“Whose name was Clatkeq, which means in English ‘Funny-man.’ Mischelle had never heard of a name for the eldest boy. It is difficult to gather whether the children of the woodpecker by his bear-wives had human or animal forms at this time. Sometimes the recital seems to imply the former, at another time the latter. After the flight there is no doubt that the black bear’s sons had human forms” -Hill-Tout.
4 “From this time onwards the youngest, who seems to have been suddenly endowed with supernormal ‘power,’ occupies the foremost place in the recital, the elder brother becoming a very subordinate personage” - Hill-Tout.
5 ‘Keekwilee’ is the Jargon term for the native winter, semi-subterranean dwellings of the interior tribes, full descriptions of which will be found in the 6th Report of Dr. Boas on the North-western Tribes of Canada (Trans. British Association, 1890), or in ‘Notes on the Shuswap People of British Columbia’by Dr. G. M. Dawson” - Hill-Tout.
6 For analogues, see Boas Tsimshian Mythology (1916) p. 609. This striking medical innovation brought about the “Origin of the Fountain People” in a story of that title in Teit “Traditions of the Lillooet” (1912) p. 368.
7 For analogues, see Boas Tsimshian Mythology (1916) p. 609. In the minds of the Lillooet, this story accounted for the range of shades of hair and skin in their Shuswap neighbours in Teit “Traditions of the Lillooet” (1912) pp. 357-358. Dan Milo in “The Story of the Grizzly and Black Bears” limits the choice to one, the alder, and suggests this is the Adam and Eve story of the Indian people — in Oliver Wells Myths and Legends of the Staw-loh Indians (1970) pp.3-5.
8 “A variant version, much less full but useful for comparison, has been given by Dr. Boas in his Indianische Sagen von der Nord-Pacifischen Kiiste Amerikas, p. 16"— Note by Editor of Folk-lore. This story “Qals” appears on pp. 19-24 of the translation by Dietrich Bertz, available at present in typescript from the British Columbia Indian Language Project (1977). A close analogue, “Myth of the Qeqals, or the Black-bear Children,” appears in the report on the Chehalis in volume III of the present edition.
NOTES ON THE NTLAKAPAMUQ [THOMPSON] OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, A BRANCH OF THE GREAT SALISH STOCK OF NORTH AMERICA1
The following notes on the Ntlakapamuq [Thompson] are a summary of the writer’s studies of this division of the Salish of British Columbia. They treat to some extent of the ethnography, archaeology, language, social customs, folklore, etc., of this tribe, recording much, it is believed, not hitherto gathered or published. For my folklore, ethnography, and social customs notes I am chiefly indebted to Chief Mischelle, of Lytton, than whom there is probably no better informed man in the whole tribe.
Ethnography
The Thompson is one of the most interesting of the five groups into which the Interior Salish of British Columbia are divided. They dwell along the banks of the Fraser between Spuzzum and Lillooet, and on the Thompson from its mouth to the boundaries of the Sequapmuq [Shuswap], and have also some half-score villages in the Nicola valley. They possess altogether some sixty-two villages throughout this area: eleven on the Thompson, nine in the Nicola valley, eleven on the Fraser above Lytton (Tlkumtcin), their headquarters from time immemorial, and thirty-one below. These are respectively:2
Thompson River: (1) Tlkumtcin (present Lytton), meaning unknown; (2) Nkaumen [Thompson station], meaning unknown; (3) Nhaiiken [Drynock], meaning unknown; (4) Nkumtcin (Spences Bridge), meaning unknown; (5) Nkoakoaetko ‘yellow water’; (6) Pimainus ‘grassy hills’ [Pimainus Creek]; (7) Pkaist ‘white rock,’ contracted from stpek ‘white’ [Pukaist Creek] ; (8) Cpaptsen ‘place where spatzin grows’ — Asclepias, or great milkweed, from which natives make their thread, string nets, etc. [Spatsum] ; (9) Cnpa ‘barren or bare place’[Black Canyon] ; (10) Sklalc [Cornwall Creek] - where the Indians secured a certain mineral earth, with which they covered the face to prevent it from chapping; (11) Ntaikum ’muddy water.’
