Identification

The name Ktunaxa, now used in Canada by the Ktunaxa themselves, and the name Kutenai, by which the group is most widely known in both Canada and the United States (and the one still used by the Ktunaxa in the United States), refer to a single ethnic group with a single language. The word Kutenai is derived from the Blackfoot wordKotona , based on a Blackfoot pronunciation of the original Kutenai word Ktunaxa. Ktunaxa. (with the sress on the penultimate syllable) is one of two words in the Ktunaxa language which refer to the Kutenai as a whole; the other is Ksanka, which is a Montana Kutenai word, though some Montana Kutenai use Ktunaxa. The “x” in Ktunaxa is pronounced, as it is in the Greek and Cyrillic alphabets, like the “ch” in “loch” or “Bach.”

Kutenai currently is spelled three different ways. Apart from Kutenai, which has gradually become the standard spelling among scholars and has the advantage of being an international spelling of the name, there is also the distinctively Canadian spelling Kootenay and the American Kootenai. The Kootenay River itself changes its spelling as it flows south from the East Kootenay District of British Columbia into the United States to become the Kootenai River. The river changes back to being the Kootenay as it flows north again into Canada, into the West Kootenay District of British Columbia, where it empties into Kootenay Lake.

Left over from an earlier time is the name Kitunahan, applied to the Ktunaxa language in an early classification of North American Indian languages. The languages are classified there according to language families, and so the “n” suffix is added to what would otherwise be Kitunaha, referring to the Ktunaxa language. The name Kitunaha has some utility today, because it is closely enough based on Ktunaxa to serve as a guide for those who the latter difficult to pronounce.

The Ktunaxa people in Canada are now, in effect, gradually forcing modern-day residents of the Kootenay districts to learn how to pronounce the name Ktunaxa by having renamed the Kootenay Indian Area Council the Ktunaxa/Kinbasket Tribal Council, and, more generally, by using the name Ktunaxa as a word in the English language.

The Ktunaxa live in eastern British Columbia, the most northerly part of the Idaho panhandle, and a substantial corner of northwestern Montana. There are six modern Ktunaxa communities corresponding to six out of a larger number of historic communities or bands which each occupied some segment of the Kootenay River valley (the Kootenai River valley in the United States) and large areas of the surrounding country, most of it mountainous and heavily forested.

The name Kinbasket, as in the name Ktunaxa/ Kinbasket Tribal Council, represents a Shuswap community located within the Kootenay area of British Columbia. The Shuswap are an Interior Salish group. Many of the Kinbasket Shuswaps are also Ktunaxa in ancestry, so that the Kinbaskets, or the Shuswap band, at Athalmer, British Columbia, near Invermere, is in part a seventh Ktunaxa community.

The other six Ktunaxa communities are as follows. Starting in the north by the headwaters of the Kootenay River, close also to the headwaters of the Columbia River, is the Columbia Lake band, residing adjacent to Windermere, British Columbia; the St Mary’s band on the St Mary’s River, near Cranbrook, British Columbia; the Tobacco Plains band at Grassmere, British Columbia; the Montana Kootenai of the Flathead Reservation; the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho at Bonners Ferry, Idaho; and the Lower Kootenay band at Creston, British Columbia. In philosophical terms there is one Ktunaxa nation, but there are three tribal governments: the Ktunaxa/ Kinbasket Tribal Council in Canada, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation in Montana, and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho.

There is a traditional and also ethnographic distinction between the Upper Kutenai and the Lower Kutenai. The Lower Kutenai include the Lower Kootenay band at Creston, British Columbia, along with the Idaho Kootenai; the other groups are collectively the Upper Kutenai. The distinction refers to the course of the river, the Upper Kutenai living along the upper course of the river while the Lower Kutenai reside along its lower course. This ethnographic distinction is very much an east-west distinction, so that one can just as well speak of the Eastern Ktunaxa, in the East Kootenay District of British Columbia and in Montana; and the Western Ktunaxa, in the West Kootenay District of British Columbia and in Idaho.

On the basis of a few differences in the language which go along geographical lines, one can distinguish Eastern Ktunaxa from Western Ktunaxa, but one can also make a more finely grained, three-way distinction into Down-River Ktunaxa (Western Ktunaxa), Mid-River Ktunaxa (Eastern Ktunaxa), and Up-River Ktunaxa (also Eastern Ktunaxa). Specifically, the Montana Kootenai and the Tobacco Plains Ktunaxa are both Mid-River Ktunaxa, while the St Mary’s Ktunaxa and the Columbia Lake Ktunaxa are both Up-River Ktunaxa.

