The mystery of the Stuwix - an Athapaskan or Chinookanpeopleamongst the Secx'emc -Reply

[Tony Johnson]

Chinuk-tilixam,

Ukuk chanti chxi Latuwa, na wawa khapa na Lush shiks.  Ukuk shiks miLayt
khapa "Wam CEqw."  Ya wawa khapa nay, "Las wawa weyk-saya anaqati wasq'u
tilixam Las Latuwa saya saXali ukuk wimaL (Columbia cEqw).  Lili Las
miLayt khapa Xluwima ili?i pi weyk Las kEmtEks qha Las miLayt alta.
Alaxti Las hilu, alaxti Las mali Xluwima sawash pi chaku dret-kakwa
Laska."

Dave, na tEmtEm uk Seylish tilixam ma wawa Las caku khapa uk kacaq
wimaL.  Anqati tilixam wawa Xluwima tilixam miLayt weyk-saya uk
"Dalles."  Tilixam wawa alaxti Seylish Laska.

Dell, Rob, etc, qhanchi ma miLayt khapa wasq'u pi wishxam ili?i mEsayka
chaku-kEmtEks ikanEm kakwa ukuk?

k'oy? pus nEsayka nanich ukuk nim Las munk pus Las saya ili?i.

Sik tEmtEM nayka pus wik lush na Sawash-wawa.

LaXayEm--Tony
Sawash-ili?i

Chinuk-people,

Last week I spoke to a good friend from Warm Springs.  He told me that
they say "that not so very long ago Wasco people went up the Columbia
river.  Apparently they stayed there and know one knows what happened to
them.  They may have died or they may have married in with other Indians
and became like them (or maybe they are still there?)."

Dave, I think that the Salish people you are talking about came from the
middle Columbia.  Some people have said that a different kind of people
also lived near the Dalles.  People suggest that perhaps they were
Salish.

Dell, Rob, etc.  when you were in Kiksht country did you learn any
stories like this?

I would like for us to see those names that they gave to their far away
country.

Tony A. Johnson
Grand Ronde, OR

>>> Mike Cleven  <ironmtn at BIGFOOT.COM> 01/16/00 07:23pm >>>
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.