The Kutenai ( ), also known as the Ktunaxa ( ; ), Ksanka ( ), Kootenay (in Canada) and Kootenai (in the United States), are an indigenous people of Canada and the United States. Kutenai bands live in southeastern British Columbia, northern Idaho, and western Montana. The Kutenai language is a language isolate, thus unrelated to the languages of neighboring peoples or any other known language.
Four bands form Ktunaxa Nation in British Columbia. The Ktunaxa Nation was historically closely associated with the Shuswap Indian Band through tribal association and intermarriage. Two federally recognized tribes represent Kutenai people in the U.S.: the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) in Montana, a confederation also including Bitterroot Salish and Pend d'Oreilles bands.
Name Around 40 variants of the name Kutenai have been attested since 1820; two others are also in current use. Kootenay is the common spelling in British Columbia, including in the name of the Lower Kootenay First Nation. Kootenai is used in Montana and Idaho, including in the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. These two spellings have been used for various placenames on their respective sides of the Canadian-U.S. border, notably the Kootenay River, called the Kootenai River in the United States. Kutenai is the common form in the literature about the people, and has been adopted by Kutenai in both countries as an international spelling when discussing the people as a whole. The name evidently derives from the Blackfoot word for the people, , which itself may derive from the Kutenai term . This is supported by an interview with Vernon Finley, previous tribal chairman of the CSKT. He supposes the term to be "given... by some other tribe" and that it was likely "a mispronunciation of whatever that word is," since 'Kootenai' holds no meaning in any neighboring language.
In the Kutenai language, is considered the most correct general term for the culture and peoples. Differing etymologies have been suggested, tying the name to the verb for "eating food plain, [meaning] without seasoning," or alternately to the verb for "licking up blood." In the same interview referenced above, Finley attests the latter meaning to the image of a Ktunaxa warrior shooting an enemy, drawing out the arrow, and licking the blood from the arrowhead. He also says that, historically, people identified themselves primarily with the name of their band and less so with the broad term Ktunaxa.
It has been attested that some Columbian Plateau groups may have called themselves "Upnuckanick."PBS, , Narrative of David Thompson's life and travels. / Feb 2011, minutes: 14:13–14:20 , meaning "people of the standing arrow" is the name of the southeastern-most of the seven bands, who are today primarily associated with what is now northwestern Montana, and are politically organized within the CSKT.Thompson, Sally (director). "Tribes of Montana" (2007), The Montana Experience: Stories From Big Sky Country, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgEvbYgGfus
Communities Four Kutenai bands live in southeastern British Columbia, one lives in northern Idaho, and one lives in northwestern Montana:
Canada – British Columbia The Ktunaxa Nation Council (KNC) (until 2005 the Ktunaxa/Kinbasket Tribal Council) includes the four Canadian bands: Ɂakisq̓nuk First Nation ("place of two lakes"; also known as the Columbia Lake Indian Band)."Akisqnuk: Our Community" . www.akisqnuk.com. Retrieved 31 May 2018. An Upper Kutenai group, they are headquartered in Akisqnuk, south of Windermere. Reserves include: Columbia Lake No. 3, St. Mary's No. 1A, ca. 33 km2, population: 264)Source for Population: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC), Registered Population as of June, 2011 Lower Kootenay Band, (Yaqan Nukiy or Lower Kootenay First Nation)."Lower Kootenay First Nation". lowerkootenay.com. Retrieved 31 May 2018. A Lower Kutenai group, they are headquartered in Creston, on the most populous reserve Creston No. 1 along the Kootenay River, ca. 6 km north of the US–Canada border. Reserves include: Creston No. 1, Lower Kootenay Nos. 1A, 1B, 1C, 2, 3, 5, 4, St. Mary's No. 1A, ca. 26 km2, population: 214) ʔaq̓am First Nation ("deep dense woods")."Aqam – About". www.aqam.net An Upper Kutenai group, they live along the St. Mary's River near Cranbrook. Tribal headquarters are located on the most populous reserve, Kootenay No. 1; reserves include: Bummers Flat No. 6, Cassimayooks (Mayook) No. 5, Isidore's Ranch No. 4, Kootenay No. 1, St. Mary's No. 1A, ca. 79 km2, population: 357) Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it First Nation (Tobacco Plains First Nation, ʔa·kanuxunik, , or – 'People of the place of the flying head'.Tobacco Plains Band An Upper Kutenai band, they live near Grasmere on the east shore of the Lake Koocanusa below the mouth of Elk River, ca. 15 km north of the British Columbia-Montana border. Reserves include: St. Mary's No. 1A, Tobacco Plains No. 2, ca. 44 km2, population: 165)Aboriginal Canada – First Nation Connectivity Profile Additionally, the Shuswap Indian Band were formerly part of the Ktunaxa Nation. They are a Secwepemc (Shuswap) band who settled in Kutenai territory in the mid-19th century. They were eventually incorporated into the group and intermarried with them, and spoke the Kutenai language. They departed the Ktunaxa nation in 2004 and are now part of the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council. They are located near Invermere, just northeast of Windermere Lake; their reserves include: St. Mary's No. 1A, Shuswap IR, ca. 12 km2, population: 244). United States – Idaho Kootenai Tribe of Idaho ( or , also called Idaho Ksanka). A Lower Kutenai group, they govern the Kootenai Indian Reservation in Boundary County. Their population is 75. United States – Montana Kootenai ( or ) are members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, along with Bitterroot Salish and Pend d'Oreilles bands."Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation". www.csktribes.org. Retrieved 31 May An Upper Kutenai group, they live mostly on the Flathead Reservation in western Montana. A total population of about 6,800 live on the reservation, while 3,700 live outside the reservation nearby.
