Introduction

"My young men shall never work. Men who work cannot dream; and wisdom comes to us in dreams. You ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s breast? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stone. Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men. But how dare I cut off my mother’s hair? "

-Smohalla, religious leader of the Wanapum.

People have lived in Central Washington for 11,500 years, and possibly longer than that. Before contact with European cultures people lived in close proximity to the Columbia River, and journeyed up the valleys into the mountains and onto the Columbia Plateau for seasonal hunting and gathering trips. People lived in very small groups, made up of close family ties. These groups might have been composed of 2 to 15 people that travelled to hunting and gathering grounds together. As time went on the population of this area expanded and people began to form small bands, and occupy small villages. Tribal groups in this area include Salishan speaking people to the north- the Methow (Mitois, Chiliwists), Entiat (Sinialkumuhs, Point de Bois), Chelan (Tsill-anes), Wenatchee (Pisquows, Wenatchi), Sinkiuse (Kawachens, Moses Columbia, Isle des Pierres), and Shahaptian speaking groups to the south- the Wanapums (Sakulks) and the now extinct groups of Pshwahwapam and Mical.

This Central Washington region is thought to have sustained at least 20,000 to 30,000 Native Americans before infectious diseases, war, and the reservation system decimated the population. It is estimated that there were 1,400 Wenatchi in 1700, but by Lewis and Clark in 1805 the people were already decimated by small pox and there were only 820 left. According to a survey in 1990 of the Colville Reservation there are less that 75 speakers of the Columbia-Wenatchi Salishan dialect, and only 39 Columbia speakers. This was 20 years ago, currently there may be no speakers left.

At the end of the last ice age, there were still mammoths, large bison, ground sloth, giant beaver, and other now extinct animals that lived in this area. During this period of time people probably relied heavily on hunting for food. The first people known from this area are from the Clovis culture- known for complex and large stone tools. There was a Clovis weapon and tool cache found in East Wenatchee, Douglas County- in which the tools are also associated with extinct animals such as mastodon. As time went on the climate grew warmer and more arid, many of the large animals became extinct, and parts of the forests which covered this area were replaced by sagebrush and desert. As aridity increased plants and animals such as pronghorn antelope and cactus that were already adapted to desert-like conditions migrated into this area from the south.

There was a great variety of resources available to people living here. From the Columbia River there was salmon, sturgeon, other fish, and river mussels. Elk, deer, bighorn sheep, mountain goat, pronghorn, bear, rabbits, duck, geese, and other animals were hunted using snares and traps, or by arrows and spears. Although people were dependent on hunting, and in later times fishing for the majority of their food, plant foods also played an important role. It has been estimated that up to fifty percent of the diets of people were composed of plant foods. Plants were also important for housing, clothes, utensils and tools.