Spokane people
The Spokan or Spokane people are an Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau from East Washington and parts of Northern Idaho in the United States of America. They are enrolled in the Spokane Tribe of the Spokane Reservation, a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Wellpinit, Washington.
The Spokane Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Washington state, centered at Wellpinit. The reservation is located almost entirely in Stevens County, but also includes two small parcels of land in Lincoln County, including part of the Spokane River. In total, the reservation is about.
The city of Spokane, Washington is named after the tribe. It developed along the Spokane River, within the historic ancestral land of the tribe, but not within the reservation.
The Spokane language belongs to the Interior Salishan language family and is a dialect of Montana Salish. Therefore the Spokane are closely related by language and culture to the neighboring Bitterroot Salish and Kalispel.
The Spokane were in loose alliance with other Plateau tribes and sometimes the Kutenai, Crow Nation and Cree-Assiniboine joined in fights about against their common enemies, the Blackfoot Confederacy and later Lakota people on the east.
The precontact population of the Spokane people is estimated to be about 1,400 to 2,500 people. The populations of the tribe began to diminish after contact with Euro-American settlers and traders due to mortality from new infectious diseases endemic among the Europeans, and to which the Spokane had no acquired immunity. By 1829 a Hudson's Bay Company trader estimated there were about 700 Spokane people in the area. Since the early 20th century, their population has been steadily increasing: in 1985 tribal enrolled citizenship was reported as 1,961. In 2019, the tribe reported its population to be around 2,900 people.
Name
The name Spokane is first recorded in 1807. According to George Gibbs, the name was used by the Coeur d'Alene for one specific band of the Spokane, later transferred to all allied bands.A number of possible interpretations of the name have been proposed.
Most frequently, the name has been translated as "Sun children", "Children of the Sun", or "Muddy people". According to Pritzker, these interpretations are most probably popular etymologies derived from an actual self-designation of Spoqe'ind, meaning "round head."
The interpretation of "children of the Sun" was reported by Thomas Symons,
who attributed it to Ross Cox, who mentioned the name of a chief in the region as Illim-Spokanée "Son of the Sun".
The word for "Sun" is recorded as spukani for Bitterroot Salish, but as sokemm in Okanagan, and as ałdarench in Coeur d'Alene, all members of the Interior Salish branch of Salish.
The word sqeliz, meaning "people", is also recorded as an autonym.
History
For thousands of years the Spokane people lived near the Spokane River in the territory of present-day eastern Washington and northern Idaho, surviving by hunting and gathering. Spokane territory once sprawled over three million acres of land. The Spokanes lived along the river in three bands known as the Upper, Middle and Lower Spokane Indians. The Spokane bands were semi nomadic, following game and plants on a seasonal basis for nine months of the year, and settling in permanent winter villages for the other three.The first Europeans whom the Spokane people had contact with were fur traders and explorers. The Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Spokane tribe in 1805. Already the Spokane people were dwindling in population from introduced Eurasian diseases, such as smallpox, which were endemic among Europeans. Shortly after the encounter with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, fur traders and settlers arrived. In 1810, the North West Company opened the Spokane House near the confluence of the Spokane and Little Spokane rivers as a trade post. The Pacific Fur Company established Fort Spokane in 1811. Much later, the structure was used as an Indian boarding school for the Spokane children, from 1898 to 1906. The Spokane took prominent part in the so called Coeur d'Alene War of 1858, a series of encounters between the allied Native American tribes of the Skitswish, Kalispell, Spokane, Palouse and Northern Paiute against United States Army forces in Washington and Idaho which centered in ancestral Spokane territories.
A treaty for the Spokane people could not be established due to Governor Isaac Stevens' failure to return to the Tribe to negotiate the Treaty. This was due to the Yakama Wars between 1855 and 1858. By executive order by President Rutherford B Hayes, between the federal government and the tribe, the people ceded most of their territory, accepting removal to the Spokane Reservation, which was established in 1881. In 1877, the Lower Spokane people agreed to move to the Spokane Reservation. In 1887, the Upper and Middle Spokane people agreed to move to the Colville Reservation predominately inhabited by the Colville people. Not all the Spokane people moved from their traditional territory, which caused some conflict with white settlers. In the Coeur d'Alene War of 1858, the Spokane had allied with the Coeur d'Alene, Yakima, Palouse, and Paiute peoples against the European Americans. In the Nez Perce War of 1877, they remained neutral despite pleas from Nez Perce chief Chief Joseph to join him in trying to expel the settlers. Prior to colonization by European-Americans, Chewelah was home to a band of the Kalispel people. The band was known as the slet̓éw̓si, meaning "valley people". The Chewelah Band of Indians is currently part of the Spokane Tribe.
