Kittitas people
ethnic group
The Kittitas (Sahaptin: Pshwánapam, pronounced [ˈpʃwanapam]; also known as the Upper Yakama) are a Sahaptin tribe closely related to the Yakama, sometimes described as a band or subtribe of the Yakama. Their traditional territories are found within Kittitas and Yakima counties within Washington state, chiefly in the Kittitas Valley, Naches Valley, Wenas Valley, and upper Yakima Valley. Individuals of Kittitas descent are today enrolled in the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima and the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, but the Kittitas are not recognized as a distinct band by either tribal government.
Etymology
Kittitas is derived from the Sahaptin toponym k'ɨtɨtáš "gravel bank place", referring to a location along the banks of the Yakima River. Pshwánapam ("rock people") is the common Sahaptin endonym for the group, formerly transliterated as Pisch-wan-wap-pam. Kittitas County is named for the tribe.
History
The Kittitas traditionally occupied an intermediary role between other Plateau groups and the Coast Salish groups west of the Cascades. The course of the upper Yakima in the Kittitas Valley offered access to Snoqualmie Pass and Stampede Pass, both used as trade routes to the Puget lowlands. The Kittitas acquired horses by the 1730s, and traded for cattle and western vegetables with the Hudson's Bay Company outpost at Fort Nisqually.
During the 1804-1806 expedition, Lewis and Clark referred to the Kittitas as the 'Shan-wap-pom'.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kittitas people” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.