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The Colville Indians were one of many native american tribes in the Northwest Plateau.

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Up until the mid 19th century the tribe was nomadic. Once there was more settlers and people to trade with they began to settle on major water ways. They chose to live on the waterways because it gave them the easiest access to people that were willing to trade.

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The Colville used items like these two bags to transport goods such as roots, fish, fire wood, etc.

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Gathering Basket | Plateau Peoples' Web Portal

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I made this basket, it's a medium sized berry picking basket. There are three different sizes and it has coiled cedar root, bear grass and cherry bark. The background is beading, plain bear grass. The designs are dyed wild cherry bark (that is the brown) and the black is beargrass dyed black.

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Root Gathering Bag | Plateau Peoples' Web Portal

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Rectangular, flat twined, bag. Multicolor linear design. Cotton weft, balance of yarn and cotton. Rim edged and handles in buckskin. Long tumpline made of canvas., Width at Bottom: 9 5/8"; Width at Top: 9"; height: 10 5/8",

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The tribes of this area would trade frequently with other tribes. At times they would travel to the plains to trade with the Indians for goods such as buffalo and other region specific items. Into the 19th century they woudl trade with the settlers for other goods on the major water ways.

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The main source of food for these tribes was salmon, eels, suckers, trout and other fish that were abundant in the waters. There were also deer, caribou, elk, and small game they hunted with spears and even bow and arrows. They gathered plants that were available to them. Roots and bulbs were the two most important.

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The men of the tribes were the leaders, protectors, and hunters. They'd hunt and fish for their food. The women would help children, and gather plants for the tribe.

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The political structures varied greatly from tribe to tribe. Very few had chiefs that would rule with force. They often made choices on popular opinion, and quite often members of groups would leave a group to join another with their preferred views. Due to the large amount of tribes and villages that developed in the area it is hard to say how all groups ran things, as there was such a large variety of ways.

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The Colville Indians were named after the Colville River and Eden Colville, a Hudson's Bay Company governor. The nearby river valleys, villages, and language they spoke are what made each Colville tribe different from one another.

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The Northwest Plateau goes through hot summers and cold winters. In the winter, the tribes would live in pit dwellings and communal lodges. In the summer, the tribes lived in hide tents. All of their living spaces were made from the natural resources they would gather or trade.

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The Colville Indians were very spiritual people. They believed in spirits and that they come from the natural world. For example, the natives believed that their food contained spiritual power. They would hold annual feats to honor the spirits. They also held dances in the winter to thank the spirits that allowed them to utilize the water resources and area of land in the winter temperatures.

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The Colville Tribes' forebears subsisted along the eastern half of the Columbia River's tributaries. They communicated with similar Salishan languages and were nomadic until the mid-19th century, when fundamental changes to their way of life took hold.

Before the advent of Europeans in the early 19th century, the Colville tribes differentiated among themselves according to traditional river valleys, language, and villages. During the cold months, families stayed warm in communal mat lodges and sturdy pit dwellings. During warmer months they camped in mat or hide tents. Through the seasons, families trekked to promising locales to harvest salmon, their dietary mainstay; gather berries and roots, and hunt game. They believed foods possessed spiritual power; thanksgiving feasts were held in their honor. Wintertime dances and song served to acknowledge the spirits that sustained the land and water that yielded such generous gifts. To promote social cohesion, each band had a headman who consulted with a group of advisors about everyday concerns.

The first change to have an impact on the traditional lifeways of the aborigines was the advent of the horse in the middle of the 18th century, traceable to 15th century European explorers on the other side of the continent. The animal increased their mobility and range. The next big change became permanent in the first quarter of the 19th century with the beginning of trade with Europeans. British and American fur traders erected several posts in the region. They bartered with the Indians for coveted pelts in exchange for new technology and other attractive goods. For numerous natives, exchanging furs and other Indian items for the white man's goods and services became a permanent alternative to traditional ways of subsistence.

The middle of the 1800s ushered in a great and relentless wave of westward pioneers of various sorts, along such famous routes as the Oregon Trail. Their land-hungry encroachment would wreak a decisive change in native lifeways. The outsiders also obliviously introduced diseases against which the natives had no natural immunity. The river drainages became scenes of a drastic withering of indigenous populations.

In 1855, agents of the American government induced numerous Washington tribes to sign land-ceding treaties in exchange for smaller parcels reserved for them, but the forebears of the modern Colville tribes did not become signatories and move onto a reservation. Nevertheless, in 1872 President Ulysses S. Grant established the Colville Indian Reservation by Executive Order. The tribes were compelled to subsist on a parcel in the Washington Territory. The famed Chief Joseph and the remnant of his Wallowa Nez Percé band joined the original tribes on the Colville Reservation in 1885.*

In 1887, the Congress passed the General Allotment Act that granted small parcels of acreage to Indian individuals, including some of the Colville. Allotments were created with tribal lands, including the Colville Reservation.

