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| | CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Coeur d'Alene Indians |
 | | When first noticed by the American explorers, Lewis and Clark, in 1805, the Coeur d'Alêne were a wandering, poverty-stricken people, dwelling in mat-covered communal houses on the border of the lake, and subsisting chiefly upon fish and wild roots. |
| | In disposition they were peaceful, brave and honest, and at a later period, having acquired through the French and Iroquois employees of the Hudson Bay Company an idea of the Catholic religion, many of them, as well as the Flatheads, Nez Percés, and others, voluntarily adopted a system of Christian prayers and church forms. |
| | The name by which they are commonly known, signifying "awl heart", is said, although doubtfully, to have been originally a nick-name given by the French traders to a chief of the tribe noted for his stinginess. |
| www.newadvent.org /cathen/04093a.htm (264 words) |
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