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4. First Nations - West
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| A. Aboriginal Canada →→ 1. Turtle Island → 2. First Nations - East → 3. Daily Life - East → 4. First Nations - West → 5. Daily Life - West → 6. First Nations - North → 7. Daily Life - North →→ B. Early European Explorers |
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Contents |
Plains People of Western North America
The aboriginal people of the Plains developed their culture on the vast buffalo range, parkland and foothills of northern and central North America. We group them linguistically into two major peoples: Algonkian and Siouan, plus some Athapaskans such as the Sarcee and Chipewyans who moved southward to join in the buffalo hunt.
The Plains Cree shared the flat plains and parkland of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with their Algonkian cousins, the Plains Ojibway (Saulteaux) bands, and with some Siouan speakers, the Dakota Sioux and Assiniboine. Farther west to the foothills were other Algonkian tribes, the Blackfoot, Blood and Peigan, and to the south, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Gros Ventres, as well as the Siouan-speaking Mountain Stoneys, and Athapascan-speaking Sarcees.
The Siouan People
The Sioux became allies of the Cree throughout the fur trade era, and were noted for their production of pemmican, which they bartered to fur traders and northern tribes. From a population of about 10,000 in the late 18th century, they were reduced to less than 3,000 because of smallpox and other contagious diseases, although some were vaccinated by Hudson's Bay Company employees.
According to Roman Catholic missionary Father de Smet, the Rocky Mountain Stoney bands - the Bearspaw, Chiniki and Wesley bands on the Morley reserve west of Calgary, and Paul's and Alexis bands west of Edmonton - separated from the Plains Assiniboine in about 1790. They migrated west to flee smallpox epidemics (which the fur trade journals tell us struck around 1740, 1781 and 1830) and to trade furs, hides and fresh meat to the HBC at Rocky Mountain House and Edmonton House.
Blackfoot Confederacy
Before major European contact, the Plains nations numbered about 35 000 people, half of whom were members of the Blackfoot Confederacy.
The Blackfoot Confederacy was an alliance of five tribes: the Siksika people (called Blackfoot by an early explorer after the name of a single chief); the Hainai (meaning many chiefs) or Blood people; the Peigan, or Pikuni people (meaning "scabby robes"); the Sarcee and the Gros Ventre. The latter two tribes split away in a dispute over stolen horses in 1861.
The Plateau People
The Interior Salish people included the Lillooet, Thompson, Secwepemc (Shuswap), Okanagan, and Lake First Nations, and numbered over 15,000 in 1800. They lived on the salmon-rich headwaters of the Fraser, Columbia, Skeena, and Thompson rivers.
The Athapaskan speakers included the Chilcotin, Carrier, Tahltan, and Nicola tribes, who migrated onto the plateau from the sub-Arctic tundra a thousand years ago.
Other smaller groups include the Taglish, who moved inland from the coast, and the Kutenai (Kootenay) in the southeast, who were driven westward into the Rocky Mountains around 1750 by the Blackfoot and Stoney tribes, and settled in south-eastern BC and down into Idaho. They were traders, and crossed back to the prairies to trade at Rocky Mountain House and Bow Fort and to hunt bison in the foothills. The Kutenai language is unrelated to any of the other languages found in Canada.
The first European to visit the plateau was Norwester Alexander Mackenzie, who passed through in 1793 on his way to the coast. Only fifteen years later in 1808, Simon Fraser noted that the Salish were already using copper kettles and guns, but also that several were suffering from smallpox.
Athapascans of Northern BC, Yukon & NWT
Athapaskan speaking people form Canada's third largest aboriginal linguistic group. Most live in the frontier areas of Northern British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. They are divided nto the following major groups:
- the Chilcotin, Carrier, Sekani and Tahltan of Northern BC
- the Hare, Kutchin and Nahani of the Yukon
- the Dene of the NWT - the Chipewyan, Beaver, Slaveys, Dogrib and Yellowknives.
The Sarcee tribe of Alberta, the only Athapaskans who moved south, split from the Beaver tribe and embraced the buffalo hunting culture.
Pacific Coast Aboriginal Peoples
The rich environment of Canada's Pacific coast supported up to 200 000 aboriginal people before European contact. Six distinct language families emerged in the west coast region from 500 BCE onward:
- Northern Groups - the Tlingit of the Alaska panhandle, the Tsimshian (including Nisga'a and Gitsan) of the Nass and Skeena Rivers, and the Haida of the Prince of Wales Archipelago and the Queen Charlotte Islands.
- Central Wakahan Groups - the Northern and Southern Kwakawa ka'wakw (formerly known as Kwakiutl) from Milbanke Sound to Rivers Inlet and the east coast of Vancouver Island, the Nuxalk (Bella Coola) from the upper reaches of Dean and Burke Channels, and the Nuu-chah-nulth of the west coast of Vancouver Island, first collectively called Nootka by Captain Cook in 1778 - the name means, roughly "all along the mountain coast". The Nuu-chah-nulth were the most maritime of all the Pacific Coast Peoples, and hunted the mammoth gray whales.
- Southern Salish Groups - the Coast Salish of the Straits of Georgia from Campbell River to Puget Sound.
Masters of their maritime environment, these groups shared a similar culture and lifestyle. The Northern Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian each had their own language. They maintained a sophisticated warrior culture and rigid class system based on inheritance of rank and property through the female line. The central coastal area tribes, with seven sublanguage groups, handed property and rank down more often through the father's lineage. The Coast Salish people spoke six distinct dialects. Most had economies based on the sea, but one group, the Stalo, fished for salmon, eulachon and sturgeon on the lower Fraser River. The Salish had a more flexible class system, allowing upward mobility for talented individuals, even slaves.
First European Contact
The Russians and then the Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive off the west coast of Canada in the 1700s. The Nuu-chah-nulth and Haida greeted the Europeans ships graciously, tossing feathers on the water and making gestures of peace and their desire to trade. The trading relationship that developed brought wealth to both parties, and it was continued by Captain Cook and later English visitors whose sole interest was in making a profit. Culture-altering settlers, miners and missionaries only began to arrive in the nineteenth century, along with the alcohol trade and infectious diseases.
| First Nations - West - Gallery | Stories & Texts | Web Links | Student Activities | Daily Life | Student Projects |
| A. Aboriginal Canada →→ 1. Turtle Island → 2. First Nations - East → 3. Daily Life - East → 4. First Nations - West → 5. Daily Life - West → 6. First Nations - North → 7. Daily Life - North →→ B. Early European Explorers |
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