Ktunaxa

The Ktunaxa, also called Kutenai or Kootenay, live on the northern Columbia Plateau along the Kootenay River, in Upper and Lower groups. Their language is an isolate. One account says they began on the prairies and were pushed across the Rockies by the Blackfoot, and each year parties still crossed the mountains to hunt bison, often clashing with the Blackfoot over hunting grounds.

In the eighteenth century a Lower Kootenay prophet, Shining Shirt, foretold the coming of black-robed missionaries. The North West Company built Kootanae House among them in 1807 but abandoned it in 1812 under hostility from the Peigan.