The Flathead Indians are now located in western Montana, U.S. but used to have territory from the crest of the Bitterroot Range to the Continental Divide of the Rocky Mountains and centered on the upper Clark Fork of the Columbia River. One explanation for the name flathead is because they flattened the heads of their infants using boards. Another explanation is that the sign for the plains Indians involved pressing the sides of their head with their hands, as though they were flattening their head.
The main culture group they were in was mainly plateau Indians but they also called themselves Salish or Selish
The major language group they spoke was the Salishan language or something close to that since they descend from that group. Linguistics guess that various Salish speakers lived together in the interior of British Colombia several thousand years ago before separating into groups that preserved the language and some folk tales. …show more content…
Their technique was to drive the animals into lanes leading either to corrals or over cliff edges. They also used communal drives to hunt deer and antelope. After the hunt, a Flathead community would divide the meat among the people. Fish and vegetable were also in their diet but they fished less than other tribes because fish were less available on the eastern side and because other food sources, like bison, were more abundant. In March or April, a ceremony marked the harvest of the first bitterroot plants. Bitterroots and other plants would be dried and kept for later use. Sun-dried berries, such as chokeberries and huckleberries, would be ground and pressed into cakes. The Flathead also ground and dried meat. Women had a big role in collecting food and cooking in all