What is "ktunaxa"

The Ktunaxa ( ; Kutenai pron. ), also known as Kutenai , Kootenay (predominant spelling in Canada) and Kootenai (predominant spelling in the United States), are an indigenous people of North America, who historically occupied extensive territories in the Pacific Northwest, present-day United States and British Columbia, Canada.

Four bands form the Ktunaxa Nation and the kindred Shuswap Indian Band in British Columbia. The Kootenai were allied with the Shuswap historically and through intermarriage. In the United States the people have formed three federally recognized tribes: in present-day Montana, the Kootenai are part of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation, together with the Bitterroot Salish (also known as Flathead) and Upper Pend d'Oreilles. They have federal recognition as the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho in Idaho. Small populations of Kootenai living in Washington are part of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

The Kutenai language is an isolate, unrelated to the languages of neighbouring peoples.