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As the ice began to recede, and
temperatures warmed in north America, inhabitants of northern Asia crossed the Berring Sea
on an ice bridge. Perhaps these first people arrived in British Columbia as early as 7,000
years ago. Certainly, there is evidence that humans lived along the banks of the Shuswap
River at Enderby 5,000 years ago. Until the advent of Europeans only 200 years ago, the
first people of British Columbia lived much as they had for thousands of years.
These first inhabitants have not left a written record. Their histories were oral histories. They have left archaeological evidence at random locations in the valley of the Shuswap. What follows is not a history of the first people or the Spallumcheen Band; that story is theirs to tell. Yet no history of any area of British Columbia's European settlement can be told without reference to the first people to settle here. Every person who has arrived in the Enderby area in the past 150 years has been influenced and touched by the people who have lived there for the past 5,000 years.
The centre of the loose confederation of groups that comprise the Shuswap people was the junction of the North and South Thompson Rivers, approximately where the City of Kamloops is today. Roughly a 200 kilometre radius around this point comprised their geographical area. From the Fraser River in the west to the Columbia River in the east, twenty-three main tribes or bands made up the Shuswap people. The band along the Shuswap River was called Spe'lemtcin (flat or prairie shore) people, or Splats'in as it is spelled today.
The bend in the Shuswap River where Enderby is today marks one edge of their southern boundary. Another part of that southern edge is the Shuswap River near Lumby; yet another part of that southern edge is where the Salmon River Valley narrows and leaves that great plateau that has been given the name, Spallumcheen.
The river valleys of the Salmon and Shuswap directly connected to the larger waterways of Shuswap and Mara Lakes. It was important that these entries into the heartland of the Shuswap people be guarded and protected. Thus it fell to those groups who had settled in these areas to be the first line of defense against other native groups to the south.
It was for much the same reasons that the Okanagan people had main encampments at the head of Okanagan and Kalamalka lakes. The middle area between these two people was a disputed sort of no-man's land. "Warfare was common between all groups, but the battles between the Okanagan and the Shuswap were the most notorious and violent."
Sometime at the end of the 18th century or beginning of the 19th century a strong war party of Shuswap were taken by surprise by the Okanagan near MacIntyre Bluff in the south Okanagan. They were overwhelmed by the Okanagan and pursued northward. The pursuit ended when the Shuswap crossed the river near present-day Enderby. Both the Okanagan and the Shuswap were clear on the boundary between their people.
Least it appear that these defensive positions were forts similar to Hudson Bay posts, it must be remembered that all the native people of Canada, save those on the coast of British Columbia and along the lowlands of the St. Lawrence river, were nomadic. They moved about searching for food. During the winter months, they survived on what they had gathered during the harvest months of late summer and fall. It was during the winter months that the people dwelt in more permanent structures. For the Shuswap people these structures were called 'kekulis'.
There are numerous sites of kekulis throughout the valley of the Shuswap, especially near Enderby A kekuli or pit house was built down into the ground and was circular. Central poles about 6 to 8 inches in diameter were placed firmly in the ground to support the roof which was made of smaller poles lashed together and ultimately covered with earth. The entry and exit was through the smoke hole in the ceiling. It held fifteen to thirty persons, "...but had two disadvantages; first water seeped in occasionally from the ground outside and no amount of lining with cedar bark could make the walls quite impermeable; secondly, no one could enter over the earth-covered roof without showering dirt on the inmates below." Their advantage was that they kept people quite warm even when it was biting cold outside.
The inhabitants of a kekuli were usually a single extended family. Uncles, aunts, grandparents, nieces and nephews were all in close proximity, and it fell to each of the adults to educate and discipline any of the children. The family was the strongest bond in the native social structure, followed by the band and then the larger association. Bands for the most part were very independent.
With this sort of social organization, native society was very equalitarian. The sharing of food was essential for the survival of the family. Privation and starvation were equally shared. "Land was looked upon as neither individual nor family property, since every one had a right to all parts of the common country for any purpose." "Real" property as might be defined in European law was non-existent in native society. As close to a definition of ownership might be stories told, a deer trap or an eagle's eyrie.
The Shuswap, like every native group, were fiercely proud and extremely ethnocentric. While various native groups may have had very similar legends and stories, even with similar characters such as coyote, each group gave their own spin to the stories and each had special events that defined their own people.
In the cosmology of the first people, objects and individuals had spirit and power. These spirits and powers could be good or evil. To connect with internal and external spirits or powers, native people fasted, prayed, or danced. There were numerous taboos. To run afoul of one of the spirits by breaking a taboo was to bring chaos and misery to oneself or family.
Territory was another matter. Each band was quite well aware of its traditional territory for hunting, gathering and fishing; in fact the native people along the Shuswap River had a name for every bend in the river and every fishing spot Just let any intrusion from a neighbouring band occur and fierce resistance would follow.
A story was told of a war party of Cree from across the mountains which entered into the territory of the Shuswap along the North Thompson River. The Cree captured women and children and headed back across the mountains. When the Shuswap men returned from hunting to discover the deed, they immediately pursued the invaders. After several days of almost non-stop travel, they caught up to the unsuspecting Cree. Taken by surprise, all the Cree were killed.
By the time of European contact, "...it is important to remember that almost every part of the country was claimed by one or other of the numerous tribes of Indians, and the Europeans who came to colonize it were usurpers in the eyes of the aborigines, except so far as they received rights to their land from the aborigines themselves."
Bob Cowan
Enderby Museum 1999
For a Bibliography please contact the Enderby Museum