Template talk:Coast Salish in British Columbia

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This is a first draft, and for the hell of it I'll put it on Naut'sa Mawt Tribal Council to see what happens; as with the {{Kwakwaka'wakw}} template, I'd like the government section broken up by tribal council, with I guess Squamish Nation and Semiahmoo First Nation and Chehalis First Nation as "unaffiliated" (see {{Nlaka'pamux}} or maybe {{Nlaka'pamux First Nations}} for an example, or {{Secwepemc First Nations}} maybe. I didn't know how to format the subsections in though so will leave it to someone more experienced with template formats.....they're grouped by Sto:lo and Naut'sa Mawt, with the latter second; might be some repetitions; also with the "people" articles/redlinks above in some cases articles are needed even when bluelinked Popkum goes to the place, so Popkum people maybe is needed, if that's definable, and in Seabird Island's case I didn't know what else to do, but that happens to go to Yerba Buena Island in California so obviously, aside from it's not really a "people" name, Seabird Island, British Columbia needs to be disambig'd on the California-article's page, once it's written (or is that Seabird Island (British Columbia), which is geographic feature-format as opposed to community feature-format. Anyway, just notes for now; suspect I missed someone/something......Skookum1 (talk) 21:50, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] languages section

In addition to the tribal council breakdown, by the look of things the Culture and Society one should have Languages broken off, as there's more than one.....I'll leave it for now but between Comox, Pentlatch, Hulquminum/Hunquminum/Halqemeylem, North Straits Salish, Skwxwu7mesh and Shishalhalem I'd say there's more than enough need for a separate section....Skookum1 (talk) 22:29, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] additions if this is just to be {{Coast Salish}}

and others, that's just a short list; not too many more though so maybe worth revising this template and its title....Skookum1 (talk) 22:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

1. Why Coast Salish in British Columbia ? Why not just Coast Salish like Template:Kwakwaka'wakw?

2. Stóːlō ?

-TheMightyQuill (talk) 23:44, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

1. See section above; OldManRivers and I have been debating the template divisions/names for a while, I went for a maybe-temporary "in BC" one to dodge the issue and much larger scale of including US-side Coast Salish; I don't have all the groups in the list above yet...but it's already a huge template, it can be huger I guess; OMR preferred one, I believe, that didn't recognize the border; {{Okanagan Nation Alliance}} and Template:Ktunaxa or whatever that's called Template:Ktunuaxa Kinbasket Tribal Council maybe - both span the border (the Ktunaxa category/articles do need some "straightening out" also...). Anyway, if this is just {{Coast Salish}} then it's much larger; probably could do with a chiefly portrait like Sealh in which case, or maybe a Salish-style art piece (see Talk:Northwest Coast art). More languages also, though no equivalents to the regional-government sort of thing that tribal councils are; harder also maybe to delineate community/government/reservation/ethno articles maybe (in Colville Reservation's case (that's a redirect I think, to whatever that is, and an {{Interior Salish}} group - although re them {{Peoples of the Northwest Plateau}} or something like that already exists and needs work [no that was aa a category, see below - skook]) you have situations where there is one agency/reservation and one community, but six or seven "ethnicities" or nations, except now they're all one nation; this is also true at Warm Springs and Grand Ronde, which are "blended" communities with latter-day creoles mixing several languages, including non-Salishan ones, along with glops of Chinook Jargon, or in Grand Ronde's case actually it's CJ as the base tongue, whereas at Colville it's Okanagan-Spokan etc (all very close and interintelligible more than other Salish languages...I think). Anyway, if you vote for a full-Coast Salish template that's fine by me. There are issues here too about regional groupings resulting from post-Indian Act arrangements, like Cowichan Tribes (and see Somena) where different groups were combined under a single administration, or the Chilliwack area where one or two large groups are now split into several nations. Which brings me to the issue of Sto:lo

