#colestah

"Women participated in war, an aspect of life that may be classified as political. Father Peter De Smet, the famous Jesuit missionary, recorded that Flathead women served as assistants in warfare: they retrieved arrows and intervened in the battle if a relative’s life was endangered. Point said of women’s battle role:

Several women rivaled the bravest of the men in courage. In the midst of the fray an elderly woman, hatchet in hand, hurled herself so violently between her son, whose horse was tiring, and a Crow on the point of reaching him, that the pursuer, despite his giant stature, judged it prudent to move away. Another younger woman went about on the battlefield gathering up arrows for those of her warriors who had run out of them. Another, who had advanced too far in pursuit of the enemy, made such a swift about face, at the very moment several arms were outstretched to grab her, that she galloped back to her own lines leaving the enemy stupefied. Still another, after having spent some time pursuing several Crows, returned saying, “I thought these great talkers were men, but I was wrong. They are not even worth pursuing.” 

Point further mentioned a female warrior in passing: “All the Pend d’Oreilles warriors rode out, led by Kuiliy, a young Pend d’Oreilles woman renowned for intrepidity on the field of battle.” Unfortunately, he did not further describe this woman. 

Another warrior woman was Colestah, wife to Chief Kamiakin, who participated in the Battle of Four Lakes and Spokane Plain against Colonel George Wright in 1858. She armed herself with a stone war club and fought by her husband’s side. When Kamiakin was wounded, she rescued him and - being a medicine woman - used her healing skills to cure him. It is apparent that women had the option of becoming not only assistants in warfare but warriors in their own right, either regularly or on an occasional basis. Plateau women apparently took part in peacetime politics as well as war. “It is no rare occurrence to see a woman step in during council and severely upbraid the chief”.

Before Plateau people were restricted to reservations, a few women participated in warfare on a voluntary basis, sometimes in defense. While under siege from the Assiniboine, a Flathead woman ran out of a besieged tent with a pistol and shot an attacker dead. Southern Okanogan women and children retired behind barricades during raids on the village. If an enemy approached too closely, a woman “with much power” (spiritual) seized weapons and fought even if menstruating. Her guardian spirit protected her and made her strong. Under such circumstances, a woman could touch weapons and retain the enemy weapons she had captured.