The area now called the “Moon Randolph Homestead” is situated within the vast territories and history of the Séliš and Ql̓ispé people. Séliš-Ql̓ispé oral literature extends to the end of the last Ice Age when Glacial Lake Missoula filled the Missoula Valley and engulfed this location. As the waters receded and from time immemorial, the Séliš-Ql̓ispé and their ancestors have flourished in this area.  

A well-worn Séliš-Ql̓ispé trail ran west to east—from the Missoula Valley, along the thicket of čt̓et̓ʔu (wild plums), up what is now the road to the Homestead, and crossing the North Hills ridgeline just above the property. From there, the trail continued down into the Rattlesnake Valley and over the saddle of Nm̓p̓ʷé (“Humped Mountain,” known in English as Mount Jumbo).  

This east-west route was part of a complex trail system. Salish-speaking peoples have traveled these routes to trade and visit with one another, following a seasonal cycle of hunting and gathering. The trail near the Homestead continues east up Naáycčstm Swełkʷs (“Bull Trout’s Waters,” the Blackfoot River) to fishing and camas digging grounds in the river valley and to buffalo hunting grounds on the plains. Another fork of the trail turns southeast to Ncqʷel̓stétkʷ (“Flint-Stuck-in-the-Ground Waters,” the Upper Clark Fork River) where Séliš-Ql̓ispé and other tribes have gathered flint, fished, and hunted deer and bison.  To the west, trails lead to salmon country down Nčłʔumnétkʷ (“Big Horn Sheep Waters,” the Lower Clark Fork River) and over several mountain passes through Ckʷlkʷlqén (“Red-Topped Peaks,” the Bitterroot Mountains). Additional trails followed the valley south along the Nstetčcxʷetkʷ (“Waters of the Red-Osier Dogwood,” the Bitterroot River), north to Cłq̓étkʷ (“Broad Surface of Water,” Flathead Lake), and beyond.

In the time since the Séliš-Ql̓ispé encountered Lewis and Clark in 1805, policies of the U.S. government confined the Séliš-Ql̓ispé to smaller and smaller portions of their aboriginal territory. Increasing numbers of settlers, development, threats of disease, military pressure and diminishing food supply greatly impacted Indigenous peoples’ ability to access their lands and continue to follow the seasonal cycles that their ways of life depended on. The 1855 Hellgate Treaty, negotiated through complicated and insufficient translations, ceded 20 million acres of land to the US government but also reserved tribal rights to continue to use that land for traditional purposes.  

Less than ten years after the Hellgate Treaty was signed, Congress passed the Homestead Act of 1862—incentivizing settlers to subdivide and privatize federal lands, many of which had been forcefully ceded from Indigenous peoples. This pattern of encroachment and oppression has continued for generations. 

Even despite the continuing legacies of settler-colonialism, the reslient Séliš-Ql̓ispé people remain deeply connected to their aboriginal territories and engaged in the local community. The Séliš-Ql̓ispé Cultural Committee and Confederated Salish and Kootenai (CSKT) Cultural Preservation Office have become recognized leaders in Indigenous cultural preservation. At the Nk̓ʷusm Immersion School and Three Chiefs Culture Center, elders mentor youth and are revitalizing the Salish language. The innovative and well-respected CSKT Natural Resources Department not only stewards the tribes’ natural resources, but ensures that new generations recognize and engage with the cultural and ecological significance of these resources.  As these efforts demonstrate, the CSKT, on their website theREZweLIVEon, “refer to themselves as People of Vision.”

We, at the Moon Randolph Homestead, acknowledge and honor the longstanding historic and contemporary relationship Séliš-Ql̓ispé people have to this site. In a book reflecting on the Séliš-Ql̓ispé encounter with the Lewis and Clark expedition, the Séliš-Ql̓ispé Cultural Committee and Elders Cultural Advisory Council write that, “hope for the future depends on us continuing toward an honest and shared understanding of the past.”  As a public historic site, we, at the Moon Randolph Homestead, recognize our role and responsibility in contributing to a community understanding of both our complicated past and our hopeful future.  

References and to learn more:

• CSKT. (2021). theREZweLIVEon. http://therezweliveon.com 

• CKST Cultural Preservation. (2021). Cultural Preservation. https://www.csktribes.org/index.php/history-and-culture/cultural-preservation 

• CSKT Natural Resources Department. (2015). Welcome to the Natural Resources Department. http://csktnrd.org  

• CSKT Natural Resources Department. (2019). CSKT Fish and Wildlife Apps: Learning about the environment of the Flathead Reservation. https://csktfwapps.org

• CSKT Natural Resources Department. (2021). Explore the River: Bull Trout, Tribal People, and the Jocko River. http://fwrconline.csktnrd.org/Explore/index.html

• Nk̓ʷusm Immersion School. (2021). Our Beginnings. https://www.nkwusm.com/beginnings 

• Séliš-Ql̓ispé Culture Committee. (2016). Salish Qlispe 1: Salish Language App. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/salish-qlispe-1/id1133791833?mt=8

• Séliš-Ql̓ispé Culture Committee. (2019). Skʷskʷstúlexʷ, Names upon the Land: Ethnography of the Salish and Kalispel People: A Portfolio of Maps and Signs. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.  [Available for purchase here.] 

• Séliš-Ql̓ispé Culture Committee. (2021). History. http://www.csktsalish.org/index.php/history 

• Séliš-Ql̓ispé Culture Committee and Elders Cultural Advisory Council, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. (2018). The Salish People and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Revised Edition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.  [Available for purchase here.] 

• Séliš-Ql̓ispé People. Séliš-Ql̓ispé Nuwewlštn (Salish-Qlispe Online Dictionary). http://salishlanguagedictionary.com/main

• Three Chiefs Culture Center. (2021). Education. https://threechiefs.org 
  
  

  
  

  Photos courtesy of: Archives & Special Collections, Mansfield Library, University of Montana