2. Y'see, Sto:lo Nation includes the Tsleil-waututh and Musqueam who are distinct groups, and I'll ezplain again apparently doesn't include the Sts'Ailes/Chehalis; there was no political or cultural unity, rather diversity remains the norm. So because on the one hand Tribal Council listings will group them all together under subsection "Sto:lo Nation" they can also be grouped in the "ethnic area" of the template as Sto:lo; except those that aren't. The Douglas Band, who are Lower St'at'imc, also belong to the Sto:lo Nation, and I think there's one or two others, like the Semiahmoo, whose ancestral tongue, like the Tsawwassens, is Straits Salish; Musqueam's is distinct within Hunquminum too, I think (notice all my "I thinks", which means I'm pretty sure to the point being willing to vouch for it here...). Katzies are also a group apart, as with kway-quit-lams; the New Westminster Indian Band, also, a new start-up, does not have an ethnicity but is in the process of reasserting itself, with applications frrom emembers of any group who might havestatus or woukd if they could join a basnd.. Not all templates can be broken down by major ethnic groupings; the Saulteaux have a band in BC; what template can wegive them but "aboriginal peoples in northern BC" (their offices are in PG or ??). Anyway, that's why Sto:lo isn't in the current listings; it's a tribal council and a grouping; if you can make the grouping sections fine, please do so (I did some on {{Nlaka'pamux First Nations}} but the layout's different here...and add the US side ones, I guess that would be their grouping (King George Illahee /kinchoch illi?i and Boston Illahee / bastEn illi?i for BC/Canada and the US respectively, if you'd care to use the CJ division of the country ;-). The ethnic issue's a bit dicier, although Comox and Sto:lo are fairly clear; it's southern Vancouver Island and the "Sto:lo shore" of Georgia Strait that are the issues, and also the interation of the cxross-straits people; Beecher Bay in BC is home to some of Washington's Clallams btw (see S'Klallam (Jamestown) which I discovered tonight and proved rather interesting) and the links between Lummi and Nooksack and the BC-side peoples of the Gulf are pretty obvious; grouping by language might work maybe; I was thinking of grouping them geographically but the Skwxwu7mesh and Shishalh and so on can be "unaffiliated"Skookum1 (talk) 00:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC) Here, for a taste of the US-side listings, although this is a cat not a language-group listing. It's possibly a more complete listing than what's on Coast Salish languages though, which is not broken down by government in the same way;although many of these are still jointly government and tribal articles as well as community/reservation articles. So far.Skookum1 (talk) 00:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC) Here's Category:Indigenous languages of the North American Plateau Indigenous languages of the North American Plateau, which crosses over with Category:Category:Salishan languages and in that latter one you'll see that not all Coast or Interior Salish are in their respective categories; in all pls note that the language catlink takes you to the tribe article, alhtough because of the complexity of the Washington linguistic map this is hard to sort out, as with Colville; much more straightfoward with the Yakama.....anyway please revise this one and maybe help me stub up, from existing examples, teh Klahoose, Sliammon and other undone ones yet out there; my experience hasbeen that once thees are created somebody from one of these communities or familiar with them comes along, searchesfor it, and decides to add ot the article; much easier to undertake than startingfrom scratch at an article as a visiting newbie....I consider stubs to be "information nets", where you design it to catch what's needed/wanted; "if you build it they will come".Skookum1 (talk) 00:40, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

