Colestah

Colestah (died 1865), was one of the five wives of Chief Kamiakin (1800–1877) of the Yakama Native American tribe.

[1][4] Colestah was the youngest daughter of Chief Tenax (Klickitat).

[2] On September 5, 1858, she accompanied Kamiakin to the Battle of Four Lakes (or Battle of Spokane Plains)[5] against Colonel George Wright,[4] armed with a stone war club, vowing to fight by his side.

[1][6] 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 and used her skills as an "Indian doctor"[1] in traditional tribal medicine to nurse him back to health.

[7] Colestah and Kamiakin moved to the Palouse River 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."