Skookum1
Article Requests
Good work on Article Requests. Thanks for that. KenWalker | Talk 23:15, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
- Well, as I alluded to, I'm anticipating/planning on freeing myself up from the sedentary life for a while, and so won't be doing Wiki at some time in the not-too-distant future, maybe a couple of months or less, so I'm trying to set out the framework of what I see needs to be done, and articles/topics that need to get written up. I can't do it all by myself anyway, but it's a full-time gig already if I keep with it and I need to get on with stuff, and make good what years there are left for me or for the world. Don't mean to sound poetic/starry-eyed, but you can't help the way you're made I guess ;-) So all these various article-ideas are pointers in the direction the BC content on Wikipedia could go, which is greater coverage than anything else in print in the long run; especially sorting out the maze of First Nations information that we only get partially filtered and in very jumbled fashion through media as well as curriculum; Wiki has the advantage in that it's constantly updating and never out-of-date, if it's kept up with. I added the Wikipedians for Local History Wikiproject to the related projects area for a good reason, and it ties in also with the density of coverage of native culture and society (like the village/chieftaincy spinoff pages from Tsimshian): already we've seen tiny-place articles where someone wrote about where they're from, and town/city articles where people interested in the place have and do contribute consistently; it's a potentially fascinating and obviously unprecedented coverage of local history in BC, as well as of (ahem) recent/current politics (ahem). Anyway, yeah, point is I'll be focusing on a last series of articles I've always intended to at least start, and also try and come up with directions to point anyone else in for further articles to write - before I just suddenly pull up stakes and post the extended Wikibreak template sometime soon, y'see.... there's always geographic articles which can be brought up way past stub, too, like the lakes, rivers, and parks....it's a sunny day and I do gotta get out. Later....Skookum1 00:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Andrew Paull Article
Hey Skookum1. After thinking of other Sḵwxwú7mesh people to do articles on and fix up. (Like the Joe Capilano article, one person I figured would be good, not only for Sḵwxwú7mesh, but the Indigenous politics through out Canada. I have some written work on Andy Paull. A thesis, the biography, etc. Plus my grandmother is his daughter. My question is: should it be Andy Paull or Andrew Paull? OldManRivers 03:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Endangered languages (no this isn't spam :-) )
Hiya,
Was poking around on several talk pages and saw you contributing prolifically, then saw a lot about languages on your user page. If you know anyone who is interested in endangered languages, please be so kind as to point them in the general direction of WP:ENLANG. Thanks for your time! --Ling.Nut 04:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
hey
skookum, in the British Columbia wikiproject and in the Vancouver wiki project, Barnston Island is rated mid importance, yet Anmore is rated low importance. I read both articles and the requirements for the importance ratings, and I fail to see what makes Barnston Island substantially more important to the province than anmore. What accounts for this difference? TotallyTempo 22:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
- Different BC project editors placing the template at different times is why, and also giving different ratings; the ratings don't mean much, and most should be "mid"; I don't recall rating Anmore myself, but it should have been "mid" and because it's a GVRD muni I probably would have put "high". Barnston I think I rated and it got "mid" because it's got a fair-sized local history to it, as well as certain bits of regional politics, never mind its ___location; Annacis and Mitchell Island both get "mid" at least as well (Annacis may even have/had "high").Skookum1 22:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Hastings
I hope those quibbles aren't with anything I said. =) --JGGardiner 19:58, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Worth Reading
Have you come across James McMillan (fur trader) KenWalker | Talk 07:13, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Hastings St. stuff
Thanks for adding to the photo caption. Yes, Sinclair Centre should be a definite addition. Glad Hastings was a 'Keep', although it seemed the deletionists got their words in before the decision was rendered. Need sources, my butt... I was raised on Hastings and anyone who knows anything about Vancouver knows it belongs. Well anyway, off to the Herzog photo exhibit. See ya.--Keefer4 20:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
Hollywood (South)
I should add to what I said that it seems quite obvious to me that DEYS is not paid by some office for his work. I don't want to detail just how obvious it is because I am not into "outing" editors and I will show him some civility. Who knows, maybe there will be a Hollywood ending and I'll get a little in return. =) --JGGardiner 09:09, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Buildings
thought you wouldn't mind if your talk page was archived again. Anyway, I started a sandbox page for ideas on expanding the buildings category for Vancouver, either for their architectural signicance, or historical significance. Feel free to stop by, make additions, comments, jokes, or whatever. Or even sources for more obscure ones. I will draw on the requested articles list and your requests thereon, but I wanted to try and map it out a little before hand. What's there now is just what I dumped from the top of my head, but I want to think it through a bit better. My thinking is that there should be 2 or more general articles, and then daughter articles for the more significant ones. That way, it'd be more user-friendly, and could accomodate buildings that might have a hard time standing on their own notability-wise.User:Bobanny/historical buildings I saw your comment to Ken above about bailing, and I'm almost there myself, so can't say I'll follow through. I've never thought of WikiPedia as an addiction, but in a way, it gives that feeling of never being satisfied because no matter what you do, it's never even close to being something you can check off on your to-do list, and the list just grows. Okay, it's late and I'm starting to ramble, ciao. Bobanny 09:33, 4 February 2007 (UTC) PS: I'll leave a message for Keefer, but feel free to point anyone else who might be interested to my buildings page.Bobanny 09:35, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Ghost towns
Hello again, Skookum. I saw your article on List of ghost towns in British Columbia. Very interesting. I didn’t know there were so many ghost towns in BC! My only criticism of the article is that the table is awfully wide. With so many columns, it squeezes the data more than one might like. I have proposed a couple of alternative solutions on a temp page here. Feel free to use it or not at your discretion. ●DanMS 21:19, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Potlatch work
Need a suggestion here. I'm not sure what wikipedia policy is, but let me know what you think. Let me know on the talk page. Talk:Potlatch#Further_Reading_List OldManRivers 22:41, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Hollywood and such
Gosh Skookum, I don't know what to say to you. You're definitely one of the most knowledgeable editors that I've come across here and I doubt that anyone on WP knows more about BC history than you do. I know that you've created tons of content, rescued and created articles that simply wouldn't be here otherwise. It feels funny giving advice about WP to someone who has many times the number of edits that I do. But I have to say something. You really have to mind the civility. Wikipedia is really a community as much as anything else and how you interact with everyone is as important as the content you have to add. Like I said it feels funny especially because you know exactly what I'm talking about and you've said it yourself. I don't want to see anyone not editing here when they could be contributing, especially as much as you have. --JGGardiner 09:38, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
I know what you mean about an off-wiki life. My contributions here have been pretty irregular since last summer. I’d hate to lose any Wikipedia work but if anyone has something more important to do in real life, they probably should.
