Sinixt
The Sinixt or Sinixt Nation (also Sin-Aikst , Senjextee , Senijextee or Arrow Lakes Band ) are Indians based in British Columbia and Washington .
They originally lived in West Kootenay and East Washington and belonged to the inland Salish linguistically and culturally . Today they mostly live in the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington. They are part of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation , which is recognized by the USA as an Indian tribe. However, some Sinixt still live in Canada, especially in the Slocan Valley . There they are not recognized as a First Nation , but they try to do so.
history
Early history
The Sinixt lived on the Columbia River , Arrow Lakes , Slocan Valley, and Kootenay Lake. As is often the case with the Salish groups, the traditional areas overlapped with those of the neighboring tribes such as the Okanagan , the Secwepemc and the Kutenai .
The Sinixt, which had around 3,000 members around 1800, consisted of several groups. A distinction is made between the Upper Sinixt in British Columbia and the Lower Sinixt in east Washington. The latter in turn consisted of at least eight groups. Their lives were changed by the horse, which allowed them to reach far east into the plains.
Like most inland Salish, the Sinixt were sedentary in winter and lived in houses sunk into the ground called pit houses. In the summer they lived off hunting and fishing, especially at Columbia and Kettle Falls . They used dogs for driven hunts and 4 to 5 m long canoes that were built low and adapted to the strong winds.
The matrilocal tribe was closely related to the Swhy-ayl-puh ( Colville ), whose tail region also extended to the Kettle Falls.
An ilmi wm was in charge of the tour , but each of the villages had a local guide who met other guides in a council.
smallpox
See also: Smallpox epidemic on the Pacific coast of North America from 1775
It is unclear whether the Sinixt were affected by one or two smallpox epidemics. The 1781 epidemic possibly killed 80% of the tribe before the first European appeared in the region. Cartographer David Thompson noticed numerous pockmarks in 1811.
At the same time, the Sinixt came under pressure from their neighbors, the Kutenai or Ktunaxa, who in turn were pushed westward by the Blackfoot . Therefore, the two tribes fought for essential resources on the Kootenay River between Nelson and Castlegar . At the end of the 1830s there was a punitive expedition against the St'at'imc on Seton Lake , led by the chief of the Nicola, Hwistesmexteqen. After heavy fighting, the tribes made peace and forged an alliance against the Blackfoot together with Kalispel , Flathead , Coeur d'Alene , Spokane , Nez Percé and other tribes.
During the Fraser Canyon War of 1858, they allied themselves with the Nlaka'pamux .
Fur trade and missionaries, state border
The Lower Sinixt wintered for the first time near Fort Colville , a fort of the Hudson's Bay Company , in 1830/31. There they exchanged furs for European goods. The first Jesuit missionaries came to the region in 1837 and St. Paul's Mission at Kettle Falls was established in 1845 with the help of the Sinixt (and the Colville). Their number is estimated at around 400 around 1840. Chief Kin-Ka-Nawha probably converted to Catholicism.
In 1846 the Oregon Country was divided along the 49th parallel, the north fell to Great Britain and the south to the USA. Most of the Sinixt stayed at Kettle Falls, on the southern border of the traditional Sinixt area. For their part, the British, who were formally allowed to continue trading in US territory, built a new fort near the border called Fort Shepherd above the confluence of the Pend d'Oreille and Columbia. When they gave up the Canadian fort, they turned it over to the Sinixt.
Extensive withdrawal from Canada
,_Kootenay_Lake,_BC_1885.JPG)
With the gold finds on the Fraser at the end of the 1850s, gold prospectors came to the Sinixt, whose number was too small to be able to withstand in the long term. Chief Kin-Ka-Nawha followed Joseph Cotolegu, Aorpaghan and James Bernard (around 1870-1935) became sub-chiefs and later his successors. Only a small number of Sinixt stayed in Canada. Of the 152 archaeological sites, 140 fell victim to the construction of the Hugh Keenleyside Dam, a reservoir that flooded the Arrow Lakes in 1968.
