The Salish were Plateau Indians. The Plateau region lies between the Rocky Mountains and the coastal cordillera and is characterized by semiarid region of sagebrush, grass, and scattered pine groves that are interwoven with rivers and streams containing plentiful salmon and other fish.
All Salish-speaking Indians probably originated in British Columbia. From their base in western Montana, the Salish may have moved farther east onto the Plains before being pushed back around 1600 by the Blackfeet.
They colored their clothing with natural dyes and decorated them with porcupine quills. They fashioned tools from stone, bones, and wood. They lived in houses made of bark and reeds, as well as in the skin tipis.
It was general practice to ‘deform’ the heads of infant children by binding a cedar bark pad tightly against the forehead under a strap tied to the sides of a cradle.
Traditional art forms include baskets, hats, capes, blankets, carved wooden household items, masks, paddles, canoes, totem poles, screens, bentwood boxes, stone carvings, and copper works.
