Flatheads - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

FLATHEADS, a tribe of North American Indians of Salishan stock. They formerly occupied the mountains of north-western Montana and the country around. They have always been friendly to the whites. Curiously enough they have not the custom, so general among American tribes, of flattening the heads of their infants. Father P. J. de Smet in 1841 founded among them a mission which proved the most successful in the north-west. With the Pend d'Oreille tribe and some Kutenais they are on a reservation in Montana, and number a few hundreds.