Many Native American tribes have names or autonyms of American-Indian origin or from languages belonging to native tribes.
However, a name like “Colville” for a group of native people draws curiosity toward the origination and history of the nation.
We promise to tell how the tribe coined the name, which people recognize today, but herein lies accounts about the tribe’s history, details about its culture, and other intriguing facts that bring the Colville tribe into the light.
Colville Tribe History
Little is known about the Colville tribe before European contact in the 19th century.
However, they occupied eastern Washington on the Colville River and the Columbia River and Kettle Falls areas in the 18th century with a population of approximately 2000 individuals.
Kettle Falls is an important location in the tribe’s history as it was a crucial salmon fishing location and a significant post of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
European contact came in the 1800s before missionary visits in the late 1830s.
Despite living in eastern Washington for centuries, the British colonizers and White settlers that later formed the U.S. government refused to consider the natives as citizens of the territories across the region.
However, they earned little reservation in their historic lands following the creation of the Washington Territory.
In 1872, the natives relocated to the Colville reservation in eastern Washington.
The people remained as settlers in their reservation despite losing over half of their reserved lands until the government awarded them federal recognition in 1938.
The world around them revolved as many native tribes and individuals continued to assimilate the European culture while the Colville tribe converted to Catholicism in the early 20th century.
Today, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (CCT), a federally recognized nation of twelve bands, occupies and manages the reservation.
The bands include the Okanogan, Moses-Columbia, Nespelem, Nez Perce, Sanpoil, Colville, Chelan, Wenatchi, Arrow Lakes, Methow, Entiat, and Palus.
The CCT also ensures the tribe’s security by executing the Colville Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan (CCEMP) as a necessary response.
Colville Tribe Culture
The Colville tribe were likely nomads until the mid-1800s and developed a culture that suited their lifestyle.
Their dwellings, societal structure, activities, and customs were tailored to their nomadic traditions.
While things changed after European contact and as the American government forced the assimilation of European cultures, we will review the cultural identity of the Colville tribe.
Language
The Colville-Okanagan, alongside the Spokane-Kalispel-Bitterroot, Wenatchee-Columbian, and Coeur d’Alene, makes up the Plateau’s four Southern Interior Salishan languages.
The Colville language is among the six Colville-Okanagan dialects historically spoken by the “Syilx peoples.”
Syilx is the historic autonym of the Okanagan peoples; however, it has become a present-day political term for cultural and land claims for all Colville-Okanagan-speaking tribes.
The Colville tribe have commenced programs to teach the three languages spoken on the reservation.
As such, tribal elders educate young ones who intend to become language teachers.
The tribe works with local universities to receive college credits for these language students.
Activities, Gender Roles, and Division of Labor
As nomads, the Colville tribe spent their non-winter months hunting, fishing, and gathering.
They fished for salmon, hunted birds and other large game, and gathered roots and berries along the mountain meadows.
While men engaged in the most physically demanding jobs like hunting and fishing, women gathered camas, nuts, and seeds and assisted the men by collecting salmon eggs.
Families relied on whatever they had gathered and stored during winter.
The Colville tribe established their economy around trading furs and probably revered tobacco as an excellent trading commodity as a Northwest Coast Tribe.
After European contact, the people improved their mobility after horse acquisition in the late 1700s.
As such, they hunted buffaloes — a cultural trait they adopted from the Plains Indians.
They reverted to farming following the Canadian border’s establishment in the 20th century, while some individuals worked as laborers and loggers.
Food
The natives had a large menu containing mollusks, meat, fish, especially salmon, and berries and fruits from gatherings.
Individuals and families generally ate two meals during summer and were more conservative in winter, when they had one meal per day.
Women cleaned and dried the fish men had caught and roasted, boiled, and dried meat and mollusks.
Clothing and Grooming
Colville’s traditional costumes comprised a fur robe, a bark breechclout or apron, and a bark poncho.
Individuals wore shell ornaments from the Pacific Coast, animal teeth and claws, and porcupine quillwork as decorations to beautify their outfits.
