All about the ancient tribes
The peoples of this area were named Flathead Indians by Europeans who came to the area. The name was originally applied to various Salish peoples, based on the practice of artificial cranial deformation by some of the groups, though the modern groups associated with the Flathead Reservation never engaged in it.
It is widely accepted that chief Charlo was the principle leader of the Bitterroot Valley Indians. However, chief Paul’s father settled down to live in the Bitterroot Valley about 1816, after moving from Michigan. Chief Charlo had to be forced to gather his people together for the trek to the Flathead Reservation.
The Salish or Séliš language /ˈseɪlɪʃ/, also known as Kalispel–Pend d’oreille, Kalispel –Spokane–Flathead, or, to distinguish it from the Salish language family to which it gave its name, Montana Salish, is a Salishan language spoken (as of 2005) by about 64 elders of the Flathead Nation in north central Montana and of
The People The Flathead Indian Reservation is home to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes ( CSKT ). The tribes are a combination of the Salish, the Pend d’Oreille and the Kootenai.
Flathead, North American Indian tribe of what is now western Montana, U.S., whose original territory extended from the crest of the Bitterroot Range to the Continental Divide of the Rocky Mountains and centred on the upper reaches of the Clark Fork of the Columbia River.
The name Sioux is an abbreviation of Nadouessioux (“Adders”; i.e., enemies), a name originally applied to them by the Ojibwa. The Santee, also known as the Eastern Sioux, were Dakota speakers and comprised the Mdewkanton, Wahpeton, Wahpekute, and Sisseton.
Under the cooperative management agreement between the Tribes and the State of Montana, thousands of acres on the Flathead Reservation are open to non-Tribal members for fishing and bird hunting on the Flathead Reservation.
The Niitsitapi, also known as the Blackfoot or Blackfeet Indians, reside in the Great Plains of Montana and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. Only one of the Niitsitapi tribes are called Blackfoot or Siksika. The name is said to have come from the color of the peoples’ moccasins, made of leather.
1: a group of American Indian peoples of British Columbia and the northwestern U.S. 2: the family of languages spoken by the Salish peoples.
The Pine Ridge Reservation is home to the lowest life expectancy, and a number of the poorest communities in the United States. The average life expectancy on Pine Ridge is 66.81 years, the lowest in the United States.
All Indians are subject to federal income taxes. However, whenever a member of an Indian tribe conducts business off the reservation, that person, like everyone else, pays both state and local taxes. State income taxes are not paid on reservation or trust lands.
From the founding of the United States through the late 1800s, the federal government took more than 1.5 billion acres from Native Americans. Today, many Native Americans live in reservations. These are self-governing, which means they’re not subject to state laws, but they’re not quite sovereign nations, either.
The traditional Salish and Kootenai hunted buffalo on the Great Plains, as well as deer, elk, and other wild game in western Montana. A variety of plant foods such as bitterroot, camas, moss, wild onions, Indian potatoes, and sarvis berries were gathered during their seasons and preserved for later use.
Poverty Rate
Geography | AIANa | All |
---|---|---|
Flathead Reservation | 33.6% | 22.4% |
United States | 26.8% | 14.6% |
There are approximately 326 Indian land areas in the U.S. administered as federal Indian reservations (i.e., reservations, pueblos, rancherias, missions, villages, communities, etc.). The largest is the 16 million-acre Navajo Nation Reservation located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah.