Language and Territory: Mysteries of the Kootenay Culture

Kisuk kiyukyit. You won’t find this Ktunaxa (Kootenay) phrase, which means both “hello” and “goodbye,” in any other language. Anthropologists continue to puzzle over the origins of the Kootenay people, and the apparent uniqueness of their language.

Singular Speech: Although some scholars have suggested that the Kootenay language may be a derivative of the Alongkian-Wakashan linguistic stock, most have concluded that it is not related to any known linguistic family. The Kootenay language is even further differentiated by varying dialects spoken by “Upper Kootenay” and “Lower Kootenay” tribes. A written version of the unique oral Kootenay language has been developed, and has become part of the school curriculum of contemporary bands such as the Lower Kootenay, near Creston, British Columbia.

The origins of the Kootenay people are also an ongoing subject of investigation and debate. The contemporary geographical territory of the Ktunaxa (Kootenay) Nation includes southeastern British Columbia, west of the Rocky Mountains, within the basins of the Kootenay and Lower Columbia Rivers, extending about 200 kilometres south of the Canada-U.S. border into northern Idaho and northwestern Montana. (A more abbreviated version of Kootenay territory refers simply to the drainage of the Kootenay River, including Kootenay Lake.)

Uncertain Origins: Have the Kootenay always lived west of the Rockies? Many traditional Kootenay stories and legends – and some historians - maintain that the Kootenay are an indigenous Plateau people who have resided in their present location for millennia, venturing east through mountain passes to hunt buffalo. A lone Kootenay tribe, east of the Continental Divide, is thought to have succumbed to smallpox in the early 1700’s.

Other traditional and historical accounts (including 20th century research by noted American ethnographer Dr. Harry H. Turney-High) suggest that the Kootenay were once Plains-dwellers. According to this historical interpretation, the displacement of the Kootenay to the west side of the Rockies took place early in the 18th century. Their movement is attributed to the domino effect of the fur trade, in which eastern-dwelling Cree gradually shifted west into the Plains, pushing Plains-dwelling Blackfoot tribes even further west. The Blackfoot, who acquired guns and horses in advance of the Kootenay, in turn forced the former Plains tribes over the mountains, where they adopted the Kootenay River watershed as their new territory.

Historical record provides support for the “displacement” theory of Kootenay territory. In the early 19th century, explorers and fur traders such as David Thompson (who constructed the first trading post in Kootenay territory in 1807) frequently referred to the animosity between the Kootenay and the Blackfoot Peigan tribe, and the ongoing efforts of the Peigan to discourage European trade with the Kootenay. Skirmishes and full-scale warfare between the Kootenay and the Blackfoot often occurred when the Upper Kootenay crossed the mountains to hunt bison.

Despite the relative richness of the natural resources of the Kootenay region, the density of the Kootenay population appears to have remained low. While it has been suggested that Kootenay numbers may have reached several thousand in earlier centuries, it is thought that there were only about 1,200 Kootenay at the time of European contact. Like most North American indigenous peoples, the Kootenay suffered great losses from European-borne diseases.

Canoe Connection? : As the Kootenay origin-and-language debate continues, a cross-cultural coincidence raises intriguing questions: the sturgeon-nose canoe design, with its sharply-pointed bow and stern, was once thought to be unique to the North American Kootenay. In the mid-1800’s, however, a canoe of similar design was discovered in the Amur River region of Siberia. (See “The Sturgeon-Nose Canoe,”.)