The mystery of the Stuwix - an Athapaskan or Chinookan people amongst the Secx'emc chinook

[David Lewis]

There is another travel book: Native Peoples of the Northwest, By Halliday
and Chehak. It says "In Cooperation with the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest
Indians." I picked it up at Powells a few years ago and I think there is a
newer edition out than the one I have "1996." Chapters are Southeast
Alaska, British Columbia, Western Washington, Western Oregon and Northern
California, Columbia River Gorge and Basin, Idaho and Western Montana. If I
remember right, it speaks pretty well to the history and current situation
of all of the tribal areas I know of, even though I found numerous mistakes.
David


At 07:23 PM 01/16/2000 -0800, you wrote:
>Attn Tony & other Grande Ronders!!
>
>I recently bought "A Traveller's Guide to Aboriginal B.C." by Cheryl
>Coull (Whitecap Books, Vancouver), which is a pretty extensive basic
>guide and geography to the First Nations of British Columbia.  The first
>publication of its kind I've seen that includes native names and
>communities in some detail, it also includes some of the mythic and oral
>history of the various nations and regions.
>
>In the chapter on on the Nicola Valley, where there is a shared presence
>of Sce'exmx (a Nlaka'pamux-speaking people) and Spaxomin (Okanagan)
>peoples, there is mention of the heritage of the Stuwix - "the
>strangers":
>
>[From Chapter 11] "The third people of Nicola Valley are the enigmatic
>Stuwix, sometimes called "the stragners.".  As a tangible, distinct
>people, they no longer exist, and are more of a mystery now than at the
>time of their appearance here.  Athapaskan roots - a possible link with
>the Tsilhqot'in to the north - have been suggested.  It is agreed they
>came here from somewhere else sometime between long, long ago and the
>1700s.  The most vivid account comes from the Okanagan Mourning Dove.
>In her biography she suggests the strange people were Chinookan speakers
>from the lower Columbia River.  This is as she heard it from an aged
>Okanoagan woman, Modesta; "They were a people from the south who left
>their homeland on account of a quarrel that started when two men argued
>over what caused the soft, whilsting, whisperlike sound made by a flock
>of geese in flight . . . . The [went up] the Columbia, travelling
>slowly, stopping for a year at one place after another . . . .At the
>mouth of the Okanogan River, they turned upstream and turned again into
>the Similkamenn Valley under the grandeur of Mount Chopaka.  There
>Okanogan people treated them well, better than any other tribe they met
>. . . "
>
>The Tsuwix, squeezed between the Nlaka'pamux and Okanagan....and
>vulnerable to attacks form more distant peoples, were either killed or
>absorbed through marriage.  By the early 1800s, the only predominantly
>Stuwix community was at Guichon, on Nicola Lake.  A few decades later,
>they were attaced from the north.  It was Nicola [a great regional
>chief] who came in afterwards and buried the dead."
>
>Also, from Chapter 8, and somewhat contradictory:
>
>"The story of the Okanaga people of the Upper Similkameen valley, from
>Princeton to Keremeos, is enriched with an extra and somewhat mysterious
>dimension.  Sometime between long, long ago about about 1700, a people
>sometimes called "the strangers", and sometimes called the Stuwix,
>arrived here.  They spoke a language all their own, perhaps of
>Athapaskan origin, and lived in relative harmony with their Okanagan
>neighbours to the east.  Through marriage with them, and a general
>migration in this direction, the Okanagan language and ways prevailed.
>Meantime, "the strangers," vulenerable to attack, were themselves
>diminishing in number.  There are places in this valley with names given
>by those earlier people, but there is no longer anyone left who can tell
>us what they mean."
>
>
>Anyway, sounds P-U-R-D-Y interesting, wake nah?  Are there any oral
>traditions among the peoples of the lower Columbia that might match this
>migration and maybe its cause?  Since they came up the Columbia, it
>seems more likely that they are more closely related to Oregon
>Athapaskans than to the Tsilh'qotin; I'm unclear on the relation between
>the north-central BC Athapaskans and their southern linguistic cousins
>in Oregon; are they historically connected in known terms?  Either
>Athapaskan or Chinookan speakers, I hope that there might be some trace
>of their existence left........
>
>The book got me to thinking that a useful textbook history on the
>Northwest should incorporate what is known about native peoples'
>relations and migrations and languages in the same terms as state or
>provincial history is discussed.  Maybe it's changed a lot, especially
>in certain school districts, but when I was in school there was a black
>void before the advent of colonialism; some kind of 'no-space/no-time';
>native history was unknown, and uncared-for.  There's more and more
>known about the history of the pre-Contact Northwest; hopefully rising
>interest of the kind that gets the "Traveller's Guide" published will
>lead to broader public knowledge of such interesting parts of Northwest
>history and culture.
>
>
>These chapters also include account of Nicola, a great frontier-era
>chief whose realm spanned from the Thompson and the Cariboo into the
>Okanagan; as well as (as in each chapter) a straightforward account of
>local native political positions and issues.  I recommend the book if
>you can get it state-side; otherwise it's available in BC Ferries
>bookstores, and probably at www.chapters.com (our equivalent of Barnes &
>Noble on-line); might be chapters.ca.  Nicola was one of the greatest
>and most influential chiefs in post-Contact history, and in functional
>terms was the real ruler of the Yale and Lillooet electoral districts
>upon the Province's creation in 1871 (the territory described being
>nearly everything south of Williams Lake to the US border); he agitated
>for war in 1875 but peace was brokered by Chilliheetza, another great
>chief of the same nation.  The Sce'exmx speak Nlaka'pamux but have just
>as close relations with the Secwepemc and Okanagan peoples; they are
>often referred to as "Nicolas" the way Nlaka'pamux are described as
>"Thompsons" and the Stl'atl'imx the "Lillooets"; the name "Nicola" is
>supposed to be the name conferred upon Hwistesmetxe'qen, "Walking
>Grizzly Bear" by French fur traders.  The history of Nicola's period is
>quite complicated, and sounds like interesting research......
>
>
>To the Grande Ronders in the list - it might be an interesting exercise
>to try and identify the undefined placenames mentioned in the second
>quotation; it could settle the question as to whether the language
>spoken by the Stuwix was Athapaskan or Chinookan.  I'm sure the local
>band administration cultural people   would be glad to come up with a
>list for you if you asked; the address of the Upper and Lower
>Similkameen, Spaxomin and Sce'exmx administrations are in the book; if
>anyone wants to give it a stab e-mail me to ask me for the details.

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David Lewis                     541.684.9003
P.O. Box 3086           Cell 541.954.2466
Eugene, OR 97403

talapus at kalapuya.com, coyotez at darkwing.uoregon.edu,
         coyotez at oregon.uoregon.edu

                 http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~coyotez

ICQ# 45730935
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