Spokane people

Organization

The Spokane tribe was divided into three geographic divisions, upper, lower, and middle. Each area was then divided into bands which were composed of groups of related families or kin groups.

Individual bands were led by a chief and a sub chief who were both selected to lead based on their leadership qualities. Decisions were made by consensus of the group.^[6]

Usually the husband of a Spokane woman would join his wife's people, and although less likely, it could go the other way. There was mobility between bands, where a person or family could spend one winter with a band and the next winter with another.^[7]

Lifestyle

The Spokane diet consisted of fish, local game, and plants. They hunted whitetail deer and mule deer, essential nutrients in the winter. Individual hunters would track the deer and kill them using a bow and arrow. Fish, especially salmon, were a huge part of the Spokane diet and also a large part of the trade economy. The Spokane people also ate trout and whitefish. These fish would be smoked or dried for trade or stored for winter. Fish eyes were considered delicacies. Plants gathered by women provided nearly half of the caloric intake for the Spokane tribe.^[5]

Gender Roles

Men of the Spokane tribe created tools, fished, hunted, and eventually cared for horses which became essential to the Spokane lifestyle.^[6] Horses were introduced to the Spokane tribe from either the Nez Perce, Kalispel, or Flathead tribe. By about 1800, the Spokane tribe was acquiring herds, showing that the use of horses was fully implemented for the tribe.

Spokane women made coiled baskets out of birch bark (or out of cedar roots), and also wove wallets and bags from strips of animal hide. They would also sew mats and other items which were sometimes traded with other Native peoples and white traders and settlers.^[6] Some of the plants they gathered were camass roots and local berries and barks. The digging sticks the women used to gather food was seen as a rite of passage for young girls when they received their first digging stick. Women's graves were often marked with these sticks.^[5]

Religion

A Spokane religion was the Dreamer Cult, also called Washani meaning "worship" or "dancers". It developed in the Columbia Plateau tribes and emerged from the pressures of colonization during the second half of the nineteenth century.^[8]

The Dreamer Cult developed as a mix of traditional spirituality and aspects of Christianity. The Dreamer prophets rejected non-Native culture and belief systems. The prophets advocated returning to traditional ways of life which "[p]rior to contact, Plateau Indian spirituality revolved around a complex of Winter dances, personal vision quests, and seasonal feasts tied to the annual subsistence cycle and the acquisition of guardian spirit powers"(Fisher).^[8]

A few examples of spiritual dances include the Prophet Dance and the Spirit Dance which took place in mid January where the people involved sought to identify with his spirit. In the Spirit Dance a shaman would call upon the spirit to visit an individual.^[7] It is believed the prophet Smohalla in a vision "foresaw the disappearance of the whites, the resurrection of the Indian dead, and the restoration of the world to a pristine state. This millennial transformation required no acts of violence — indeed, most Dreamers counseled pacifism — but to achieve it, the Indians had to obey the instructions of the Creator as conveyed through the prophets" (Fisher).^[8] The Dreamer Cult remained prominent within the Columbia Plateau until the early 1890s when the major prophets died and their followers began to lose faith in the promise of a world free of white people. The closest contemporary religion to the Washani is the Seven Drums Religion.^[8]

Stories

• "Spokane Lake of Long Ago" told by Chief Lot^[9]
• "The Origin of the Spokane River"^[10]

Creation Story

The Creator, Amotkan made light only after all the animals had congregated to create it for Woodpecker up it, but the pole was too hot for him. They next sent Coyote up the pole. But he was too noisy, all the time shouting down to his children. Bear volunteered, but he found it too cold atop the pole. The sound of thunder shattered their efforts then. It loosened a piece of red rock, which turned into a handsome red man. He wanted a brother, so Amotkan gave him one made from the root of an herb called spowaunch. The two brothers went to a lodge occupied by a witch, Lady Bullfrog. She became so enamored of the brother formed of the root that she leaped onto his face—and stuck there. In pulling loose, she tore out one of his eyes. He then volunteered to ascend into the sky to be light for the earth, for he did not want people to see his face, now missing one eye. Thus, he became the sun, and when people looked at him, they had to close one of their own eyes. The other man joined his lonely brother in the sky. But before he did so, Lady Bullfrog had jumped onto his face, too. He became the moon. Today, if one looks carefully at the moon, one can see Lady Bullfrog clinging to his face.

Because he was lonesome, Coyote, after several failures, made Spokane man… Coyote then mixed all these elements together [pitch, clay, hot rock, and reeds] and—adding berries, smoke, and fire—created the Spokane man. With these same elements, he created Spokane woman, and Amotkan, the Creator, gave her life. Man and woman soon became wild, caring little for the safety of the others who had sprung from them. A flood came then and covered the land, destroying all except a few people. The survivors banded together for safety, elected a leader, and multiplied. In time, the leader divided the people into small groups. They became the various tribes.

— Spokane creation mythos as retold in The Spokane Indians: Children of the Sun (Ruby) ^[7]