Culture, Religion, and Education

The Eastern Ktunaxa were centred along the upper course of the Kootenay River, mostly in the Rocky Mountain trench, between the Rocky Mountains and the Purcell Mountains, putting them relatively close to the prairies and in close contact with plains tribes. Their material culture was characterized by equestrian trappings, buffalo-hide tipis, buckskin clothing, feathered war bonnets, pottery, and other elements that made them to all appearances a people of the prairies. They made pottery, but, for the most part, clay pots were replaced by iron kettles, obtained through trade, early in the historic period.

The Western Ktunaxa, west of the Purcell Mountains, were located deeper in the Plateau and thus were more like neighbouring Plateau tribes in their material culture. Their garments were fashioned with rush or reed materials, they made coiled baskets, and they used a distinctive bark canoe with bow and stern formed into a down-slanting sturgeon’s nose pointing forward or back at the bottom along the keel line.

The general portability of villages mitigated strongly against large art objects, except decoration on clothing. Today, the Ktunaxa have a reputation as especially good tanners. Some still tan hides and make beaded buckskin clothing for sale and for attendance at powwows. Drumming groups, including young people, maintain traditional songs, and young people actively participate in powwow dancing.

Among the Ktunaxa people, there is now a consensus that their religious beliefs and practices are a private matter that should not be discussed with outsiders. Earlier generations of Ktunaxa, especially in Canada, were the products of a conversion to Christianity that represented a veritable cultural revolution, a revolution that was antithetical to traditional Ktunaxa religion and that sought not only to replace this religion but to shape other aspects of Ktunaxa culture and society. Until quite recently, the Catholic Church was a central force in each community. At one time, every single Ktunaxa person in Canada enrolled as a band member was officially listed as Catholic, and today every Ktunaxa community in Canada has its own Catholic church building. Recently, the small size of Ktunaxa Roman Catholic congregations, and low church attendance, has led to the discontinuation of regular Sunday services on reserves, a development that has created a void in the communities. An exception is the participation of a priest at funerals, which still takes place in each community’s church building.

The active discouragement of traditional Ktunaxa religion by the Catholic priests and nuns at the St Eugene mission boarding school may well partly account for the intensely private nature of traditional Ktunaxa religion today. Ironically, those Ktunaxa people who remain Catholic sometimes find occasion to be almost as private about their religious faith as other Ktunaxa people are about their traditional beliefs and practices.

Before the arrival of missionaries, education was carried out close to home. Children learned largely by taking part in household and community activities. Grandparents told bedtime stories which revealed the difference between appropriate and inappropriate conduct. The character Coyote in traditional stories stands out as the perfect example of bad behaviour.

With the establishment of the St Eugene residential school, which served all the Ktunaxa communities in Canada, including the Shuswap Band, and even had students from the United States, things changed radically. The nuns would punish the children for speaking in either Ktunaxa or Shuswap, forcing them to speak English, although the nuns themselves, in the early years, would commonly speak to each other in French. With the closing of the residential mission school in recent times, students were sent to public schools in neighbouring towns, following others who had already taken the same route through the decision of their parents.

Around 1950 parents stopped trying to teach their children the Ktunaxa language; they were concerned about their children having the same difficulties in school that they had when they were children. The assumption was that the children would learn Ktunaxa as they grew up, just as the parents had done when they were growing up. As it turned out, however, children generally did not learn the language, although some who were raised by their grandparents did better in this regard. Now, people look back on the decision not to teach their children the language as a mistake. Only recently have children again begun to learn the language, but this is in a classroom setting or at language-immersion camps.

The Ktunaxa/Kinbasket Tribal Council has started its own school system, and the Lower Kootenay Band has its own school, independent of the council’s system. Efforts have been made to incorporate traditional culture and language into the curriculum of the native-run schools, particularly at the pre-school level. The Montana Kootenai have had a local school in their community at Elmo, and they also participate in running a tribal college known as the Salish-Kootenai Community College. Language-immersion programs have been initiated. Ktunaxa communities also provide daycare programs. These are at least a potential vehicle for education in traditional culture and the Ktunaxa language.