While I was out it occurred to me I should add that I chose the Boston/King George division because that is the old-time native, i.e. CJ, term to describe the partition of the country; it's also why I included the Tshinuk-wawa forms (modern CJ, from Grand Ronde OR), or as close as I remember them. Yes, some tribal councils cross the border, and peoples and territories; I just wanted to let you know the point was at least to use the at-one-time aboriginal name for the divided territory/ies. The Lummi and Nooksack and other Straits-side US people are tied closely to the Tsawwassen and Semiahmoo as well as the Saanich and Klallam and the Sumas, and so on; similarly all the cross-Juan de Fuca ties; it's why I puzzled over the inclusion of the Makah on the Nuu-chah-nulth-aht template; they are "aht" - people - but not part of the usual Nuu-chah-nulth identity; so anyway, sorry to seemingly foist a whiteman perspective on the equation, the name for the division in CJ was supposed to be aboriginally sensitive or indigenously conscious; yet as Quill observes below it's not all easily dividable by language; the Nuxalk are part of the Northwest Coast art grouping we were discussing elsewhere, and of that regional culture, or group of cultures, and as I noted when we get onto the Washington side there's other cultural groups that are intermixed with the Salish ones, and it's to include them on the template that daunted me, because of its scale and complexity; but overall if {{Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast}} or whatever it is you've named (I'll look back up and fix that if wrong; "aboriginal" instead of "indigenous"? And see my replies to MightyQuill below about Pacific Northwest/Northwest Coast identity. I'll see if I can enlist someone from the Washington, Idaho or Montana or Indigenous peoples WikiProjects to maybe help with {{Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau}}, but a discussion about its northern and southern limits sorta needs to be held; there is, at least, a fairly clear division between coastal and interior peoples on either side of the line, although in Oregon it's a bit more both sides of the line, and the southern coastal culture is very different from the one northwards from Chinook Country; yet the Nehalem and Coos Bay peoples (forgotten their name) consider themselves also Pacific Northwest; so a southern boundary has to be established, and by your perspective as mine I'm not sure if the Cailfornia-Oregon border, another colonialist line, has any pertinence; the plateau template will have the Shoshone, who will also be in any Great Basin template, were it to exist. Anyway, I'm all for aboriginally-sensitive organization, been trying hard for it; once I'm done my reply to Quill I'll try and fix that template - {{Coast Salish}} right?, or I'll start on it as the Puget Sound list is lengthy; and please find a suitable image for that one. One thing, though, aren't groupings like Cowichan (as User:Somena says) and also Sto:lo and other tribal councils which combine once-separate peoples (common among Kwakwaka'wakw nations, no?) are all creations of the colonialist order; it's a conundrum, perhaps just a philosophical one but part of my issue with identifying peoples/cultures by language only; the Stuwix belong in the same template as the Sc'exmx and Spa7omin, who form the Nicola people, but they're Athapaskan; similarly there are a number of isolate languages on the state side which are nonethelss part of the regional cultural; including the Ktunaxa and Nez Perce; as with the now-extinct Chemakum and their kin, as I think I've got it, the Quileute....they have no group to be put in; their neighbours to the south (of the Quileute) are the Chinookans and the Chehalis; the Chinookans are also isolates....anyway as far as government goes I'll have a look at the various homepages for the different US agencies and communities and see if there's regional political alliances of any kind that might help organize the government parts of the template....Seems like a good idea that each section of the template have its own show/hide, no?Skookum1 (talk) 07:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I dunno... I'm just not sure about this. Firstly, how much is Coast Salish an identity shared by the peoples you have included. Yes it's a language family, and yes, some people refer to themselves as Coast Salish, but do the majority of Coast Salish-speaking peoples think of that as part of their identity? And if they do, it seems especially strange to stop at the border. Will the Katzie one day have a template with their 3 or 4 reserve communities (langley, barnston island, and pitt meadows, I think), a template for the Sto:lo people, a template for the stolo tribal council (I think they're a member) and another template for the coast salish? - TheMightyQuill (talk) 05:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm gonna answer between each of your paragraphs so as to try to keep the points separate ;-) Yes, the American-side Salish do identify as Coast Salish, including the Nehalem, and also as Pacific Northwest/Northwest Coast; but as noted in my reply to OMR above crossing the border involves a large number of isolates and also of intermingled communities where ethnic grouping just won't work; nearly all agencies outside Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula are polytribal; it's geography if anything that defines them, Coast and Interior/Plateau is what it is; the region-wide template suggested by OMR, and my suggested parallel for Peoples of the Northwest Plateau (as per the existing cat name, for languages anyway). As for the question with the Katzie as an example, the articles you're talking about are community articles, and individual reserves - that's a different category, distinct from the government articles and the ethno articles; many of these already exist; and I don't think Barnston Island First Nation is distinct within Katzie, nor Pitt Meadows First Nation; they are just Katzie, and they have three separate villages; as with teh Skwxwu7mesh villages laid out by OMR, each one gets an article; but they are all Katzie. The community/reserve articles are the third tier, and necessary because of this kind of thing; in other cases each village, or group of villages sometimes (as at Seton Portage-Shalalth), is a single self-identifying nation, despite a common ethnicity with their neighbours down the road; in some towns, such as Lillooet, despite the common ethnicity and tribal council each of the bands fronting on, or rather surrounding, town style themselves as individual nations, but also St'at'imc Nation. So the trinary ethno-govt-community/reserve/ation spectrum of articles is meant to have enough flex to cover all the bases. More related to this in a bit, because it's meant as a framework, partly to encourage the writing of the necessary "split" articles; it's a complex area, it will take complex templates; but that's even the case with {{Sto:lo First Nations}} and {{Sto:lo}}. As above, "Northwest Coast" seems a safer bet, as a way to include uniques like the Skwxwu7mesh and Chehalis and such; I was simply trying for a regionality, and balked at crossing the border because of the at-least-doubling of the number of articles to be linked in the template.....I guess I could draw the line at the Siskiyous-Coos Bay/Rogue River...i.e. for {{Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast}} if that's OK (OMR?). And yes, right down to Eureka people identify as Pacific Northwest/Northwest Coast; although as noted above somewhere the Coastal/Interior line is fuzzier in Oregon....Skookum1 (talk) 07:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe for something like Coast Salish -- where there might be a cultural connection, but no political connection -- it would be better to only include nations/cultures, but not governments or tribal councils? Sorry to pick at the template which you've obviously put a lot of work into AFTER the fact, but I thought i'd raise these questions. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 05:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

