Pend d’Oreille and Salish Mothers Sew Beautiful, Meaningful Regalia to Connect Their Daughters to Their Culture

The Ql’ispé (Pend d’Oreille or Kalispel) and Séliš (Salish or Flathead) people are the easternmost tribes of the Salish language-speaking family. They reside today on the Flathead Indian Reservation as the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. The reservation is located in western Montana on the Flathead River, although the entire Salish language family territory stretches across Montana and along the Columbia River to the Pacific Coast. 

The Pend d’Oreille and Salish tribes share similar cultures and life practices. In their traditional way of living, women gathered roots and berries from their homelands along the Bitterroot Valley to cook and create medicines. They cared for and dried out the bison hides, elk and deer buckskins, and sea otter pelts that the men hunted to make clothing, a tradition which continues today. 

Sewing Salish-style clothing is an important role of mothers, who create intricately beaded regalia for their daughters to participate in traditional Salish dances. They design these important pieces from animal hides, pelts, and cloth. Once sewn together, the mothers often color them with natural dyes and decorate them with porcupine quills, beads, and shells. Mothers may also incorporate symbols into their daughters’ dress that symbolize their infinite love for them as well as symbolic animals. They might also acquire specific pieces, such as beaded moccasins, from matrilineal relatives. The mothers will also teach their own daughters to bead as the craft is passed down from generation to generation.  

The dances they perform in their vibrant regalia celebrate the joys and burdens of survival that they experience through seasonal and life changes. They continue to learn and carry on their tribes’ culture, history, traditions, and heritage by participating in these dances and the crafting of their outfits, which keep their identities strong. 

To learn more about the Pend d’Oreille and Salish tribes, check out these links: 

Tribal Legacy Project (lc-triballegacy.org) 

Home (csktribes.org) 

Flathead Watershed Sourcebook Home Page 

Interior Salish | Discovering Lewis & Clark ® (lewis-clark.org) 

The Salish Institute 

Our Mother Tongues | Salish 

S&K Technologies, Inc. | The S&K Family of Companies (sktcorp.com) 

Old Medicine Singers and Dancers