Over the next several decades, various societal and governmental pressures would chip away at the size of the Colville Reservation. In the late 19th century, encroachment by gold miners and other prospectors began to swallow up Colville lands. In 1892, a huge segment of northern acreage was removed. In the 1930s, dams along the Columbia and increased American settlement further compromised Colville jurisdiction.

In 1934, Congress commenced to close down the government's allotment policy that began 1887. A year later, the Secretary of the Interior signed an directive to terminate the withdrawal status of Colville reservation lands.

On February 26, 1938, the American government endorsed the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation's new constitution and bylaws. From this document, a governing unit and four voting districts were established.

In 1995, each member of Washington 's Colville Confederated Tribes received a federal check in the amount of $5,989 to compensate for acreage confiscated to construct the Grand Coulee Dam in 1933.

*Chief Joseph and his band were supposed Nez Percé Nez Perce bands, but local whites leery of the notorious chief prevented it.
See also Indian Wars Time Table Native American Cultural Regions Map

Off-site search results for "The Colville Indian Tribes"...

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The Colville Tribes' forebears subsisted along the eastern half of the Columbia River's tributaries. They communicated with similar Salishan languages and were nomadic until the mid-19th century, when fundamental changes to their way of life took hold. Before the advent of Europeans in the early 19th century, the Colville tribes differentiated among themselves according to traditional river valleys, language, and villages.

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Colville Indians settled near rivers because it allowed them to use it for fishing and farming,  trading, and traveling. They strongly relied on the rivers in order to keep their daily lives stable. If the rivers overflowed, the tribes would be forced to move.

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Colville is a name derived from the Colville River and Fort Colville (a Hudson's Bay Company trading post), which in turn were named for Eden Colville, a governor of the company. Whites also called these Indians "Basket People," after their large salmon fishing baskets, and "Chaudiere" (kettles), after depressions in the rocks at Kettle Falls and a corruption of their self-designation, Shuyelpee. They were culturally similar to the Okanagon and Sanpoil Indians.

Location In the eighteenth century, the Colville Indians lived in northeastern Washington, around the Kettle and Columbia Rivers. Today, most live in Ferry and Okanogan Counties, Washington, and in nearby cities and towns.

Population The eighteenth-century Colville Indian population stood at roughly 2,000. The Colville population reportedly declined to six or seven in 1882. In 1990, 3,782 Indians lived on the reservation.

Language Colville Indians spoke a language from the Okanogan group of the Interior division of the Salish language family.

Historical Information

History As early as 1782, a smallpox epidemic destroyed large numbers of Colville Indians. Colville Indians became involved with the fur trade shortly after the arrival in the area of the first non-Indians around 1800. By the mid-nineteenth century they were suffering from a sharply declining population and a deteriorating way of life due to new diseases,anti-Indian violence, land theft, and severe disruption of their subsistence habits. Missionaries arrived in 1838. Non-Indian miners flooded into the area in the mid-1850s. Colvilles did not participate in the wars of that time.
This woman is wearing a Hudson's Bay blanket, a popular trade item for the Colvilles. The name of this tribe is derived from the Colville River and Fort Colville, a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) trading post, which in turn took their names from Eden Colville, an HBC governor.
Two Colville reservations were established in 1872 for local nontreaty tribes. One, created in April, was considered by local whites to have too-fertile lands, so another reservation with less desirable land was established in July. The early reservation years were marked by conflict with non-Indians and among the tribes. Many Colville Indians converted to Catholicism in the later nineteenth century. In 1900, they lost 1.5 million acres, over half of their reservation. Even so, non-natives continued to settle on the truncated reservation in large numbers until 1935.

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation were formed in 1938. The government restored some land in 1956. The tribe divided over the issue of termination through the 1950s and 1960s but ultimately decided against it. The tribe won significant land claims settlements in the later twentieth century.

Religion Colvilles believed in the presence of spirits in all natural things, animate and inanimate. Individuals sought guardian spirits and their associated songs through the traditional means of singing, fasting, praying, and performing feats of endurance. Prepubescent boys generally undertook a series of one-night vigils. Shamans' especially powerful spirits allowed them to cure illness and perform other particularly difficult tasks.

The five-day first salmon ritual, held under the direction of the salmon chief, was the most important ceremony. Other important religious occasions included the midwinter spirit dances and the first fruits rite. The midwinter dances served the additional purposes of bringing people together and releasing winter tensions.

Government Autonomous villages were each led by a chief and a subchief; these lifetime offices were hereditary in theory but were generally filled by people possessing the qualities of honesty, integrity, and diplomacy. The authority of chiefs to serve as adviser, judge, and general leader was granted mainly through consensus. As judge, the chief had authority over crimes of nonconformity such as witchcraft, sorcery, and assault.

An informal assembly of all married adults confirmed a new chief and oversaw other aspects of village life. All residents of the village were considered citizens. Other village leaders included a messenger, a speaker, and a salmon chief (often a shaman, with the salmon as a guardian spirit, who supervised salmon-related activities). By virtue of their ability to help or hurt people, shamans also acquired relative wealth and power from their close association with chiefs, who liked to keep them friendly.

