OKANAGAN PEOPLE

The 'Okanagan' people, also spelled 'Okanogan', are a First Nations and Native American people whose traditional territory spans the U.S.-Canada boundary in Washington state and British Columbia. Known in their own language as the 'Syilx', they are part of the Interior Salish ethnological and linguistic groupings, the Okanagan are closely related to the Spokan, Sinixt, Nez Perce, Pend Oreille, Shuswap and Nlaka'pamux peoples in the same region.
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 Okanagans, whose communities remain in Canada. The Okanagan Tribal Alliance, however, also incorporates the American branch of the Okanagans, who are part of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville, a multi-tribal government in Washington state.
The bounds of Okanagan territory are roughly the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Okanagan River, plus the basin of the Similkameen River to the west of the Okanagan valley, and some of the uppermost valley of the Nicola River. The various Okanagan communities in British Columbia and Washington form the Okanagan Nation Alliance, a border-spanning organization which includes American-side Okanogans resident in the Colville Indian Reservation, where the Okanagan people are sometimes known as Colvilles.
A group of Okanagan people in the Nicola Valley, which is 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.

Contents

Language

Governments

See also

Further Reading

External links

Language

See Okanagan language.

Governments

★ Okanagan Nation Alliance

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★ Westbank First Nation (Kelowna)

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★ Lower Similkameen Indian Band (Keremeos)

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★ Upper Similkameen Indian Band (Keremeos)

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★ Osoyoos Indian Band

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★ Penticton Indian Band

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★ Okanagan Indian Band (Vernon)

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★ Upper Nicola Indian Band (Merritt) - also part of the Nicola Tribal Association

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★ Conferated Tribes of the Colville

See also

★ Okanagan Trail

★ Chief Nicola

★ Okanagan Mourning Dove

Further Reading

★ Folk-tales of Salishan and Sahaptin tribes, Boas, Franz, , , Published for the American Folk-Lore Society by G.E. Stechert & Co., 1917, Available online through the Washington State Library's Classics in Washington History collection Includes: ''Okanagon tales'' by James A. Teit and ''Okanagon tales'' by Marian K. Gould.

External links

★ Map of Okanagan territory

★ Okanagan Tribal Alliance Homepage

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★ "Original People", a Syilx account of their history

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★ Westbank First Nation homepage

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★ Okanagan Indian Band homepage

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★ Penticton Indian Band hompage

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★ Osoyoos Indian Band hompage

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★ Lower Similkameen Indian Band homepage

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★ Upper Nicola Indian Band homepage

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★ Conferated Tribes of the Colville homepage