Okanagan (syilx) members, c. 1918. Back Left: Marriette Gregoire. Back Center: Joe Abel. Back Right: Tommy Gregoire. Left: Celestine Lewis (child). Center: Millie Williams. Right: Mary Abel (toddler).
At the height of Okanagan syilx culture, about 3000 years ago, it is estimated that 12,000 people lived in this valley and surrounding areas. The syilx employed an adaptive strategy, moving within traditional areas throughout the year to fish, hunt, or collect food, while in the winter months, they lived in semi-permanent
villages of
kekulis, a type of pithouse.[4]In nsyilxcn pit house is q̓ʷc̓iʔ. [5]
When the
Oregon Treaty partitioned the
Pacific Northwest in 1846, the portion of the tribe remaining in what became
Washington Territory reorganized under
Chief Tonasket as a separate group from the majority of the syilx, whose communities remain in Canada.[1] The Okanagan Tribal Alliance, however, incorporates the American branch of the syilx. The latter are part of the
Confederated Tribes of the Colville, a multi-tribal government in Washington state.[6][7]
The
Upper Nicola Indian Band, a syilx group of the
Nicola Valley, which was at the northwestern perimeter of Okanagan territory, are known in their dialect as the
Spaxomin, and are joint members in a historic alliance with neighbouring communities of the
Nlaka'pamux in the region known as the
Nicola Country, which is named after the 19th-century chief who founded the alliance,
Nicola. This alliance today is manifested in the
Nicola Tribal Association.[9]
The language of the syilx people is nsyilxcən. "syilx" is at the root of the language name nsyilxcən, surrounded by a circumfix indicating a language.[10] When writing nsyilxcən, no capital letters are used.[11] nsyilxcən is an Interior Salish language that is spoken across the Canadian and U.S.A. border in the regions of southern British Columbia and northern Washington.[12] This language is currently endangered and has only 50 fluent speakers remaining.[12]
^Johnson, M. K. (2012). k^sup w^u_sq^sup w^a?q^sup w^a?álx (we begin to speak): Our journey within nsyilxcn (okanagan) language revitalization. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 35(1), 79.
^
abJohnson, Sʔímlaʔx Michele K. (November 2017). "Syilx Language House: How and Why We Are Delivering 2,000 Decolonizing Hours in Nsyilxcn". Canadian Modern Language Review. 73 (4): 509–537.
doi:
10.3138/cmlr.4040.
ISSN0008-4506.
S2CID149072885.
Armstrong, Jeannette, and Lee Maracle, Okanagan Rights Committee; Delphine Derickson, Okanagan Indian Education Resource Society, We Get Our Living Like Milk from the Land, Theytus Books, 1994
Carstens, Peter. The Queen's People: A Study of Hegemony, Coercion, and Accommodation Among the Okanagan of Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.
ISBN0-8020-5893-0
Robinson, Harry, and Wendy C. Wickwire. Nature Power: In the Spirit of an Okanagan Storyteller. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1992.
ISBN1-55054-060-2