Sinixt
Parts of the traditional territory of the Sinixt are being claimed by the Westbank Band of the Okanagan people and as shared use and occupancy by the Ktunaxa.
[citation needed] According to Lawney Reyes, the Sinixt numbered about 3,000 in the early 19th century,[8] divided into several bands of sizes suited to hunting and fishing.
In an interview with the journalist Rex Weyler, Bob Campbell, "Headman" of the Sinixt in British Columbia, notes that, "As the mother nation, we often settled disputes among the (other) bands."
[15] Their staples included huckleberry, salmon, and roots (camas, bitterroot), but they also ate black moss, other berries (serviceberry, gooseberry, and foam berry), hazelnuts, wild carrots, peppermint, and various game meats (deer, elk, moose, caribou, rabbit, mountain sheep, mountain goat, and bear; after the coming of the horse, they also ventured east after bison).
Starting in June, mature salmon arrived at Kettle Falls, the farthest downriver that the Sinixt territory extended.
[16] The Upper Sin Aikst trained dogs to drive deer toward the Columbia River, where hunters in canoes shot them with bow and arrow.
The Sin Aikst used the distinctive Sturgeon-nosed canoe; about 15–17 feet (4.5–5 meters) long with a cedar frame covered by large slabs of pine bark, riding low in the water with downward-sloping tips to reduce wind resistance.
Children were sent on "short excursions" to search for protective spirits; they were usually required to bring back an object to prove that they had made the journey.
[22] There is historical evidence suggesting that the Sinixt were heavily depopulated by one or two smallpox epidemics that preceded the arrival of Scottish and Métis fur-traders of the North West Company.
David Thompson and other early traders noticed the pock-marked faces of older Sinixt and heard oral accounts of the epidemic.
Ethnographic and historical evidence suggests the Ktunaxa and the Sinixt battled each other over the territory along the lower Kootenay River between the present cities of Nelson and Castlegar, British Columbia.
The Sinixt later renewed their historic peace with the Ktunaxa, and took common cause with them, the Kalispel, the Flathead, the Coeur d'Alene, the Spokane, the Nez Perce, and others against the Blackfoot.
They wintered near the major trading post at Colville for the first time in 1830-31, led by the Lower Sinixt chief See-Whel-Ken (died 1840).
In addition to suffering diseases and incursions on their land, they found the salmon runs began to diminish because of the development of commercial fisheries at Astoria, Oregon near the mouth of the Columbia River.
[27] When the United States gained formal control of the Oregon Country south of the 49th Parallel in 1846, some Sinixt remained in American territory near Kettle Falls, where Fort Colville continued to operate.
They were traditionally close to the Colville people, who celebrated the Sinixt arrival at the falls during fishing season with a three-day dance.
While often accommodating white interests, they continued to claim ownership in British Columbia, and resisted the American miners, sometimes by force.
In 1865, Sinixt blocked 200 miners and mining activities at the confluence of the Columbia and Kootenay rivers in an attempt to protect their hunting and fishing rights as promised by the Crown as related by Gold Commissioner J.C Haynes in a letter to the then acting colonial government in Victoria.
Three months later it was taken away because white settlers wanted it, and they were given a comparably large tract on the west side of the river on inferior land.
[36] Until the construction of Grand Coulee Dam, the Lower Sinixt continued to fish in their traditional manner at Kettle Falls.
They fished with baskets on poles that caught the salmon who were not strong enough to clear the falls, and also with spears that had detachable tips, like a harpoon.
"[37] A few years later, rising waters from the dam also engulfed the largely Sinixt community of Inchelium, Washington on the banks of the Columbia, which had to be relocated, further disrupting even remnants of their traditional way of life.
"[39] A permanent Sinixt presence was re-established in British Columbia during the late 1980s when, following direction by an Elder, a number of Sinixt descendants returned to the Slocan Valley to protest road building affecting an important village site, now called the Vallican Heritage Site.
Presently, some Sinixt people live in their traditional territory on the "Canadian side" of the 49th parallel, mainly in Vallican in the Slocan Valley, or scattered throughout neighbouring lands in the area now known as British Columbia.
[citation needed] Members of Sinixt Nation have contested this extinction, and are taking steps to reclaim their land rights in British Columbia, where about 80% of their ancestral territory lies.
[48] On July 28, 2008, "directors of the Sinixt Nation Society have filed a lawsuit claiming aboriginal title to Crown land in the Kootenays.
[50] Many Lakes (Sinixt) feel that to live ethically one must follow a moral code which maintains a reciprocal relationship between humans, the land, and the realm of spirits in which the ancestors dwell.
The ideal of keeping the Lakes' way requires that people not take for their own gain but instead give back by following a cultural ethic of egalitarianism, reciprocity and peaceful living.
[55] On April 23, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed the appeal, upholding Mr. Desautel’s right to exercise Aboriginal rights under section 35 of the Constitution and recognizing the Lakes Tribe, a modern successor of the Sinixt, as an “Aboriginal people of Canada.” [56] In Washington, one particular family of Sinixt have figured prominently among recent-day "urban Indians".
[3] Lawney, Luana and Bernie are descendants of Alex Christian, whose family lived at Kp'itl'els (Brilliant, B.C., near present-day Castlegar), a Sinixt village, for generations, until the Canadian Government sold their land to settlers.