Post-World War II history
Around the 1950s, uranium was discovered on the reservation. With the development of nuclear weapons and other tools, it was considered highly valuable. It was mined from 1956 to 1962 out of an open pit. This practice was ended, and from 1969 to 1982, uranium was mined at the Midnite Mine. The now inactive mine is on the list of Superfund cleanup sites, as the mining process left the grounds and underground water highly contaminated by metals, radionucleides and acidic drainage.The creation of dams on the Spokane and related waterways, to generate hydroelectric power and provide water for irrigation in the arid eastern part of the state, has also affected the Spokane people. Construction of the Little Falls dam resulted in the end of most of the salmon run at Spokane Falls. The Grand Coulee Dam, on the Columbia River, blocked salmon from migrating upriver and ended all salmon runs on the Spokane River.
The tribe owns the Mistequa Casino Hotel in Chewelah, which opened in 1993, and the Spokane Tribe Resort and Casino in Airway Heights, which opened in 2018.
The Spokane Tribe is one of several tribal governments in the northwestern United States to offer free bus service on its reservation.
Culture
Organization
The Spokane tribe was divided into three geographic divisions, upper, lower, and middle. Each area was divided into bands, which were composed of groups of related families or kin groups.The Upper Spokane or Sntʔtʔúlixʷ resided along the Little Spokane River and all the country east of the Lower Spokane to within the borders of the Coeur d'Alene and Kalispel, sometimes their name is given as Sineka'lt.
The Middle Spokane or Snxʷme̓nʔey occupied the area near Spokane Falls to Hangman Creek and Deep Creek to Tum Tum, Middle Spokane territory includes Spokane House, the site of the first permanent white settlement in Washington State, another variant of their name is Snxwemi'ne.
The Lower Spokane or Scqesciłni traditionally occupied the lower Spokane River from Little Falls to the confluence of the Columbia River, also known as Squasi'lni.
Individual bands were led by a Ilmixʷm or chief and a sub chief, who were both selected to lead based on their leadership qualities. Decisions were made by consensus of the group.
The Spokane had a matrilocal custom, in which the husband of a Spokane woman, after marriage, would join her and her people as the site of their home together. Occasionally, the wife would move to the husband's people. There was mobility between bands, by which a person or family could spend one winter with a band and the next winter with another.
Lifestyle
The Spokane diet consisted of fish, local game, and plants, including nuts and roots. The men hunted whitetail deer and mule deer, which provided essential protein and other nutrients in the winter. Individual hunters would track the deer and kill them using a bow and arrow. Fish, especially salmon, were a huge part of the Spokane diet and also a large part of the trade economy. The Spokane people also ate trout and whitefish. They would smoke or dry the fish for trade or for storage in winter. Fish eyes were considered delicacies. Plants gathered by women provided nearly half of the caloric intake for the Spokane tribe.Gender roles
Men of the Spokane tribe created tools, fished, and hunted. After the tribe acquired horses, the men cared for and trained these animals, and horses became a measure of wealth. The animals allowed the people to travel wider territories, and were used also to carry or pull their supplies. The men rode the horses during hunting and warfare. Horses were introduced to the Spokane tribe from either the Nez Perce, Kalispel, or Flathead tribe. By about 1800, the Spokane tribe was acquiring herds, showing that they had fully embraced use of these animals.Spokane women made coiled baskets out of birch bark. They wove wallets and bags from strips of processed animal hide. They would also sew mats and other items which were sometimes traded with other Native peoples and white traders and settlers. Some of the plants they gathered were camas roots and local berries and barks. The women used digging sticks to uproot and gather their food. It was a fundamental tool for their lives, and it was a rite of passage for young girls to be given their first digging sticks. Women's graves were often marked with these sticks.