14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 1 10 



From the time of their traditional migration from the west until 

 their final settlement on the Flathead Reservation in 1891, the true 

 home of the Flathead tribe was the Bitterroot Valley, between the 

 Rocky and Bitterroot Mountains in the southwestern part of the 

 present State of Montana. This was beautiful wooded country, well 

 stocked with deer, elk, bear, beaver, and wild fowl. Fish were 

 plentiful in the streams. The fertile land yielded an abundance of 

 edible wild roots and berries. The valley received its name from the 

 bitterroot plant (Lewisia rediviva) which was especially plentiful 

 there. By hunting, fishing, and collecting, the primitive Flathead 

 gained ample subsistence in their valley home in pre-horse days. 



The Flathead are believed to have obtained their first horses from 

 Shoshonean tribes to the south during the first quarter of the eight- 

 eenth century. (Haines, 1938, p. 435.) After horses became numerous 

 among them, the tribe made periodic journeys over the Rockies to 

 hunt buffalo on the plains of the Upper Missouri. Regular seasonal 

 migrations were customary in early historic times. In spring and 

 summer the Flathead resided in the Bitterroot Valley, subsisting 

 primarily on roots (of which the bitterroot and camas were most 

 important), berries, small game, and fish. In June and July the men 

 crossed the mountains on horseback for a brief summer hunt to obtain 

 meat and buffalo hides for lodges. At the close of the berry season, 

 in September or October, the whole tribe moved to the plains about 

 the upper tributaries of the Missouri River to hunt buffalo. Usually 

 they did not return to the valley until the next March or April, in 

 time to dig the bitterroot. Fully half the year was spent on this 

 long winter hunt. 



The neighbors of the Flathead on the plains in the middle of the 

 eighteeenth century were the Pend d'Oreille and Kutenai on the north, 

 and the Shoshoni on the north, east, and south. These friendly tribes 

 recognized the right of the Flathead to hunt buffalo on a portion of 

 the plains. It was as plains buffalo hunters that the Blackfoot Indians 

 first met these people. Doubtless this accounts for the fact that the 

 Flathead are regarded as a plains tribe in the traditions of the Black- 

 foot. (Thompson, 1916, pp. 327-328; Wissler, 1910, p. 17.) 



In the latter half of the eighteenth century the powerful Blackfoot 

 tribes, with the Piegan in the lead, pushed southwestward through 

 present-day Alberta toward the Rockies and the northern tributaries 

 of the Missouri River. Armed with deadly firearms, obtained from 

 white traders on the Saskatchewan, and mounted on swift horses 

 stolen from their southern and western enemies, these aggressive 



