My name is Sahale, it means Falcon. I am the son of the chief of the Spokane tribe.

My life as a Spokane Indian

I live in the plateau region of North America, it is the year I am going to turn 16 in two weeks and my father the chief of the tribe has promised me fine weapons. I live with my father and two sisters, my mother died when I was 8. This is my personal life, now I am going to tell you about my tribe.

Everyday life

Our houses are separated into two groups, the groups we use during winter and the one we use during summer. Our “winter villages” are, we make them near the main rivers in our territory, these houses are long and partly underground. In the summer we live in camps with mat covered cone-shaped houses in the meadow.

Our clothes are mainly made of animal hides and feathers. These clothes include vests, head dresses, moccasins, hats, headdresses and headbands.

We hunt animals such as bears, moose, beaver, bison, and birds. My favorite treat is salmon and trout with a side of berries and cheese.

Our tribe has two separate types of art, the eastern form of art we have is from The Great Plains Indians, meanwhile our western form of art is from the North Western Indians. We also have special rituals for a girl when she becomes a women and a boy when he becomes a man. Girls become women at age 13 after living in a lodge with their hair bound in rolls, only washing herself after the flow in the sweathouse, painting her face yellow or red, wearing undecorated clothing, drinking through a drinking tube and only touching her hair with a small comb. Boys at age 16 have to spend some days fasting on a mountain top.

Our Tribe also has a set of special clothing, weapons and strategies we use during hunting. These include wrist guards, vests and Headdresses. We use bows and arrows, spears, traps, snares, slings, “surrounding”, “tree stands” and “ circle drives”.

The Land

My family and I live on the edge of a plateau step that has a rock face that drops 500 feet, to the feared valley of death. Anybody that falls of the cliff face always dies unless he or she manage to catch a handhold and pull themselves up. The plateau step we live on is one amongst thousands of others. The other cliff face however shows a breathtaking view of the sunset. Most of our tribe members live on other plateau steps although some prefer to live in the valleys between the plateau steps.

We have many plants, these include Poison Ivy, Texas Sugarberry, Cottonwood, Foxtail grass and black cherries. We also have many animals that we hunt. Some are Owls, turtles, waterfowl, Wolves and Wolverines.

We are probably the only animals to eat many of the animals we eat. When we hunt wolves they have probably have eaten goats which have eaten grass to grow plumper. As they eat each other they get plumper and therefore have much more meat for us to eat, that is why we prefer to eat plumper animals.

There are many ways to live get adapt to the region. We all have different ways of dealing with them, some are living in a valley in between a plateau, while you do get more water than the people at the top of a plateau you are also more susceptible to falling rocks than people living on the top of a plateau and Vice Versa for people living on the top of the plateaus.

The amount of rain we get every year would not even reach the top of a man’s calf, the only exception is plateau which gets enough rain a year to reach a man’s thighs. The further North we get the colder it gets. That is why I enjoy my annual trips to the southern part of our territory.

Our tribe adapts to the weather by simply changing our houses for winter and summer. In the summer we live in long, partly underground houses. In the summer we have light, airy, cone-shaped, mat covered huts in the meadow.

Many of our struggles are with how little water we get. In order for a family to have enough water for the entire day the women in the family would have to travel for large distances to a water source with a large pot, refill it and than travel all the way back home. That is why many of us prefer to live near a water source although there are a lot of flies in that area. That is why some of us don’t like living near rivers.3

Our tribe is enjoying a comfortable relationship with our neighboring tribes. Everything looks bright although many of our tribe’s leading astronomers see grave calamities in the skies. We are building fortresses to protect ourselves from the calamities. Until the next time we meet, I would like to say goodbye. Sahale out.

I think I should get at least a 90 because I tried my best to find good information although I could not get a lot of good websites on the Spokane tribe. I also tried to make it as much of first person in the presentation as possible - Rithvik

Bibliography / Social studies notebook