KUTENAI

also spelled Kootenay, North American Indian tribe distributed over southeastern British Columbia, northern Idaho, and northwestern Montana. Their language is of uncertain classification, some authorities placing it in the Wakashan family and some classifying it independently. The tribe is probably descended from an ancient Blackfoot group that migrated westward from the Great Plains to the drainage of the Kootenai River, a tributary of the upper Columbia. Plentiful streams and lakes, adequate rainfall, and abundant game and fish made their range the most favourable part of the plateau between the Rockies and the Pacific coast ranges. The Kutenai exhibit traits of both the Plains and the Plateau culture areas. After acquiring horses, they engaged in annual bison hunts through enemy country in the plains beyond the Rockies. War became more important, with formalized war honours becoming a means of social advancement and with slavery becoming more pervasive with the increase in war captives (women and children, mostly Blackfoot). The Kutenai dressed in skin clothing (breechclouts [breechcloths] for men, tunics for women), lived in conical skin tepees, and painted their garments, tents, and bodies much in the manner of the Plains Indians. Like other Plateau Indians, however, they engaged in communal fishing, built great bark and dugout canoes, and acknowledged a supreme chief only temporarily for special expeditions. Among the Kutenai there were no clans, classes, or secret societies; they were divided loosely into bands, each with a nominal leader and an informal council of elders. They worshiped the Sun and believed in a multitude of spirits pervading all things in nature. Medicine men, or shamans, were persons of considerable influence. Kutenai in modern times have become ranchers, sportsmen's guides, and labourers; they numbered fewer than 1,000 in the late 20th century.