Coeur D'Alene People - History

History

The earliest written description of these people come from the journals of Alexander Henry the younger, a fur trader with the North West Company, drawn from his and David Thompson's experiences trading in the area from 1810 to 1814:

The Skeetshue or Pointed Hearts Indians dwell further southward, about Skeetshue Lake and River; they are a distinct nation, and have a different language from the Flat Heads. They are very numerous, and have a vast number of horses, as their country is open and admits of breeding them in great abundance.

Ross Cox, a clerk with the Pacific Fur Company and then the North West Company, spent considerable time at Spokane House between 1812 and 1817:

The Pointed Hearts, or as the Canadians call them, les Coeurs d’ Alênes (Hearts of Awls), are a small tribe inhabiting the shores of a lake about fifty miles to the eastward of Spokan House. Their country is tolerably well stocked with beaver, deer, wild-fowl, &c.; and its vegetable productions are similar to those of Spokan. Some of this tribe occasionally visited our fort at the latter place with furs to barter, and we made a few excursions to their lands. We found them uniformly honest in their traffic; but they did not evince the same warmth of friendship for us as the Spokans, and expressed no desire for the establishment of a trading post among them. They are in many respects more savage than their neighbors, and I have seen some of them often eat deer and other meat, raw. They are also more unfeeling husbands, and frequently beat their wives cruelly.

About twenty years before our arrival, the Spokans and Pointed Hearts were at war, caused by a kind of Trojan origin. A party of the former had been on a hunting visit to the land of the latter, and were hospitably received. One day, a young Spokan discovered the wife of a Pointed Heart alone, some distance from the village, and violated her. Although she might have born this in silence from one of her own tribe, she was not as equally forbearing with regard to a stranger, and immediately informed her husband of the outrage. He lost no time in seeking revenge, and shot the Spokan as he entered the village. The others fled to their own lands, and prepared for war. A succession of sanguinary conflicts followed, in the course of which the greatest warriors of both side were nearly destroyed. At the end of a year, however, hostilities ceased; since which period they have been at peace. The two nations now intermarry, and appear to be on the best terms of friendship.