Snchicu'umshcn

The Snchicu'umshcn, now commonly called the Coeur d'Alene or Skitswish, are an Interior Salish people of the lake district at the heart of the Idaho panhandle, whose villages stood along the Coeur d'Alene river and the shores of lake Coeur d'Alene. They lived by fishing, hunting and gathering camas on a seasonal round, wintering in clustered semi-subterranean earth lodges, and their language belongs to the Interior branch of Salishan.

Their first recorded encounter with Europeans was in 1793, and the name Cœur d'Alêne, French for 'heart of an awl', was first written down by the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1805; from 1810 North West Company traders Alexander Henry and David Thompson travelled and traded through their country.