The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation (Montana Salish: Séliš u Ql̓ispé, Kutenai: k̓upawiȼq̓nuk) are a federally recognized tribe in the U.S. state of Montana. The government includes members of several Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai and Pend d'Oreilles tribes and is centered on the Flathead Indian Reservation. The peoples of this area were named Flathead Indians by Europeans who came to the area. The name was originally applied to various Salish peoples, based on the practice of artificial cranial deformation by some of the groups, though the modern groups associated with the Flathead Reservation never engaged in it. Early days of the Salish The Salish (Flatheads) initially lived entirely east of the Continental Divide but established their headquarters near the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. Occasionally, hunting parties went west of the Continental Divide but not west of the Bitterroot Range. The easternmost edge of their ancestral hunting forays were the Gallatin Range, Crazy Mountain, and Little Belt Ranges. Early territory The Flathead and the Pend d'Oreille both agree that the Flathead once occupied a large territory on the plains east of the Rocky Mountains. This tribal homeland included the present-day counties of Broadwater, Jefferson, Deer Lodge, Silver Bow, Madison and Gallatin and parts of Lewis & Clark, Meagher and Park. This was about the time, when they got the first horses. The tribe consisted of at least four bands. Respectively, they had winter quarters near present-day Helena, near Butte, east of Butte and in the Big Hole Valley. Nearby peoples Right north of the Flathead lived the Salis-Tunaxe. There was no sharp line between the two tribal territories, and the people in the border zone often intermarried. Further north lived the Kutenai-Tunaxe (Kootenai-Tunaxe). Next to them lived the Salisan tribe's common enemy, the Blackfoot. West of the Rocky Mountains held the Pend d'Oreille the territory around Flathead Lake, and south of them occupied the Semteuse a relatively small area. The numerous Shoshone semi-surrounded the Salish from northeast to southwest. It seems the Salish did not know the Comanche and Kiowa at this time. They may have been regarded as bands of Shoshone. Later well-established plains tribes like the Sarsi, Assiniboine, Cree, Crow, Gros Ventre, Arapaho, Cheyenne and Sioux lived far away. They were unknown to the Salish. Horses and the changed life of the Salish The Salish got horses from the Shoshone, and the animal changed