Colestah (born around 1800, died 1865), was one of the five wives of

Chief Kamiakin Kamiakin (1800–1877) (Yakama) was a leader of the Yakama, Palouse, and Klickitat peoples east of the Cascade Mountains in what is now southeastern Washington state. In 1855, he was disturbed by threats of the Territorial Governor, Isaac Steven ...

(1800–1877) of the

Yakama The Yakama are a Native American tribe with nearly 10,851 members, based primarily in eastern Washington state. Yakama people today are enrolled in the federally recognized tribe, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. Their ...

Native American tribe. She is described as being a

medicine woman A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and ceremo ...

''(twati)'', a psychic, and a "warrior woman".

Early life

Colestah was the youngest daughter of Chief Tenax ( Klickitat). Her older sisters were Kem-ee-yowah, Why-luts-pum and Hos-ke-la-pum. She bore two children with Kamiakin: Tomeo and Tomomolow (Tomolio).

Battle of Four Lakes

On September 5, 1858, she accompanied Kamiakin to the

Battle of Four Lakes The Battle of Four Lakes was a battle during the Coeur d'Alene War of 1858 in the Washington Territory (now the states of Washington and Idaho) in the United States. The Coeur d'Alene War was part of the Yakima War, which began in 1855. The bat ...

(or Battle of Spokane Plains) against Colonel George Wright, armed with a stone war club, vowing to fight by his side. According to the historian of criminal justice, Kurt R. Nelson, she dressed formally for the battle in "her finest" buckskin dress, with her hair braided tightly. When Kamiakin was seriously wounded by a branch dislodged by a howitzer shell, Colestah carried him back to the family camp located at the

Spokane River The Spokane River is a tributary of the Columbia River, approximately long, in northern Idaho and eastern Washington in the United States. It drains a low mountainous area east of the Columbia, passing through the Spokane Valley and the city of ...

and used her skills as an "Indian doctor" in traditional tribal medicine to nurse him back to health. Colestah and Kamiakin moved to the

Palouse River The Palouse River is a tributary of the Snake River in Washington and Idaho, in the northwest United States. It flows for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 3, 2011 southw ...

camp, between today's St. John and Endicott in 1860, where his family followed its "seasonal rounds of root-digging, berry-gathering and salmon fishing." Colestah had a new son, Tomolow, with Kamiakin in 1864, but then she became sick, and died in 1865.

References

{{authority control Year of birth unknown 1800s births 1865 deaths 19th-century Native Americans History of Spokane, Washington Native American history of Washington (state) Native American people of the Indian Wars Native American women in warfare People from Whitman County, Washington Women in 19th-century warfare Yakama 19th-century Native American women