Identification

Salish, or Salishan, is a language family comprised of languages and dialects spoken by aboriginal peoples of British Columbia and the states of Washington and Idaho. The language family is commonly divided into Coast Salish and Interior Salish, and there are social and cultural differences between the constituent groups that largely overlap with this division. There are four major Canadian Interior Salish languages, Lillooet, Thompson, Okanagan-Colville, and Shuswap, whose speakers occupy the Plateau, the southern interior of British Columbia, a high, arid region between the Rocky Mountains on the east and the Coast Mountains on the west. The Upper Lillooet are located on the Fraser River near the present-day town of Lillooet. The Lower Lillooet (or Lil’wat), of the Pemberton valley, are closely connected to coastal peoples and were a major source for the introduction of new social practices and trade goods into the Plateau. The Nlaka’pamux (previously known as Thompson) live along the mid-Fraser and Thompson rivers. The Okanagan occupy the Okanagan valley along the international boundary. The Shuswap, the northernmost of the Interior Salish, reside in the territory from the Fraser River in the west to the Rockies on the east and the Thompson River on the south.

Coast Salish languages of British Columbia include Comox, Pentlatch, Sechelt, Squamish, Halkomelem, Bella Coola, and Nooksack. These languages, with the exception of Nooksack and Bella Coola, were formerly spoken, and some to a limited extent still are spoken, along the southern interior of Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland along and near the Straits of Georgia. Nooksack was formerly spoken in one small area along the present-day international border on the mainland, and Bella Coola is spoken to the north of all other Coast-Salish speaking communities, separated by Kwakwala. The Comox people (including the Homalco, Klahoose, and Sliammon) border the Kwakwala-speaking peoples on both Vancouver Island and the adjacent mainland. To their south, on Vancouver Island, were the Pentlatch, whose language became extinct in 1940. On the mainland, and to the south of the Comox, are the Sechelt and Squamish. The largest language group is the Halkomelem, which includes the Cowichan on Vancouver Island and the Musqueam and Sto:lo along the Fraser River.

Within the Coast Salish language grouping there are some fifty current bands. Most of the Canadian bands have small populations and are organized into tribal councils, umbrella organizations that provide an economy of scale in the provision of services. The membership of these councils varies as bands occasionally withdraw or join. There is a population of more than 21,000 band-enrolled Coast Salish peoples of Canada. Population estimates for the era prior to the first smallpox epidemic of the late eighteenth century are unreliable, but the precontact population may have declined by half by 1820 and by two-thirds by the late nineteenth century. The low came in the early twentieth century, before the present period of rapid population growth.

Today, there are forty-five Interior Salish bands, with a population of more than 15,000. One source gives a figure of 13,000 Interior Salish as of 1835, long after the first epidemic, and a low population of 5,348 in 1890. The pre-contact figure is not known. As with the Coast Salish peoples, there are affiliated Interior Salish communities in Washington State and Idaho. Several Coast and Interior Salish bands’ traditional territories overlap the international border. Among these are the Arrow Lakes (Sinixt), a band no longer recognized in Canada and whose members are primarily enrolled members of the Colville Confederated Tribes in Washington, the Sumas, and the Semiahmoo.

Salish peoples tell creation stories of animals in human form, the ancestors of present-day human beings, and “transformers” (known as Coyote in the Interior), powerful beings who created the present landscape and modified the order of things, eventually making an environment hospitable for humans. The linguistic and archaeological records are different in emphasis, but both show great changes to the landscape and reveal Salish cultures created in situ. By 12,000 years ago, the retreat of the glaciers to the north and to nearby mountain tops left a new area to settle. In the Early Period, from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago, humans encountered a very different environment than exists at present. Glacial meltwater drove up sea levels, producing a saltwater flow up the Fraser River valley. Sea levels fluctuated wildly, so that today evidence of early occupation may be largely destroyed or underwater. Early peoples used lithic technology, as indicated by sites such as Glenrose Cannery near Vancouver. Nine-thousand year old pebble tools are found at the Milliken site in the Fraser Canyon and on the lower Fraser. Microblade tools were introduced from Eurasia to Alaska and to the northwest coast by 7000 B.C.E. In the Middle Period, from 5,500 to 1,500 years ago, sea levels stabilized, and increased stocks of salmon and new techniques for harvesting and preserving allowed for supluses, a more specialized economy, and the formation of large communities. In the Late Period, from 1,500 years ago to the time of contact with Europeans, Coast Salish cultures took their historic form.

Interior Salish prehistory was somewhat different. Linguistic evidence shows that a Salish expansion appears to have occurred via a gradual movement out of the homeland in the Georgia Strait into distant sites, perhaps to beyond the location of the Nuxalk, who were cut off from other Salish speakers early on. Following this, a group crossed the Cascade Mountains east and north into the Plateau and eventually diversified into the speakers of seven Interior Salish languages. Archaeological evidence indicates that the peoples of the Plateau were well established more than 9,000 years ago. The early populations may have had a way of life similar to Paleo-Indians on the Plains, harvesting post-glacial bison, deer, and elk, as indicated by Clovis points in the Okanagan. Microblades dating to about 6400 B.C.E. found on the Thompson River and skeletal material from 6200 B.C.E. (?) show reliance on land mammals. During the Middle Prehistoric Period, new tools were introduced and microblades disappeared sometime before 2000 B.C.E. The Late Prehistoric Period saw the emergence of large pit-house villages, varying in size from a few houses to large concentrations, a preferred housing style which survived into historic times. With surpluses of stored salmon, the western Plateau became a strategic trading area. In the Late Prehistoric Period, huge salmon runs supported complex settlements along the Fraser River. Near Lillooet, at Keatley Creek, for example, archaeological evidence indicates a population of 500 to 1,500 at its height, some 1,000 to 2,000 years ago.