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Indian Life before the Europeans Came
Indians of the area now know as North Central Washington and more particularly, of the area of the Colville Reservation lived in a territory abundant with game, food and shelter.
Part of this was due to rivers which flowed through the area. The Okanogan, Columbia and Methow rivers in the southwest of the terr1tory, and the Kettle, San Poil and Nespelem rivers in the central and Northern portion.
The Columbia river dominated this area, provided food for many bands and tribes. The most famous fishing place on the upper Columbia when the white man came was Kettle Falls. This fishing ground was destroyed by the waters entrapped by Grand Coulee Dam and the Indian people lost a major food resource.
What follows is a general description of life before the white man. It was a pattern of life that followed for a time after the white man came, but which is today virtually non-existent and, it should be cautioned, the pattern described here is only a general idea. There were many exceptions and many variations.
Basically, however, there was little class distinction among people in a tribe or band. Each man decided for himself where he and his family would live. Whatever village or band a man chose, he had to recognize the head man of that village as his leader.
In some instances it seemed not to be where a person was born but where he had lived most of his life, which decided nationality or group identity.
Each tribe or band had it's own recognized territory. The bands in a tribe broke up during the summer months to hunt, fish and gather food, but came together again in about November (only they didn't call it that) to build their winter villages. A tribe might have as many as 30 winter village places since each band occupied four or five sites during the winter. These winter villages often were permanent and were prepared in advance for winter and with a large supply of food.
Families often wintered as a group. When more than one family lived in one dwelling area, a house leader usually was chosen. He was an older, wiser man, who became the leader.
A child enjoyed a large family with relatives on both his father's and mother's side being equally important, and all being regarded as close as brothers and sisters.
Marriage often was between members of two different bands in a tribe, the children thus often had many relatives in more than one band. This "extended family" was an important social force in the Indian society and accounted for training and development of youth into adults, as well as for social order, general codes of conduct and forms of behavior.
Social custom decreed that while a person could marry a member of his or her own band, he could never marry a blood relative. This custom was followed more strictly than any tribal practice, as often one could not even marry a fifth cousin.
Weddings between members of two different tribes were great occasions of gift giving or horses, hides and foods.
Indian people had more than 34 names for a person's status and position within the family order. These included names for one's great-great-great grandparent. That's the sixth generation. Names for other relatives such as aunts, uncles, and cousins also were specific, these names of relatives were based not only upon blood relationship, but often indicated where they lived, their age and whether they were a man or woman.
A baby often was not named until he was a year old. Then the name of an aged or dead relative was chosen for the child by a grandparent, often in the hope that the child would become like the person for whom he was named.
Indian custom permitted an individual to inherit three things personal names, power, and material possessions,
Material possessions of a person who died all were given to relatives and friends. The widow and children get almost nothing. This custom of giving is sometimes followed today.
Inheritance of names came from both father's and mother's sides of the family.
A youth might inherit a relative's power in a dream or vision, if that happened, the youth was privileged to sing the Power Song and use the Power passed on through the vision.
An Indian village before the white man came might consist 50 to 100 people living in five to twelve tule mat lodges. The largest lodge probably would belong to the chief.
The lodges stood ten to twenty feet high, and were made on a framework of poles. Mats made of dry tules sewed together with Indian hemp thread-rope were laid out vertically over the poles. Sewing was done with a bone or wood needle. When the mat was finished it would be ten to twenty feet long. The mats were lapped over each other like shingles, and let some sunlight into the house, but kept out most of the rain.
Itpis (teepees) covered with tule mats often were used in summer in place of the lodges, which were often only put up in the more permanent villages. A teepee made of tule mats was ten to twenty feet in diameter. Mats were laid over the poles and another set of poles would be laid over the mats to keep the mats from blowing in the wind.
An important part of an Indian's life was the sweat house. This was a year round source of physical and spiritual cleaning. Separate sweathouses were built for men and women. All campsites and villages had sweathouses, and some had large ones. To be successful in almost any venture, hunting, fishing, gambling, love, battle or whatever was to be done, a person had to first go and sweat cleanse himself.
Legend says that the sweathouse was once the wife of the Great Chief. He gave her to the animal people when he named them as a gift to help them and the people to be.
Built and used with reverence, the sweathouse provided both strength and purity. There was a special sweathouse song to be sung, or an individual might sing his Power Song to increase his strength.
A sweathouse was built with birch or willow branches. Some say there must be twelve willow branches each 15 feet long. The sweathouse was often no more than four feet high and four feet in diameter.
It had a cone shaped roof, covered with blankets or layers of bark, grass and earth. Fir boughs on the floor provided a good aroma. Stones were heated in a fire outside the lodge and rolled or carried with sticks and placed in a small pit beside the doorway or entrance flap. Water was poured on the rocks to produce steam to make the user sweat.
The hides of deer, cured into buckskin, provided the main clothing and buckskin was worn the year around. Thicker layers were used for warmth in winter. Skins of wolf, fox, otter, coyote, beaver, mink, bear, goat, and groundhog also were used for clothing.
Men hunted the animals and skinned them, but women tanned and sewed the hides into clothing.
Children and adults dressed alike, decorated with porcupine quills, shells, paint, horsehair embroidery, bone beads and feather quills.
