| For the Coeur
d' Alene, who call themselves the
Schitsu'umsh, literally meaning, "the ones
that were found here", and often
historically spelled Skitswish, they were
placed in what would become the Panhandle
region of Idaho. It was a landscape of some
4,000,000 acres of fir, ponderosa and
cedar-forested mountains, freshwater rivers,
lakes and marshlands, and white pine and
perennial bunchgrass and fescue
wheatgrass-covered rolling hills and
prairie. The territory of the Coeur d'Alene
extended from the southern end of Lake Pend
Oreille in the north running along the
Bitterroot Range of Montana in the east to
the Palouse and North Fork of the Clearwater
Rivers in the south to Steptoe Butte and up
to just east of Spokane Falls in the west.
At the heart of this region was Lake Coeur
d'Alene. It was a homeland inundated with
"gifts" from the Animal Peoples that would
provide for some 5,000 Coeur d'Alene.
The Coeur d'Alene
were organized into three loosely-structured
bands, each corresponding to the winter
village sites. The core of one band was
located at the north end of Lake Coeur
d'Alene and along the Spokane River, while
the other two were situated along the St.
Joe and Coeur d'Alene Rivers respectively.
Each band comprised several extended
families, each of which could function
autonomous of the others and could realign
itself with a different band. Reflecting a
fundamentally egalitarian social structure,
there were no hereditary clans, no class
structure, and slavery was not practiced.
Kinship was bilaterally based, with the same
terms used to address a cousin from one's
mother's or father's family.
Intertribal
relations with other Salish-speaking tribes,
such as the Spokane, Flathead, Kalispel, and
Pend Oreille, were generally friendly,
though conflicts were not unknown. Coeur
d'Alene families regularly traveled with
members from these tribes to distant salmon
fishing sites, and, after the coming of the
horse, into the buffalo hunting country of
Montana, renewing established trading
partnerships. But with the Kootenai, and the
Sahaptin-speaking Nez Perce and Palus,
tensions erupting into periodic skirmishes
occurred. Warfare typically resulted from
avenging a transgression, and not entailing
territorial conquest or enslavement of
populations. In preparations for battle,
Coeur d'Alene warriors sought spiritual
assistance by singing their suumesh songs
and dancing in imitation of the war deeds
they were about to accomplish.
|
