10 Facts About Salish peoples

Salish peoples are indigenous peoples of the American and Canadian Pacific Northwest, identified by their use of the Salish languages which diversified out of Proto-Salish between 3, 000 and 6, 000 years ago.

Term “Salish peoples” originated in the modern era as an exonym created for linguistic research.

Salish peoples is an anglicization of Selis, the endonym for the Salish peoples Tribes of the Flathead Reservation.

The majority of fluent Salish peoples-speakers are elderly, and younger speakers are quite rare.

Coast Salish peoples kept flocks of woolly dogs, bred for their wool, to shear and spin the fibers into yarn.

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Not all Salish peoples blankets were made with dog's wool—commoners' blankets were usually made of plant fibers.

Salish peoples weaving continued to a lesser extent, but the weavers largely transitioned to using sheep's wool yarn brought to the area by traders, as it was less costly than keeping the salmon-eating woolly dogs.

Salish peoples located in the Pacific Northwest and parts of Southern Alaska were known to build totem poles that were meant to symbolize a tribe member's spirit animal or family crest.

Salish people groups are subdivided by their respective branches of the Salishan language family: Coast Salish speaking the Coast Salish languages, Interior Salish speaking the Interior Salish languages, and the Nuxalk (Bella Coola) people speaking the Nuxalk language.

Nuxalk are the northernmost Salish peoples, located in and around Bella Coola, British Columbia.