It was OMR's idea to include governments and culture on the same template as the peoples articles; I'd started a series of government-only and peoples-only templates; with {{Kwakwaka'wakw}} he included everything; my problem and the long discussion has been the scale of the {{tl}Coast Salish}} template, were it to be written, or of the big regional oen; show/hide is gonna be necessary on the big regional one, and in Coast Salish case the best I'll be able to do is follow in rough geographical order southwards; and again, ethnicity may not correspond to an individual agendy/tribe; and there are several groups who speak Lushootseed, but the common linguistic tie did not produce a regional cultural identity as with Sto:lo - and about Sto:lo although I think you brought this up somewhere below, the Sto:lo Nation tribal council and the identity built around it are the product of a regional organization that is the effect of colonization; since native self-government gained ssteam it's come to include some peoples that, though connected, werent' "peoples of the river" but more of the Straits (Tsawwassen, Semiahmoo e.g.); in the old times of a different community of communities than the clustered peoples upriver in the Chilliwack area; there, now, individual bands and reserves have become separate nations, despite all being Sto:lo collectively; ditto among the St'at'imc as already noted above somewhere. Anyway, I'd prefer split government/community/ethno templates, with a link to the respective other templates on each one, if you get my meaning, so they're interrlinked; or else a really complex show/hide.Skookum1 (talk) 07:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

