The Colville people (

Sinixt The Sinixt"Sinixt Nation…" (also known as the Sin-Aikst or Sin Aikst,Reyes 2002, ''passim.'' "Senjextee", "Arrow Lakes Band", or — less commonly in recent decades — simply as "The Lakes") are a First Nations People. The Sinixt are ...

: Enselxcin), are a Native American people of the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (sometimes Cascadia, or simply abbreviated as PNW) is a geographic region in western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Thou ...

. The name ''Colville'' comes from association with

Fort Colville Fort Colville was a U.S. Army post in the Washington Territory located north of current Colville, Washington. During its existence from 1859 to 1882, it was called "Harney's Depot" and "Colville Depot" during the first two years, and finally " ...

, named after Andrew Colvile of the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

Okanagan The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is par ...

: sx̌ʷyʔiɬpx) Earlier, outsiders often called them ''Scheulpi, Chualpay'', or ''Swhy-ayl-puh''; the French traders called them ''Les Chaudières'' ("the Kettles") in reference to Kettle Falls. The neighboring Coeur d'Alene called them ''Sqhwiyi̱'ɫpmsh'' and the

Spokane Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Ca ...

knew them as ''Sxʷyelpetkʷ''.

History

The Colville tribe was originally located in

eastern Washington Eastern Washington is the region of the U.S. state of Washington located east of the Cascade Range. It contains the city of Spokane (the second largest city in the state), the Tri-Cities, the Columbia River and the Grand Coulee Dam, the Hanf ...

on the Colville River and the area of the

Columbia River The Columbia River ( Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia ...

between Kettle Falls and the town of Hunters. The tribe's history is tied with Kettle Falls, an important salmon fishing resource, and an important post of the

, which brought the advantages and disadvantages of contact with people of European heritage. In 1846, the

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

St. Paul's Mission was established. Through its influence nearly all the upper

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

tribes were

Christianize Christianization ( or Christianisation) is to make Christian; to imbue with Christian principles; to become Christian. It can apply to the conversion of an individual, a practice, a place or a whole society. It began in the Roman Empire, conti ...

d. In 1872, the Colville tribe was relocated to an

Indian reservation An Indian reservation is an area of land held and governed by a federally recognized Native American tribal nation whose government is accountable to the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs and not to the state government in which it ...

in eastern Washington the named after them. It is inhabited and managed by the

Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation is the federally recognized tribe that controls the Colville Indian Reservation, which is located in northeastern Washington, United States. It is the government for its people. The Confederate T ...

, which is a

federally recognized tribe This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the Unite ...

comprising twelve bands. The twelve bands are the Methow, Okanogan, Arrow Lakes, Sanpoil, Colville, Nespelem, Chelan, Entiat, Moses-Columbia, Wenatchi, Nez Perce, and Palus. Eight of these related bands are the names of rivers that flow off of the eastern slopes of the North Cascades or the Okanagon Highlands of eastern Washington. Several of these rivers have small towns or communities where the rivers flow into the Columbia River. Beginning in the Southwest the rivers in order as you go north and then east are the: Wenatchee (Town of Wenatchee), Entiat (Town of Entiat), Chelan (Town of Chelan), Methow (Town of Methow, upstream of the confluence with the Columbia), Okanogan (Town of Okanogan, upstream of the Confluence), Nespelem (Tribal community of Nespelem, upstream of the confluence), Sanpoil (Tribal community of Sanpoil, on the Sanpoil arm of Lake Roosevelt), and Colville (Town of Colville, upstream of the confluence). The Arrow Lakes are upstream on the Columbia River a little ways above the border in British Columbia. The Moses Coulee, Moses-Columbia, is an Ice Age Canyon (coulee) just south of the Columbia River west of Coulee City on U.S. Highway 2. Not to be confused, Coulee City is located in the Grand Coulee, a similar and more famous Ice Age Canyon that lies east of the Moses Coulee. The Nez Perce are the descendants of Chief Joseph band which came from Northeast Oregon. As part of the conditions of surrender Chief Joseph and his band were not allowed to return to their home in Oregon and were eventually re-located to the Colville reservation after the so called "Flight of the Nez Perce" in 1877. The Nez Perce (not including the small group re-located to Colville) are located on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in West central Idaho along the Clearwater River. Mooney (1928) estimated the number of the Colville at 1,000 as of 1780, but

Lewis and Clark Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...

placed it at 2,500, a figure also fixed upon by Teit (1930). In 1870, there were 616; in 1900, 298; in 1904, 321; in 1907, 334; and in 1937, 322.

Language

The Colville language or N̓x̌ʷʔiłpcən is a one of six dialects of

Colville-Okanagan Okanagan, or Colville-Okanagan, or Nsyilxcən (n̓səl̓xcin̓, n̓syilxčn̓), is a Salish language which arose among the indigenous peoples of the southern Interior Plateau region based primarily in the Okanagan River Basin and the Columbia R ...

historically spoken by the "Syilx peoples" including Northern Okanagan and Southern/Lower Okanagan (Sinkaietk), Methow, Sanpoil (Nesilextcl'n), Nespelem (sometimes considered a Sanpoil subtribe), Colville, and

(Senijextee/Arrow Lakes Band) peoples.

Syilx The ''Syilx'' () people, also known as the Okanagan, Okanogan or Okinagan people, are a First Nations and Native American people whose traditional territory spans the Canada–US boundary in Washington state and British Columbia in the Okanagan ...

is the historic autonym of the Okanagan peoples and today a political term for land and cultural claims for all Colville-Okanagan-speaking peoples. Together with Wenatchee-Columbian, Spokane-Kalispel-Bitterroot, and Coeur d'Alene, Colville-Okanagan belong to the four Southern Interior Salishan languages of the Plateau.

Notable people

* Jim Boyd, musician * Joe Feddersen, artist * Kimberly Norris Guerrero, actress *

Lawney Reyes Lawney L. Reyes (1931 – August 10, 2022) was an American Sin-Aikst artist, curator, and memoirist, based in Seattle, Washington. Biography Lawney Reyes was born in 1931 to Mary Christian, Sin-Aikst (now known as the Sinixt). Historically ...

artist, curator, and memoirist

Notes

External links

* {{authority control Native American tribes in Washington (state)