The Kalispel Tribe’s Pend Oreille Valley homelands are rich in natural resources. The river bottoms, forested hillsides, and mountains held an abundance of game species, ranging from water fowl to caribou.

Buffalo hunts to the plains east of the continental divide were an annual tradition.  Fishing, both along nearby streams and rivers and at destination sites such as Kettle Falls (sx̣ʷnetkʷ), provided another major food source.

The Kalispel people (qlispélixʷ) also depended on countless plants, berries, and roots—the most important of all being camas (sx̣ʷéʔli).  “Kalispel,” or “Qlispé” in Salish, means “camas people,” reflecting the significance of the plant to the tribe.

Archaeological investigations show that the Kalispel people have harvested camas (sx̣ʷéʔli) for millennia.  In the late spring, they gathered camas along the riverside meadows where it grew in abundance.

The women dug the onion-like roots and baked them in shallow pit ovens heated with hot rocks and coals from a fire.  They covered the rocks and coals with 2-3” of soil, topped with skunk cabbage (tímuʔ), followed by the camas bulbs. After that, another layer of skunk cabbage was added and then it was all covered with soil.  On top of this all, they burned a small fire to maintain surface heat.  They maintained the fires from 24–48 hours to complete the baking.

Archaeologists have uncovered hundreds of camas ovens in the Pend Oreille River Valley, some measuring as much as 10 feet across.  The Kalispels produced hundreds of bushels of baked camas (ʔitx̣ʷe) each year, which they utilized as a basic food source through the long winters.

The camas harvest was both a time of community and spirituality.  The digging, gathering, and baking required determination and focus, but the time spent as a community also meant celebration. Gambling, stick games, and foot and canoe races all took place during this time.

Today, the Kalispel people still dig and bake camas in the same traditional areas as their ancestors.

 

Credits and Sources:

Andrefsky, William, Jr. and Kira M. Presler (Compilers). The Calispell Valley Archaeological Project Final Report, Volume 2: Historic and Ethnographic Background. Project Report Number 16, Center for Northwest Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman, 2000.

 Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Interior, 1870.

Bamonte, Tony and Suzanne Schaeffer Bamonte. History of Pend Oreille County. Spokane, Wash.: Tornado Creek Publications, 1996.

Lahren, Jr., Sylvester L. “Kalispel.” In Handbook of North American Indian, Plateau, Vol. 12, ed. Deward E. Walker, Jr., and William C. Sturtevant, 283–296. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1998.

Photographs courtesy of the The Kalispel Tribe of Indians.

Prepared by Historical Research Associates, with assistance from the Kalispel Tribe. Audio narration by J. R. Bluff of the Kalispel Tribe’s Cultural Program.