Customs Colvilles regularly intermarried with other Salish people. They also very occasionally practiced a form of potlatch. Local villages had associated, nonexclusive territories or subsistence areas. Winter was a time for visits and ceremonies. During that season, women also made mats and baskets, made or repaired clothing, and prepared meals while men occasionally hunted or just slept, gambled, and socialized.

Pacifism, generosity, and interpersonal equality and autonomy were highly valued. Girls fasted and were secluded for ten days at the onset of puberty, except for a nighttime running regime. The exchange of gifts between families constituted a marriage, a relationship that was generally stable and permanent. Corpses were wrapped in tule mats or deerskin and buried with their possessions. The family burned the deceased's house and then observed various taboos and purification rites. Mourners cut their hair and wore old clothes.

Dwellings Traditional winter dwellings were semisubterranean, circular pit lodges, with grass, brush, and earth covering a pole frame; they had flat or conical roofs. Entrance was through a ladder in the smoke hole. In the late prehistoric period, the people began building rectangular tule-mat houses. Each of the two to eight families in the house paired off to share a fire in the center of the building.

Diet Food was much more often acquired by the family than by the village. Fish, especially salmon, played a central role in the diet (groups were able to net up to 3,000 a day at Kettle Falls). Men caught four varieties of salmon as well as trout, sturgeon, and other fish. They fished from May through October. Although women could not approach the actual fishing areas, they cleaned and dried the fish. Dried fish and sometimes other foods made up much of the winter diet. People generally ate two meals a day in summer and one in winter.

Women gathered shellfish, salmon eggs, bulbs, roots, nuts, seeds, berries, and prickly pear. Camas was eaten raw or roasted, boiled, or made into cakes. A short ceremony was performed over the first gathered crop of the season. Men hunted most large and small game in the fall. They prepared for the hunt by sweating and singing. Meat was roasted, boiled, or dried. Women came along to help dress and carry the game. Men also hunted birds and gathered mollusks.

Key Technology Twined and coiled basketry items were heavily represented. These included utensils, cooking tools, containers, bags, and hats. Some items were decorated with geometric designs. Women sewed tule mats with Indian hemp. Hunting tools included spears and the bow and arrow. People also used sandstone arrow smoothers and elk rib arrow straighteners. Fish were speared, netted, and caught in weirs and traps. Women used a slightly curved digging stick with an antler or wood cross handle.

Trade Trade fairs were held at Kettle Falls and at the mouth of the Fraser River. The level of trade increased with the acquisition of horses.

Notable Arts Artistic expression was seen mainly in coiled baskets with geometric designs as well as mat weaving. Rock painting had been practiced for thousands of years.

Transportation Before the horse, people used two kinds of dugout canoes and snowshoes.

Dress Standard traditional attire was a bark breechclout or apron, a bark poncho, winter leggings (fur for men, hemp for women), and fur robes. Skin garments became popular beginning in the late prehistoric period. For decoration, people wore Pacific Coast shell ornaments as well as animal teeth and claws.

War and Weapons Men used their hunting tools as weapons, plus rawhide or wooden armor. War chiefs were selected on an ad hoc basis. Colvilles were occasionally allied with Okanagon Indians against the Nez Perce and Yakima.

Contemporary Information

Government/Reservations The Colville Reservation (1872) is located in Ferry and Okanogan Counties, Washington. It comprises 1,011,495 acres and had a 1990 Indian population of 3,782. An Indian Reorganization Act constitution approved in 1938 calls for a 14-member business council and various committees. The Confederated Tribes is a member of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians and other intertribal organizations.

Colville Indians are also members of the Columbia River Indians, a group who lives primarily in Priest Rapids, Cooks Landing, Billieville, and Georgeville, Washington; Celilo, Oregon; and non-Indian communities. The Council of Columbia River Chiefs meets at Celilo, Oregon. The community at Priest Rapids is directly descended from that of Smohalla, a founder of the Dreamer or Longhouse religion.

Economy The reservation economy is largely built around stock raising, farming, logging (including a sawmill) and reforestation, and seasonal labor. There is some mining as well as a meat-packing plant, a log cabin sales business, and tourism-related businesses such as a trading post and gambling enterprises. There is potential for development of hydroelectric resources.

Legal Status The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is a federally recognized tribal entity. The Columbia River Indians are not federally recognized.

Daily Life Colville Indians are largely acculturated. Language preservation programs are hindered by the lack of a common aboriginal language. Recent efforts to reinvigorate disparate tribal cultures and religions include the presence of the Chief Joseph Band of Nez Perce Indians with their Seven Drum Religion, the Indian Shaker Church, and the Native American Church. The reservation hosts an annual powwow and a circle celebration. There is also a program of reacquiring and consolidating the land base and a goal to increase the general levels of education. The Colville Business Council wields growing power in regional and statewide issues.

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Colville (Native Americans of the Plateau)

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Colville is a name derived from the Colville River and Fort Colville (a Hudson's Bay Company trading post), which in turn were named for Eden Colville, a governor of the company. Whites also called these Indians "Basket People," after their [...]