mountains, in the plateau of basins defined by the Columbia and Fraser Rivers. Salish-speaking people, including the Flathead, Pend d’Oreille,
Kalispel, Coeur d’Alene, and Spokan, lived in the northern area of the plateau, while Sahaptin-speaking communities occupied the southern region. The Salish speakers originally migrated from the north, settling along the rivers of the Columbia system. Most remained in the rich salmon areas nearer the Pacific coast, but the Flathead and Pend d’Oreille slowly drifted eastward, reaching their home in Montana approximately 7,000 years ago.
As the Flathead proceeded east, they could no longer depend on catching salmon because waterfalls blocked fish migration from the ocean. Instead, they focused on small game animals and plants for their food supply. Organized villages headed by chiefs selected by the community characterized the social organization. In contrast to Great Plains Indians, Flathead families changed their affiliation among villages whenever they desired. During winters, people moved to warmer valleys where they constructed earthen-roofed houses, some containing numerous families, which were built partly underground to protect against the cold. In summer, they typically covered poles with mats of bark to create more comfortable dwellings.
The Flathead eventually encountered the Shoshone and other Plains Indians, from whom they learned to hunt buffalo. The Flathead quickly learned to prize these animals, and they began to incorporate products from bison as part of their material culture. They established a half-dozen villages east of the Continental Divide for hunting buffalo, even though stalking bison on foot was a dangerous and difficult venture. A severe smallpox epidemic decimated Flathead villages in the early 18th century, causing them to retreat west of the divide.
Around 1730, the Flathead, having acquired horses from the Shoshone, again began engaging in hunting expeditions onto the plains. However, the more powerful Plains Indians, who controlled more horses and better weapons, limited those forays. The Flathead adjusted by intensifying their dependence on such plants as camas and bitterroot, as well as on smaller game for food, although they continued to pursue buffalo. Many Flathead adopted new cultural patterns that more closely resembled those of the Plains Indians. Some shifted to bison hide tipis as more portable housing to facilitate the mobility necessary for following bison herds. Others abandoned their traditional dress in favor of clothing worn by Plains Indians. Rather than wear long tunics of sheepskin or goatskin, women donned buckskin dresses. Flathead men eschewed the conventional attire of simple long robes in favor of shirts and leggings made from bison. Various ornamentation and feathered headdresses common to Plains Indians also began to make their appearance on Flathead people. By the time Meriwether Lewis and William Clark made contact with the Flathead in 1805, pronounced differences between them and the other Salish Indians farther west were well established.
Further reading: Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., The Indian Heritage of America (New York: Knopf, 1973).
World History