Nicola Valley: (1) Klukluuk ‘a slide’[Kloklowuck Creek] ; (2) Cqokunq ‘a stony place’; (3) Nhothotkoas ‘place of many holes’; (4) Koaskuna [Petit Creek]; (5) Culuc ‘open face’; (6) Ncickt ‘little canyon’; (7) Zoqkt [Shuta Creek] ; (8) Koiltcana [Quilchena] ; (9) Stcukosh ‘red place(?).’
On Fraser above Lytton: (1) Nhomin; (2) Stain (Stein Creek); (3) Nokoieken; (4) Yeot; (5) Stcaeken; (6) Nklpan ‘deep’; (7) Ntako ‘bad water’; (8) Ncekpt ‘destroyed’— refers to the incidents of a story; (9) Tceueq; (10) Tsuzel ‘palisaded enclosure containing houses’; (11) Skaikaieten.
On Fraser below Lytton: (1) Spapium ‘level grassy land’ — river bench opposite Lytton; (2) Nkaia [Nikaia Creek] ; (3) Skapa ’sandy land’ [Skuppa Creek]; (4) Kokoiap ‘place of strawberries’; (5) Siska [Siska Creek, Cisco] ; (6) Ahulqa; (7) Nzatzahatko ‘clear water’; (8) Sluktlakten ‘crossing place’ — Indians crossed the river in canoe here [Kanaka Bar] ; (9) Statciani ‘beyond the mountain’ (Jackass Mountain); (10) Nkoiam ‘eddy’ [Boston Bar]; (11) Nkatzam ‘log bridge across stream’ [opposite Keefers station] ; (12) Kapasloq ’sand roof — a great settlement in former times; (13) Cuk ‘little hollow or valley’; (14) Skmuc ‘edge of the flat’; (15) Cntaktl ‘bottom of the hill’; (16) Speim ‘pleasant, grassy, flowery spot’; (17) Tzauamuk ‘noise of rolling stones in bed of stream’; (18) Npektem — where the Indians obtained the white clay they burnt and used for cleaning wool, etc.; (19) Timetl ‘place where red ochre was obtained’; (20) Klapatcitcin ’sandy landing’ (North Bend); (21) Kleaukt ‘rocky bar’; (22) Tkkoeaum; (23) Skuzis ‘jumping’ — the people were formerly much given to jumping; (24) Ckuokem ‘little hills’; (25) Tcatua; (26) Skuouakk ‘skinny people’; (27) Tikuiluc [Tikwalus Creek, Chapmans Bar]; (28) Ckuet; (29) Cuimp ‘strong’ head village of the Lower Thompson just above Yale; (30) Cpuzum or Spuzum [Spuzzum] — name has reference to a custom prevalent here in the old days: the people of one place would go and sweep the houses of the people of another, and they would return the compliment next morning at daybreak — this was a constant practice; (31) Nkakim ‘despised’ — name has reference to the poor social condition of the inhabitants of this village in former days: they were much looked down upon by the Spuzzum people.
Social Organisation
The primitive customs of the Thompson, like those of their neighbours, have for the most part given way to new ones borrowed from the whites. Some few are retained in a more or less modified form, and are still practised by the older people. The social system of the Thompson seems to have been a very simple one. I could hear of nothing in the way of secret societies, totemic systems, or the like. The whole group was comprised under one tribal name, and spoke the same tongue with slight dialectal differences. They were, however, divided into numerous village communities, each ruled over by an hereditary chief. Of these latter there were three of more importance than the rest, viz., the chief of the lower division of the tribe, whose headquarters was Spuzzum; the chief of the Nicola division, which was called by the lower division Tcuaqamuq; and the chief of the central division, whose headquarters was Tlkumtcin (Lytton).3 Of these three the most important was the chief of the central division. He was lord paramount. The conduct of affairs in each community was in the hands of the local chief, who was assisted by a council of elders. In all the relations of life the elders of the bands played an important part, and in all family consultations their advice was sought and listened to with the greatest deference and respect. In addition to the hereditary chiefs, martial chiefs or leaders were temporarily elected during times of warfare from among the warriors. It was a rare thing for the district or communal chief to lead or head a war party. The only part it seems they played was in sanctioning fights and in bidding them cease.
My informant told me that the Lytton chiefs were, as a rule, peace-loving men, always more anxious to prevent