Colville Confederated Tribes
The Confederate Tribes of the Colville today as Confederate Tribes of the Colville reserve referred (Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation), were formally recognized 1,872th The name Sinixt soon fell out of use. Their number was given as 239 in 1870, but this number rose to 300 by 1882. In 1910 there were 294.
The first reservation was east of the Columbia, but three months later they were relocated to a larger but less favorable area west of the Columbia. From the area that reached to the Canadian border, the northern half was withdrawn on May 23, 1891, whereby the Indians could get 80 acres of land there. But many moved to the southern half. In addition, there were both Indian and non-Indian settlers who claimed the northern area, such as the Doukhobor , who came from Russia in 1912 . In 1900 Aropaghan pushed through the privatization of the country against James Bernard. Bernard traveled to Washington several times, most recently in 1921.
In 1891 a hotel was built over the falls, a bubble of speculation arose when the Northern Pacific Railway was supposed to stop here. But when the railway company decided on a different route, many of the 300 or so settlers left the area again.
With the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam from 1933, the Sinixt's central fishing spot, Kettle Falls, was destroyed. The spawning migrations of the salmon, which were considered to be the largest, ended suddenly. The Sinixt Inchelium settlement had to be relocated.
Current situation
When British Columbia threatened to destroy today's Vallican Heritage Site , a large village and a cemetery, some Sinixt moved to Canada. In addition, the Royal British Columbia Museum returned some finds to the tribe in 1991. These excavation sites are of considerable importance because they demonstrate the early existence of complex societies and date back to 3000 BC. Go back BC. The houses were up to 20 meters in diameter. Most of the Canadian Sinixt live near the dig site in the Slocan Valley. Since 1956, the Sinixt and Arrow Lakes Band have been formally extinct , that is, according to the responsible Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development .
Since four fifths of the traditional Sinixt area is in Canada, some areas of which are also claimed by the Kutenai and Okanagan, the Sinixt also demand state recognition as a tribe. The spokeswoman for the tribe, Marilyn James, and the commissioner for the Vallican Heritage Site, Robert Watt, presented the claim from the UN. On July 28, 2008, the Sinixt Nation sued for recognition of their land claims (aboriginal title). In the fall of 2010, Jim Boyd , moderator of the Arrow Lakes Aboriginal Society, and Mike Marchand, a Colville Tribal councilor and member of the Arrow Lakes Band, went on a hunting trip to Canada to prove that the tribe, declared extinct by the Canadian government in 1956, was not extinct is.
A weekly radio program, Sinixt Radio , is broadcast from Nelson (CJLY-FM).
literature
- Paula Pryce: Keeping the Lakes' Way: Reburial and Re-creation of a Moral World among an Invisible People , University of Toronto Press 1999
- Robert H. Ruby / John A. Brown: A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest , University of Oklahoma Press 1992, pp. 188f. (Senijextee).
Web links
See also
- History of the Coastal Salish
- History of British Columbia
- History of Washington
- List of Indian tribes recognized in Canada
- United States Indian Policy
Remarks
- ^ Paula Pryce: Keeping the Lakes Way , University of Toronto Press 1999, p. 7.
- ↑ James Teit: Papers of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, History of the Okanagan people
- ^ Nathan B. Goodale, William C. Prentiss, Ian Kuijt: Cultural Complexity: A New Chronology of the Upper Columbia Drainage Area , Complex Hunters-Gatherers. Evolution and Organization of Prehistoric Communities on the Plateau of Northwestern North America, University of Utah Press 2003. Reservoirs at Columbia and Kootenay, however, have flooded a large part of the settlements.
- ↑ The claimed territory of the Kutenai can be found here: Traditional Territory of the Ktunaxa Nation ( Memento from May 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Extinct 'First Nation files BC land claim , CBC News, August 1, 2008
- ↑ The Wenatschee World, April 21, 2011: Arrow Lakes Are Not Exterminated