Contemporary Colville tribe women in the 20th century preferred Hudson’s Bay woolen fabrics and beadwork jewelry.
Until today, they appreciate blankets from a wooden mill in Pendleton.
Housing
Like the Iroquois, the Colville tribe inhabited longhouses; however, theirs were not built from tree bark and hickory or cedar poles but of tule matting covering wooden frames.
They occupied those dwellings in the summer and, during winter, moved to permanent villages with several structures, including a menstrual house, sweat lodge, pregnancy domain, and a structure for childbirth.
Settlements may include extensive ceremonial buildings and underground pit houses.
After horse acquisition in the European era, the natives built teepees as portable homes.
Administration
The Colvilles had autonomous villages with a chief and a sub-chief.
Chieftaincy candidates consisted of married adults who gave their names for consideration; however, candidates were expected to possess qualities like integrity, honesty, and diplomacy.
Religion
The Colville people believe in a Supreme Being, which they call by various names.
They believe that every element in nature, including landforms, plants, and animals, contain spirits they can summon for aid in war success, crop production, and healing.
Young men and women engage in vision quests, a ceremony where they undergo an isolated period in the wilderness and connect with their guardian spirit.
The guardian spirit protects and guides them throughout life.
Contemporary Colvilles in the nineteenth century became Roman Catholics, while others became Protestants.
However, many individuals embraced the Seven Drum Religion, the Native American Church, and the Indian Shaker religion in the twentieth century.
Many Christian Colvilles also practice other Native religious customs.
Education
Education dates as early as childhood when children learn their gender-based duties by observing their elders.
In the 19th century, children attended mission schools; however, most students have been attending public schools on the reservation or the Paschel Sherman Indian School since the 20th century.
Some tribal members seek higher education in fields that greatly benefit the tribe, including law, health policy, natural resource management, business, and social work.
Customs
Mothers were compelled to remain in a birth hurt during the last month of pregnancy, and midwives assisted in the birth process; however, they called shamans for challenging births.
They massaged their babies’ noses and mouths daily to ensure they were properly shaped.
Babies were held in high esteem, evidenced by the celebrations a baby and its mother received as they returned home from the birth hurt a month after the baby’s birth.
Elderly relatives gave and called babies nicknames until they were about nine years old when they received their original names.
While a couple’s families exchanged gifts, there were no wedding ceremonies.
Widows were obligated to express their grief by wearing tattered clothes and shaving their hair.
They burnt their dead on the ground or in canoes and marked graves with a circle or pile of stones, placing a long stick at the head of the grave.
The people performed puberty rites and other festivals in the past but currently hold annual events like the Trophy Powwow, winter Chinook dances, annual spring Thanksgiving Root Feast, Omak Stampede, and the world-famous Suicide Race.
Colville Tribe Facts
1. The name Colville is coined from the Scheulpi of Chualpay native people’s association with Fort Colville, named after the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Andrew Colvile.
Earlier, the French traders called them Les Chaudières (“the Kettles”), referring to them occupying Kettle Falls.
2. In 1938, the federal government opened the Grand Coulee Dam, which destroyed salmon spawning grounds and flooded many Colville-owned farms and orchards.
Eventually, the event changed the tribe’s economic base and lifestyle.
3. The people established the Colville Tribal Enterprise Corporation (CTEC) to improve economic development in 1984.
4. The Colville tribe, alongside the Yakama, in conjunction with the University of Washington, has received a $500,000 grant to build community technology centers in each tribal community.
5. The Colville people recently started a new decision-making method called “holistic management,” where they consider the values and feelings of everyone involved, not only expert opinions.
6. The Colville Business Council rules over the Confederated Tribes and the Colville Indian Reservation.
They formulate policies to improve their economic conditions and stress, and preserve and protect human and renewable resources.
The Tribal Law and Order Code encapsulates general and specific laws and amendments.
Conclusion
The Colville tribe are more than a native tribe associated with Fort Colville, but a people with a Native American history and a rich culture formed around a nomadic lifestyle. Their account is that beckons all to read!