In terms of pronunciation, the differences between the varieties of the language are actually less than the differences between the Canadian English spoken in British Columbia and the kind of English spoken across the border in adjacent parts of the United States. With regard to vocabulary, the differences between the geographical varieties of the Ktunaxa language are more like the differences between Canadian English and British English; people generally know exactly what the differences are and consequently have no trouble understanding each other.

The Ktunaxa language stands alone as a linguistic lineage which has been independent for so long that its origins are nearly lost in the mists of time. Yet it is clear that the Ktunaxa language is connected to certain other languages by resemblances which cannot be explained by mere chance. While suggestions have been made that the Ktunaxa language might be related to the Algonquian language family, and also to a language stock consisting of the Wakashan, the Chimakuan, and the Salish language families, evidence falls far short of proof. There is, however, a substantial body of evidence, as yet unpublished, that Ktunaxa and Proto-Salish, the common ancestor language of all the Salish languages, together had an ancestor language in common, a language that can be called Proto-Ktunaxa-Salish and one that must have been much older than Proto-Salish. There has also clearly been linguistic contact between the Ktunaxa and the Salish.

Archaeological evidence indicates that the Ktunaxa have lived in the Rocky Mountain trench and other parts of present-day Ktunaxa territory for thousands of years. An increasingly long and detailed archaeological record is now coming to light, one that complements the evidence for Ktunaxa prehistory provided by the Ktunaxa language. Much of the more recent archaeological work is being done under the auspices of the Ktunaxa/ Kinbasket Tribal Council, while linguistic research has gone on independently.

The traditional settlement pattern varied seasonally, with each band dispersed or concentrated at different times of the year to facilitate hunting, berry picking, root digging, and other resource-extraction activities, activities conducted over large areas. Today, communities are located in the centre of the territory that each surviving band occupied at the time of contact with Europeans, except for some of the present-day Montana Kootenai who were forced to move some distance from the centre of their traditional territory.

Modern settlement patterns on reserves are dispersed, although, in addition to houses located at a distance from one another, there are small distinct villages at Shuswap, Tobacco Plains, and Lower Kootenay in association with the reserve’s local Catholic church. For the St Mary’s reserve, old photographs show a village near the St Eugene Mission and church, a location now occupied in part by the St Mary’s band office and band hall and by Ktunaxa/Kinbasket tribal office buildings.

There is a Ktunaxa legend that ends with the moral there will never be very many Ktunaxa but they will never be extinct. The size of the Ktunaxa population before the arrival of Europeans is estimated at about 5,000; however, because epidemics preceded the actual arrival of whites, this figure is strictly a matter of guesswork. In 1835 fur traders reported that there were some 1,000 Ktunaxa people in British Columbia, a number that declined to 702 in 1891 and 517 in 1911 (the latter figure did not include 63 Kinbasket Shuswaps). By 1924, the Ktunaxa population had grown to 1,050, of whom 501 were living in Canada, and in 1973 the total of Ktunaxa and Kinbaskets together was 571. Since then, the decline in population has been reversed. South of the border, the census of 1890 gave the number of Kootenai in Idaho and Montana as 400 to 500; in 1974 the Kootenai of Idaho were said to number 67; and by 1982 the number of Idaho Kootenai was reported to be 115.

The population of Ktunaxa reserves and reservations does not represent the total number of Ktunaxa people. Many have moved to distant locations, such as Vancouver, Calgary, Spokane, and Seattle, while still maintaining ties to their home communities. There has also been a certain amount of internal migration, from reserves into neighbouring towns, to larger towns that neighbour other reserves, and from one reserve to another, sometimes involving the transfer of band membership.

In British Columbia, there has been no formal treaty between the Ktunaxa and non-natives and therefore no settlement of land claims. Large areas are at issue. The traditional economic base of the Ktunaxa people involved the use of the entire region for hunting and for the gathering of other natural resources. Later, ranching required open ranges, but these were closed off. Thus, while Ktunaxa population is now very much on the rise, the Ktunaxa communities still lack a sufficient land base.

The same situation prevails in the United States and indeed was the cause of the declaration of war by the Kootenai of Idaho against the U.S. government in 1974. Without a shot being fired, but with Kootenai war bonds being offered for sale on the streets of Bonners Ferry, the federal government relented and provided the Idaho Kootenai with the economic base that they had previously lacked.