Nicola (Okanagan leader)
Nicola (c. 1780–1785 – c. 1865) (
Name
The name Nicolas (
Biography
Lineage
Nicola was one of the four children and chiefly heir of
Upon his death, the chieftaincy of the Okanagan people passed to Hwistesmetxe'qen (Nicola), while his uncle, Pelka'mulox's brother Kwali'la, who had helped him survive the wars of his youth with the Thompson, Shuswap and Kutenai, assumed the joint
Pelka'mulox's status as chief of the Okanagan people in the Nicola Valley and the upper Okanagan Lake area, was passed to Nicola, who came to reside in the valley around the lake that now bears his name or at Kamloops, as Kwali'la's title as chief of the Kamloops eventually passed to Nicola upon the former's death. In addition to being presiding chief of that group of Okanagan, he was also grand chief of all the Okanagan nation, although since the drawing of the border a separate, independent American chieftain emerged, founded by
Because of his 15-17 wives, drawn from Okanagan,
Trust and Duty
Nicola became trusted by the fur traders, who left him to be in charge of the trading post for the winter. He kept the place well and collected many furs, and upon their return in gratitude the traders gave him 10 guns and a supply of ammunition. Around this time Kwali'la (Duncan to the traders) the chief of the Kamloops
Nicola's War
Nicola's alliance against the Lillooet comprised Okanagan, Shuswap, Stu'wix and Upper Thompson (
The Lower Lillooet are said to have first heard a gun and seen a horse because of this war, although the Upper Lillooet (around today's town of Lillooet) were familiar with horses and may have owned them at this time, and as seen by Simon Fraser and his men, they had guns of possibly Russian make in 1808. Fraser's journals describe also the town of Lillooet being heavily fortified and the men armoured, and their hosts full of anxiety about hostile neighbours and a state of war, but this would have been before the gift of ten guns (the temporary post on Okanagan Lake was started after Fraser's journey), so there may be no direct connection to Nicola's War. The date of the council which led to the death of Pelka'mulox is unknown - but certainly before Fraser came through the Lillooet area (as the context of the story is that Pelka'mulox was the first of all assembled to have seen white men, and this included upriver Shuswap as well as the Nlaka'pamux just down river, both of whom would have met Fraser and, in the case of the northerners, also known to Alexander Mackenzie).
The Great Elk Hunts
Nicola organized great hunts in the Nicola Valley of the once-vast elk herds that once roamed there, using techniques adapted from the buffalo hunt by driving them over cliffs, or simply driving them into enclosures. The efficiency of these hunting techniques is believed to have led to the extermination of elk in that region.
Travels
Like his father, Nicola travelled widely and was well-known and also visited the Prairie for buffalo hunts. He is credited with being on the winning side in a battle with the
The Fur Trade and Fort Kamloops
Nicola attempted to take over
The Gold Rush, the Okanagan Trail and the Fraser Canyon War
Before the discovery of the major
The number who came overland through the Okanagan Valley and other land routes is unknown, but in the case of the Okanagan Trail numbered a few thousands, generally travelling in war parties of hundreds of men. Some of the early parties ransacked native food caches and villages and engaged in battles and potshots at natives en route, with some driven back. Nicola confronted one party ) when they arrived at Kamloops and admonished them, saying they didn't know how close to outright war they were, and demanded the punishment of the guilty men, and invoking his own observance of British law, because without it he had the power to see them all killed. The guilty men, who had been chastised by the main group and its leaders during the journey for their rogue behaviours, were handed over to face justice. Nicola then hosted the party as guests and rode with them to the goldfields by the ancient trail from the mid-Thompson across the Hat Creek-Pavilion plateau into the great fishing grounds at Fountain, which were also at the upper end of gold-mining activity on the Fraser and a hub of activity. This location was also where his father Pelka'lumox had been killed.
In 1858, Nicola used his power and influence to protect those miners coming to the
Legacy
Nicola was the most important and influential chief in the Interior of British Columbia in the time period spanning the opening of the inland fur trade to the time of the
Because of the boundary treaty partitioning Okanagan territory, Okanagans south of the line became organized under a new chieftaincy founded by
Other uses
The region of his reign became known as Nicola's Country, with the river that ran through it named for him, and the largest lake and the valley it flows through named for the river, still called in regional English today "the Nicola Country". The ongoing alliance of Thompson and Okanagan peoples in the Nicola Valley today are colloquially also called "the Nicolas". Their Nlaka'pamux component call themselves the Scw'exmx, while the Okanagan component are the Spa7omin (older spelling use Spahomin where the 'h' represents the glottal stop for what is now commonly rendered as the '7').
The name Nicola people is also used in ethnology and linguistics to refer to a now-extinct Athapaskan group who once lived amid the Scw'exmx and Spaxomin, and also in the Upper Similkameen before being driven out by the Similkameen Okanagan; they are also called the Stuwix or Stuwix'emux - "the strangers", "strange people", because they were recent arrivals in the territory and spoke an unrelated language). They are also called the Nicola Athapaskans.
Although they got along with their immediate neighbours, who had given them refuge a couple of centuries or so before after fleeing hostile neighbours in the north, they were wiped out by the late 19th Century by raids by Thompson and Shuswap, intermarriage with the Scw'exmx and Spaxomin, and also by attrition. Only a handful of placenames from their language remain in the area, and are all that is known of their language, other than it was Athapaskan, although outside of official ethnology an account by
See also
- Nicola people
- Nicola Tribal Association(Nicola Tribal Council)
- Mount Nkwala (not named for Chief Nicola, but for a novel by Edith L. Sharp in which the young protagonist is named Nkwala.)
Notes
References
- Salishan Tribes of the Plateau, pp. 263-275 (Genealogy of the Okanagan Chiefs), Papers of the Jessop Expedition, James A. Teit
- Notes on the Shuswap people of British Columbia, pp. 26–28 George M. Dawson, 1891?