| Group: | Kittitas |
| Native Name: | Pshwánapam |
| Native Name Lang: | yak |
| Languages: | Sahaptin (Yakama dialect) |
| Related Groups: | Yakama, other Sahaptin groups |
The Kittitas (Sahaptin: Pshwánapam,[1] pronounced as /yak/; also known as the Upper Yakama)[2] are a Sahaptin tribe closely related to the Yakama, sometimes described as a band or subtribe of the Yakama.[3] 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.[4]
Kittitas is derived from the Sahaptin toponym k'ɨtɨtáš "gravel bank place", referring to a location along the banks of the Yakima River.[5] Pshwánapam ("rock people") is the common Sahaptin endonym for the group, formerly transliterated as Pisch-wan-wap-pam.[6] Kittitas County is named for the tribe.[7]
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'.[8]
Fur trader Alexander Ross was the first European to enter the Kittitas Valley, encountering a large tribal gathering in 1814.
This mammoth camp could not have contained less than 3000 men, exclusive of women and children, and treble that number of horses. It was a grand and imposing sight in the wilderness, covering more than six miles in every direction. Councils, root gathering, hunting, horse-racing, foot-racing, gambling, singing, dancing, drumming, yelling, and a thousand other things which I cannot mention, were going on around us.[9]In December 1847, Chief Owhi visited Old Fort Walla Walla and requested missionaries to be sent to the Yakama and Kittitas. A small group of Catholic missionaries arrived the following year and constructed the one-room Immaculate Conception Mission on Manastash Creek in July 1848. Father Pandosy headed the mission, but fell into poverty and mental disturbance, and was recalled to the Yakima Valley in September 1849.[10]
The Kittitas were removed from Wenas Valley in 1858. White settlers entered the Kittitas Valley in the early 1860s, and the Kittitas were removed to the Yakama Indian Reservation.
Kittitas villages were located along the Upper Yakima and adjacent streams and rivers. Most had Sahaptin names, but two (N'tsamtsa'mtcin and Tc'kla'xan) are Interior Salish toponyms. [11]