As for Sto:lo being both a tribal council and a people... up till now you've been in favour of separating cultural articles from poltical/organizational articles, even if they refer to the same group. Why does it surprise you that there are duplicates? You've got a Cowichan Tribes linked, and also Quamichan - one a people, one a gov't, which is fine. But you've got Kwantlen (a disambig page) under tribes, but no reference to Kwantlen First Nation. Every one of the gov't articles in this template should have a corresponding "people" article, no? - TheMightyQuill (talk) 05:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Did I put Cowichan Tribes in teh peoples section? I shouldn't have, only its component members; same thing applies; they are if anything to be grouped geographically; Cowichan Tribes is a tribal council; but they were all distinct peoples, and also closely connected to the Penelakut and Tsartlips and so on, as well as the Musqueam and Tsawwassen; Mid-Island Tribal Council is now Naut'sa mawt, and includes the Mainland Comox....Skookum1 (talk) 07:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I hope I don't sound hostile... I'm just not sure how to make this work. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 05:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Different title, better parameters, some consideration to the volume of entries; I'd go for non-consolidated templates ("consolidated" meaning like {{Kwakwaka'wakw}}), or at least use show/hide to clean up the visuals; or maybe it's only necessary on {{Coast Salish}}...I remain concerned about the non-inclusion of the Chemakum/Quileute (and, hmmm, the Metis orgs in BC...and the Saulteaux, wherever their office in BC is...Interior though I think...); {{Tsimshian}} at least doesn't have a tribal council (not lately anyway....). I'm fast with copy-pasting and formatting lists and turning them into templates, and have a computer again full-time; I'll copy over what's on {{Coast Salish in British Columbia}} into {{Coast Salish}} and add the Boston-side groups, lengthy though they are; maybe this should be a sandbox project, as I suspect it's going to be so big as to be unwieldy; but we could always cut-paste it all out into separate templates and throw a speedy delete template on it if need be; as with {{First Nations in British Columbia}}....oddly enough my interest in these templates began because I didn't like the vagaries of the geographic limit imposed on {{First Nations on Vancouver Island}}, which misses some of the Kwakwaka'wakw and also the Sunshine Coast-Lwoer Mainland peoples, who belong in the same template as the Salish peoples of the Island, and also misses the mid-Coast Northern Wakashans, and was only governments as I recall....anyway I better get started on the {{Coast Salish}} template, and may hell come what may of it....Skookum1 (talk) 07:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
As for the lack of split between tribe, government, community and/or language articles, that's a work in progress, and also difficult to sort out; I've worked my way through BC creating a lot of the necessary stubs, as in Category:Secwepemc or maybe did I make {{Secwepwemc}}? {{Tsilhqot'in}} I think, but maybe I appended "peoples" or "First Nations" to distinguis the people and gofvernment articles; {{Communities with Tsilhqot'in populations}} could take in non-reserve towns, which is often the case; e.g. Lillooet with the St'at'imc, Lytton with the Nlaka'pamux, and actually, as you may now, Vancouver has the largest aboriginal population in the province, but I know that's a stretch....anyway the articles needed are still out there to be split/created, and there's more turn up all the time; I just found this which appears to be, by its syntax, a translation from another-language Wiki; needed some tidying, added the templates as with other things that turn up....the Plateau template could potentially be bigger than the Coast one.....bear in mind, also, that the Ktunaxa in the US are allied to Bitterroot Salish and Pend Oreilles, and in Canada with the upper Columbia River Secwepemc (near Skookumchuck, BC, around Invermere somewhere), who are also part of th Secwepemc Tribal Council (the southern one of the two); and there are Secwepemc who are not part of hte tribal council, and some belong to the Chilcotin tribal council, and so on...it's quite the tangle; again with Sto:lo the concept of the nation and the reality of the tribal council's membership are two different listings; does the St'at'imc Douglas Band see themselves as part of the Sto:lo peole, or only the Sto:lo Nation. One would have to ask, but it's not something that you'd get an easy reply via email; many like the Pavilion/Tskwaylaxw/Tscweylecw are both St'at'imc and Secwepemc, and so on...hence the need, to me, to have separate government and peoples templates, adn again separate ones for communities; you'll note that I also took the Surrey/Delta neighbourhoods templates off the First Nations located there; it's protocoloic; I doubt the Tsawwaseen people consider themselves a neighbourhood of Delta, for example.Skookum1 (talk) 07:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
By the way OMR I see you've used indigenously-correct spellings on {{Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast}} and I understand why; the template I built is using existing article names (when not including "(tribe)") which is the Wiki standard; I like the idea of yours, but the non-standard characters are gonna drive template-supervising admins nuts ;-). Still, easy enough to copy them over into {{Copast Salish}}Skookum1 (talk) 08:10, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Re: Sto:lo. I don't know how old it is (I've seen it written as Stahlo?) and I'm not sure that you can call it a product of colonization. Individual band governments are, certainly. (Cowichan Tribes by the way, is not a tribal council, but a legal band gov't/reserve). Tribal councils might be a response to colonialism, but they weren't set up by the government. I'm not sure how old Nisga'a group is, but it was the base for the attempt to reach the Privy Council in the early 20th century. A lot of the other tribal councils were set up after the collapse of UBCIC and BCANSI in 1975, but the idea was create new institutions more influenced by historical groupings, and less to do with gov't legislation. They were in direct conflict with "Pan-Indian" leaders like George Manuel, and the AFN, which bases everything around bands and chiefs. I think it might be best to start by making new categories, and a distinction between Tribal Councils, band councils/First Nations, and Treaty Groups.