History
The Kutenai today live in southeastern British Columbia, Idaho, and Montana. They are loosely divided into two groups: the Upper Kutenai and the Lower Kutenai, referring to the different sections of the Kootenay River (spelled "Kootenai" in the U.S.) where the bands live. The Upper Kutenai are the Ɂakisq̓nuk First Nation (Columbia Lake Band), the ʔaq̓am First Nation (St. Mary's First Nation), and the Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡi’it First Nation (Tobacco Plains Band) in British Columbia, as well as the Montana Kootenai. The Lower Kutenai are the Lower Kootenay First Nation of British Columbia and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho.
Origins
Scholars have numerous ideas about the origins of the Ktunaxa. One theory is that they originally lived on the prairies, and were driven across the Rockies by the competing Blackfoot people or by famine and disease. Some Upper Kootenay participated in a Plains Native lifestyle for part of the year, crossing the Rockies to the east for the bison hunt. They were relatively well known to the Blackfoot, and sometimes their relations with them were in the form of violent confrontation over food competition.
Some Ktunaxa remained on or returned to the prairies year-round; they had a settlement near Fort Macleod, Alberta. This group of Ktunaxa suffered high mortality rates, partly because of the depredations of the Blackfoot, and partly because of smallpox epidemics. With numbers sharply reduced, these Plains Ktunaxa returned to the Kootenay region of British Columbia.
Some of the Ktunaxa say that their ancestors came originally from the Great Lakes region of Michigan. To date, scholars have not found either archeological or historic evidence to support this account.
The Ktunaxa territory in British Columbia has archeological sites with some of the oldest human-made artifacts in Canada, dated to 11,500 before the present (BP). It has not been proven whether these artifacts were left by ancestors of the Ktunaxa or by another, possibly Salishan, group. Human occupation of the Kootenay Rockies has been demonstrated by dated sites with evidence of quarrying and flint-knapping, especially of quartzite and tourmaline. This oldest assemblage of artifacts is known as the Goatfell Complex, named after the Goatfell region about 40 km east of Creston, British Columbia on Highway 3. These artifacts have been found at quarries in Goatfell, Harvey Mountain, Idaho, Negro Lake and Kiakho Lake (both near Lumberton and Cranbrook), North Star Mountain just west of Creston on Highway 3, and at Blue Ridge. All these sites are within 50 km of Creston, with the exception of Blue Ridge, which is near the village of Kaslo, quite a distance north on the west side of Kootenay Lake.
Archaeologist Dr. Wayne Choquette believes that the artifacts represented in the Goatfell Complex, dated from 11,500 BP up to the early historical period, show that there has been no break in the archaeological record. In addition, he says that it appears that the technology was local. No evidence supports the conjecture that the region's first inhabitants emigrated from this area, nor that they were replaced or succeeded by a different people. Choquette concludes that the Ktunaxa today are the descendants of those first people to inhabit the land.
Other scholars, such as Reg Ashwell, suggest that the Ktunaxa moved to the British Columbia region in the early half of the 18th century, having been harassed and pushed there from East of the Rockies by the Blackfoot. He notes that their language is isolated from that of Salish tribes common to the Pacific Coast. In addition, their traditional dress, many of their customs (such as their use of teepee-style portable dwellings), and their traditional religion have more in common with Plains peoples than with the Coastal Salish.Reg Ashwell, Indian Tribes of British Columbia, Hancock House (1977/2012), p. 55
The Goatfell assemblage of artifacts suggests that prior to 11,500 BP, the people who came to inhabit the Kootenay mountains may have lived in what is now the southwestern United States, during a period when British Columbia was beneath the Cordilleran ice sheet of the last ice age. The Goatfell Complex, and specifically the techniques of manufacture of the tools and points, are part of a tradition of knapping that existed in the North American Great Basin and the intermontane west of the continent in the late Pleistocene. The prevailing theory is that as the glaciers retreated, people moved northward, following the revival of the flora and fauna to the north.
From the time of the first Ktunaxa settlement in the Kootenays, until the historical period beginning in the late 18th century, there is little known of the people's social, political, and intellectual development. Stone tool technologies changed and became more complex and differentiated. They were probably big game hunters in their earliest prehistoric phase. The Ktunaxa were first noted in the historical record when mentioned on Alexander Mackenzie's map, circa 1793.
As temperatures continued to warm, the glacial lakes drained and fish found habitat in the warmer waters. The Lower Kootenay across the Pacific Northwest made fishing a fundamental part of their diet and culture, while maintaining the old traditions of game hunting.
Early history