44 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IIO 



THE UPPER PEND D'OREILLE INDIANS 



The Pend d'Oreille or Kalispel Indians lived in the region north 

 and northwest of the Flathead in pre-reservation days. The name 

 Pend d'Oreille ("Hanging Ears") was said to have been given them 

 by early nineteenth-century fur traders because many of these Indians 

 wore large shell ear ornaments at that time. Pend d'Oreille territory 

 extended from the western base of the Rockies about Flathead Lake 

 westward beyond Pend d'Oreille Lake into the northeastern portion 

 of the present State of Washington. In the middle of the nineteenth 

 century two major divisions of the tribe were recognized, the Upper 

 Pend d'Oreille of the Flathead Lake region, and the Lower Pend 

 d'Oreille in the neighborhood of Pend d'Oreille Lake. At that time 

 the distinction was political as well as geographical. Each division 

 possessed its own head chief and subchiefs. However, both groups 

 spoke the same dialect of the Salishan language. It may be assumed 

 that they were formerly one tribe. Teit obtained traditions from the 

 Upper Pend d'Oreille to the effect that the Flathead Lake region was 

 the traditional tribal homeland, and that the Lower Division was an 

 offshoot of the Upper Pend d'Oreille. However, Dr. Suckley and 

 Governor Stevens of the Pacific Railway Survey a half century earlier 

 (1855) assumed that the Upper Pend d'Oreille division "had been 

 formed at a comparatively recent period." (Teit, 1930, pp. 296, 303, 

 311 ; Report of Explorations, etc., i860, vol. i, pp. 149, 294.) The 

 native name, Kalispel (meaning camas), was applied to the Pend 

 d'Oreille in general by early fur traders. Some more recent writers 

 have limited its application to the Lower Pend d'Oreille. 



The Pend d'Oreille were more numerous than their Flathead neigh- 

 bors. Anson Dart estimated Lower Pend d'Oreille population at 520, 

 and that of the Upper Pend d'Oreille at 480, in 185 1. In Major 

 Owen's census of 1861 the Upper Pend d'Oreille totaled 184 families 

 of 895 souls ; the Flathead 90 families of 548 souls. (Ann. Rep. Comm. 

 Ind. Aff., 1851, p. 478; Owen, 1927, vol. 2, p. 262.) 



The Pend d'Oreille were mentioned less frequently by early nine- 

 teenth-century traders than were the Flathead. However, their his- 

 tory prior to 1840 paralleled that of the Flathead in general outline. 

 Presumably they lived by hunting, fishing, and collecting in the area 

 immediately west of the Rockies in pre-horse times. After they ob- 

 tained horses, they crossed the mountains on seasonal buffalo-hunting 

 excursions. Usually they hunted north of the Flathead, between the 

 Rockies and the Sweetgrass Hills on the present International Bound- 

 ary. (Partoll, 1937, p. 7.) They were driven off the plains by the 