My point, however, is that just because something is a product of colonization doesn't make it unencyclopedic. Communities/villages, cultural groups, band governments, tribal councils, and treaty groups are all worthy of inclusion. But if you try to include all of that in this template, it will be ridiculous.

Also, I would suggest you look through the Fort Langley Journal to see was on/visiting the Fraser in the 1940s. The last section has a listing of names. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 16:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by "the last section?" Of the book, you mean, or of that webpage (not much there). btw while we're on about this kind of thing see Talk:Salish SeaSkookum1 (talk) 17:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, Stahlo is an old spelling, so is Staulo.....but both, like Sto:lo, are simply the name of the Fraser River; the actual construct for "people of the river" is more like Sto:lo+"people" ending (not sure in Halqemeylem; -mish in southern Coast Salish, more like -mc and -mx in Interior Salish). Go back 60 years or so and it's simply the Kwantlens, the Katzies, the Scowlitz, the Coqualeetza, the Chehalis, the Matsqui, the Sumas etc; "Sto:lo identity" as a cohesive thing was not a shared thing, nor was it exactly an ethnicity (lower river people tend to be related across the Strait, those upriver related inland and southwards); the use of Sto:lo just means "people of the river" (and again, really only means, "the river", that river in particular); a common Sto:lo ethnicity has become perceived to exist, as also with Coast Salish; but there are individual groups within the region, e.g. the Tsleil-waututh and Chehalis, which are distinct aned "not exactly Sto:lo" despite a shared language/region; if not for colonization, the Musqueam and Coqualeetza or Yakweawioose would have no reason to either share a government or to perceive each other as of the same "nation" (except in the broader sense of being aboriginal). The Kwantlens and Katzies are separate for a reason, likewise the Matsquis and Sumas and Lakalhamen and so on; it's not that there were any harsh hostilities between band-groups, as was the case in Kwakwaka'wakw territory (where some band councils like the Danaxdaxw-Awaetatla combined ancient enemies in the same bandcouncil); Sto:lo works well as a collective for the Chilliwack-area First Nations....but I'd venture that a Kwantlen or Katzie or Kway-quit-lam or Tsleil-waututh will identify under those names, rather than as Sto:lo....likewise Matsqui, Musqueam, Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen; a Sts'Ailes will not identify as Sto:lo either ethnically or politically. It's a popular and well-used name in the media and in indigenous government writing/press releases, but it has a certain vagueness; it's a grouping - a nation, perhaps, but a new nation, one still forming; the lack of political and cultural unity in the old days - lack of even linguistic unity - is an indicator of this; it's the name they've chosen to use now...but not all peoples of the same ethnicity choose to use it (the Sts'Ailes again) and some who are not of the ethnicity (the Douglas/Xa'xtsa Band and the Tsawwassen) are considered to belong.......they are politically sto:lo, but not culturally - except by design/choice. Otherwise they are ethnically st'at'imc - and eve n there chose to define a 'new' local nation the In-SHUCK-ch outside the st'at'imc nationSkookum1 (talk) 17:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Not sure if you ever saw this discussion.Skookum1 (talk) 17:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Last section of the book. Go to that page and click the "preview book" tab. Almost the whole book is there.