Sometimes, long ago, the outer bark of sagebrush was woven into material for skirts for women. Skirts also could be made of material woven from the bark of willow and cedar trees.
Indian hemp was woven into moccasins, cards and ropes. Cards and roper were woven from hemp that grows along the Okanogan river and along Omak Lake. Three-strand ropes were made from willow bark but horse hair made the strongest rope. Some people still have horse bridles made of their horse hair rope.
Baskets were made by Indian woman by coiling cedar root fibers. These baskets had many uses, for storing food, holding berries at picking time, and also were used in cooking when hot stones were dropped into them.
Other bags were made from corn husks, and a few still are made by Indian women. Buckets of birch and other barks as well as hemp bags were among the many items which Indian women made for family use. Many baskets have lasted through the years and may be seen today, some so old they are yellowed, yet their designs are visible, These designs are created by weaving a plant fiber which has been dyed. Black was made from a mixture of charcoal and grease. Oregon Grape made many shades of yellow. A creek-bank plant's root used to make both red and blues. The color white was made from clay found near a lake above present day Riverside.
A number of tools were made and used by the Indians, including needles of bone and wood. Women dug roots for food and used the wood of the service berry bush to fashion their digging tools. Deer and elk horn provided the handle. Today's digging tools are made of iron. Indians used elk horn to make spoons.
While an Indian mother worked, her baby might be hung in a tree in his cradleboard. These boards were made of dry pine boards, a branch of service berry wood or willow sometimes were shaped around the board to protect the baby and make the board easier to carry. Usually as he outgrew a small board, a baby would be placed on a larger board.
The wood of the service berry bush was used for many things. It was pliable when wet and when dry was stiff, yet would bend without breaking. Men made bows and arrows from it. Three lines of feathers from the eagle, hawk or grouse were fastened to the arrow to guide the flight. Flint from McLaughlin canyon made good arrow tips and also was used in making knives.
Men made dugout canoes from yellow ponderosa pine. The dugout was about two feet wide and from 12 to 30 feet long. A dugout canoe, which originally belonged to chief Jim James, is on display at Fort Okanogan Museum and another is displayed at the Rocky Reach Dam Museum near Wenatchee.
Canoes also were sometimes made from the bark of the white fir, or spruce trees, with ribs of bluewood.
Pipes for smoking also were made by Indians of the region. Soapstone, clay and redstone were used. A light green soft stone as well as black soapstone came from the Similkaneen River area. Red stone came from the Methow, and a blue-green soapstone game from the Wenatchee area.
The pipes often were fashioned with the stone bowl and a wooden step of willow wood. The men sometimes etched designs of the pipe, using red clay, pine pitch and grease to help the design stand out.
Many different plants were smoked in the pipes, including kinnikinick, some roots, grasses and sunflower leaves.
Smoking often was a ceremonial act, and a shaman or medicine doctor always smoked before or during the curing.
Medicine doctors were found in most tribes and had a number of ceremonies as well as a number of medicinal herbs and other medical practices which they followed. They could cure by blowing massaged sucking out poison, and use of herbs. Some doctors used water to cure. Cures often were kept secret.
Cases have been documented in which medicine doctors developed cures for colds, tuberculosis, rheumatism, whooping cough, fever, stomach ache, headache, constipation, sore eyes, and tooth aches. There even was a cure for cancer, according to those interviewed. Many of the traditional cures are followed today and one important one, a cure of ulcers, is widely followed.
In the winter, medicine doctors often went to the winter dances. If a man was giving his first winter dance, he might ask a shaman with much power to come so no one would steal his power.
The host fed his guests and at the end of the winter dance many gifts were given, including blankets, hides and beadwork.
The winter dances were held in January or February and were attended by both m men and women. The dances were important social events, and were considered to bring good fortune to those people who attended. A man who was singing his power song for the first time would ask his power to help his people. The sacred winter dances are still held today.
In the winter, people had more time to play. They had worked hard most of the year gathering stores of food to carry them through the winter when food gathering was difficult. With extra time, and since they often gathered in larger groups to winter, the Indian people developed many games, as well as story telling.
Story telling was a favorite pastime. Usually each village had one or two men who knew all the legends and stories and who were good story tellers. These men often were invited to the homes of families to tell their stories for entertainment. The stories were more than entertainment, however, as they included many legends from which the people drew their beliefs, their religion and their customs and which explained their origins. Coyote stories were among the favorites and as you read those you'll find out why.
Often, at the end of a story, the story teller would say, "then I came back", which was a formal ending to the story and to his telling. People then might give him gifts to thank him.
Other entertainment include games of skill and of chance. Winter or summer, stick games were the most popular, as they are today. Stick games have flourished from ancient hunting camps and summer and winter gatherings of the many bands of today's rodeos and Indian celebrations.
Ball games, foot and horse races, wrestling, dice and hand games all were played.
St. Mary's Mission
Near Omak
NOTE -
The preceding article is from a mimeographed pamphlet published by the
Stevens County Historical Society in 1981: Indians of the Kettle Falls Area, pages 1-6.
Taken from a number of sources, the material was edited by Iris A. Pringle in 1981 for the
Stevens County Historical Society's Oral History Project.
Last Updated
December 21, 2004
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