The Sahaptin are a number of Native American tribes who speak dialects of the Sahaptin language. The Sahaptin tribes inhabited territory along the Columbia River and its tributaries in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Sahaptin-speaking peoples included the Klickitat, Kittitas, Yakama, Wanapum, Palus, Lower Snake, Skinpah, Walla Walla, Umatilla, Tenino, and Nez Perce.
Territory
According to early written accounts, Sahaptin-speaking peoples inhabited the southern portion of the Columbia Basin in Washington and Oregon. Villages were concentrated along the Columbia river, from the Cascades Rapids to near Vantage, Washington, and along the Snake River from the mouth to close to the Idaho border. The closely related Nez Perce tribe lived to the east. There were additional villages along tributaries, including the Yakima, Deschutes, and Walla Walla rivers. Several village lived were located west of the Cascade mountains in southern Washington, including those of the Upper Cowlitz tribe, and some of the Klickitat. The western portion of Sahaptin territory was shared with Chinookan tribes.
Heritage
They are of the Shahaptian linguistic stock, to which belong also the Nez Perce, with whom they maintained close friendly relations. They frequently competed with the Salishan-speaking tribes on their northern border, including the Flathead, Coeur d'Alene and Spokane. They were chronically at war with the Blackfeet, Crow, and Shoshoni on the east and south.
They call themselves Ni Mii Puu, meaning simply "the people", or "we the people". The name Sahaptin or Saptin was a term given by the Salishan tribes and adopted by European Americans. When Lewis and Clark came through the area in 1805, these people were called Chopunnish, possibly another form of Saptin. The popular and official name of the Nez Percé, "Pierced Noses", was originally given to the people by French-Canadian trappers. The term referred to the people's former custom of wearing a dentalium shell through a hole bored in the septum of the nose.
In 1805 the Sahaptin numbered, according to the most reliable estimates, probably over 6,000. Through the 19th century, their numbers declined sharply, due largely to mortality from new infectious diseases. Contributing causes were incessant wars with the more powerful Blackfeet in earlier years; a wasting fever, and measles epidemic (1847) from contact with immigrants; smallpox and other infectious diseases following the occupation of the country by miners after 1860; losses in the war of 1877 and subsequent removals; and wholesale spread of consumption because of outside contact. In 1848 they were officially estimated at 3,000; by 1910 they were officially reported at 1,530.
Culture
The clan system was unknown. Chiefs were elective rather than hereditary, governing by assistance of the council. Their bands were decentralized and there was no supreme tribal chief.
Accommodations
Their permanent houses were communal structures, sometimes circular, but more often oblong, about in width and in length, with a framework of poles covered by rush mats. In the interior, the floor was dug below the ground level, and earth banked up around the sides for insulation. An open space in the centre of the roof, allowed for the escape of smoke. On the inside were ranged fires along the centre at a distance of apart, each fire serving two families on opposite sides of the house, the family sections being sometimes separated by mat curtains. One house might shelter more than one hundred persons. Lewis and Clark mention one large enough to accommodate nearly fifty families. On temporary expeditions, they raised buffalo-skin tipis or brush shelters.
They also used sweat-houses and menstrual lodges. The permanent sweat-house was a shallow subterranean excavation, roofed with poles and earth and bedded with grass. The young and unmarried men slept here during the winter season. They occasionally performed sweat ceremonies by steam produced by pouring water upon hot stones placed in the centre.
There were also temporary sweat-houses, used in turn by both sexes. It had a framework of willow rods, covered with blankets, and heated stones were brought inside from fires. The menstrual lodge was constructed for the seclusion of women during the menstrual period, and for a short period before and after childbirth. It was a subterranean structure, considerably larger than the sweat-house, and entered by means of a ladder from above. The occupants cooked their meals alone and were not allowed to touch any articles used by outsiders, because of beliefs about the power of blood.