And yes, I know what Sto:lo means, and I know it's not often used by the Kwantlen or Katzie. I also know that family connections between them and the people living up river were often quite strong. I think there is a very big difference between an organization (or identity) which began in reaction to white people/colonization and one imposed by the government as part of colonization. I mean, the Kwantlen settled at their current site only after Fort Langley was set up. That doesn't make it false. Changes in tradition and identity that have occurred since 1492 (or 1950 for that matter) are not "inauthentic". What about "First Nations," "Indian," "Indigenous" or "Onkwehonwe" ? Are they all imposed by colonial authority?

Yes, Sto:lo has a certain vagueness, but all these indigenous communities have a certain vagueness, like any family. None of them were modern nation states with ID cards. Most of Europe was pretty vaguely defined too, at least until the late 1800s. Like you said, Sto:lo is no more vague as a cultural identity than coast salish, and certainly not less authentic. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 17:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's not; I'm saying we have to be careful who to include in the Sto:lo "ethnic" list/template vs those peoples/bands/first Nations who are only political members. And this hinges on the "grouping" of other peoples, since the Musqueam and Tsawwassen are more readily "grouped" with their cross-Straits cousins, and in Tsawwassen's case with those to their south; Sto:lo as a political organization and Sto:lo as a cultural identity are two different things....Skookum1 (talk) 17:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

But why haven't you include their the cultural identity or the political organization within this template? - TheMightyQuill (talk) 18:43, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Haven't got to it, and still adding/sorting ethnic article links here and on the IndigPacNW template; and needing layout help; could you add blank sections for Tribal Councils, i.e. there should be separate sections for band governmtns vs. tribal councils, or in the case of the US multitribal agencies like Grand Ronde (which include some Salish peoples but also others). It's a work in progress, please add what's needed; Sto:lo Nation certainly; also should be a sedction for treaty groups like Maa-nulth and Te'mexw, which aren't tribal councils but ovelrap with them....Skookum1 (talk) 18:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
Further example: the creation of the Naut'sa Mawt Tribal Council does not mean that there's a Naut'sa Mawt "ethnicity" or nation; it is a group of nations, from the Halalt at Mill Bay to the Klahoose on Cortes Island......and even it doesn't stand up to the potential lingusitic breakdown, as the Klahoose are Comox speaking and the Halalt are....Hulquminum I think, maybe Straits Salish. Somewhere, a few years ago, a native-written magazine/newspaper feature section explained that, if there was a unity prior to colonization, it spanned the Straits and tied together all the Halkomelem-speaking groups (hence the Musqueam-Vancouver Island ties) and all the Straits peoples (Semiahmoo to Clallam to Tsartlip). The northern straits were Comox, Shishalh, Skwxwu7mesh and (now extinct) Pentlatch....the main thing in the "culture" area, vs the easy divisions of a trivbal council/govt section, is simply how to arrange them. Geographic, linguistic, tribal council? I'm starting to think alphabetical is the most practical and avoids the who-belongs-to-who question. BTW re your new category, be mindful that In-SHUCK-ch is a tribal council, as by definition any organization of a group of band councils is the same thing as a tribal council, if not using that title (e.g. Sto:lo Nation doesn't say Sto:lo Tribal Council but it's at the same "tier", a government/alliance of governments/nations.....)Skookum1 (talk) 19:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

As you noticed, I've unilaterally made a new Category:First Nations Tribal Councils under Category:First Nations organizations. Seeing as you can pull out of a Tribal Council at any time, and they have no legal authority over individual people, I think it's a stretch to refer to them as governments. If you feel strongly about it, you can move it over to Category:First Nations governments, but really, that doesn't make any sense. We should probably start a Category:BC Treaty Groups but right now, there's only the one article Winalagalis Treaty Group so I doubt it's necessary yet. I must have been fixing in-SHUCK-ch as you were writing that comment. - TheMightyQuill (talk) 19:19, 18 February 2008 (UTC) Oh, I see you got In-SHUCK-ch.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)