I understand that it has been frustrating dealing with DEYS. I know that I have had to edit a few posts before I submitted them. But I think that I have managed to be direct without crossing any lines. DEYS himself will have to learn the rules or he won’t last as a Wikipedian. I don’t think that he works for a PR agency like your friend rascalpatrol. Although some of his early edits were of the subject-likes-puppies variety. I didn't look very deeply. Like I said, I don't like to "out" editors, you know. --JGGardiner 07:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Indigenous Ethno Articles
Thought I would ask if there is a standard for the ethno articles. Like, "History, Culture, Society, Important Figures." or anything else like that. Then, if there is something like that, is there a standard for the Indian Act band council government pages. Want to work on a few Indigenous articles, but I'm not sure what I should write on first. Thanks OldManRivers 00:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Spiderman
It was intentional. But not because of Bornmann.
Actually I'd forgotten that Bronmann was called that. Now of course I wish that I had been clever enough to think of that. --JGGardiner 21:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
License tagging for Image:Wagonrd2a.gif
Thanks for uploading Image:Wagonrd2a.gif. Wikipedia gets thousands of images uploaded every day, and in order to verify that the images can be legally used on Wikipedia, the source and copyright status must be indicated. Images need to have an image tag applied to the image description page indicating the copyright status of the image. This uniform and easy-to-understand method of indicating the license status allows potential re-users of the images to know what they are allowed to do with the images.
For more information on using images, see the following pages:
This is an automated notice by OrphanBot. If you need help on selecting a tag to use, or in adding the tag to the image description, feel free to post a message at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. 00:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Mountain ranges
The Cascade range article, for example, is part of the Cascade range category. The Cascade range category is and should be a member of all the categories you mentioned. I should have indicated I was 'deleting double level categories'. I saw/see no purpose in having both the article and ts same named category as members of another category. Thanks Hmains 17:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Pig War reversion
Well done on the reversion. I was tempted to do it myself last night but didn't get around to it. I have picked up a couple of history books from the library that deal with these events, interesting stuff. I also have a couple on the coastal shipping that I want to put into an article that will fit nicely with your ship lists. I see that the automatic archiving on the project talk page is working now. I have it on my talk page as well. Seems like a good way to go. Cheers --KenWalker | Talk 21:43, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Lieutenant Governors of BC
Thank you for doing the necessary removal of the colonial governors and creating their own article. Unfortunately, your editorial activity seems to inadvertently resulted in the loss of the terms. Could you reinsert them somehow when you get the chance? Much thanks. Fishhead64 08:06, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
Viceroys template
Minisandboxing here to gain access to template for revision: {{Canadian viceroys}}Skookum1 19:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Stewart Phillip
Hi, how's it goin? Please see Talk: Stewart Phillip, seems to be a bit snarky around there. I left a note for oldmanrivers sayin I'd let ya know. Later.--Keefer4 09:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
- Wow. I'm copying that response to a text file somewhere. You've outdone yourself once again.--Keefer4 10:38, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
- All I can say Skookum is: You rock. -- OldManRivers 08:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
people vs. nation
I understand your concern, which I think is valid, although I'm not sure I agree. At any rate, until the separate people article is written from the First Nation article, it makes sense to include them both on the same page. - TheMightyQuill 07:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
- Also, while it seems the Squamish First Nation was undoubtedly a European construct forced upon a people, that doesn't mean all First Nations are. For instance, the Yekooche First Nation was originally forced into the Stuart Trembleur band (now Tl'azt'en Nation) but separated in 1994. Obviously all First Nations exist partly in relation to the Indian Act, but not necessarily as passive creations of it. - TheMightyQuill 07:27, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
- That last sentence is a doozy, y'know; I'll wait for possible comment on it from Oldmanrivers...Skookum1 19:47, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The situation is muddled because many band governments have adopted the term "First Nation" or "Nation" to replace Indian Band; others stick with Indian Band but are the same thing. And it varies from reserve to reserve, even within nations, as to what the usage is; Squamish Nation to Oldmanrivers, a Squamish person/Skwxwu7mesh means something imposed on his people, who are, by his chosen and apparently the official usage, Skwxwu7mesh, but in Mt Currie while Lil'wat Nation is used synonymously with the Mount Currie Indian Band, and also synymous with the Lower St'at'imc (well, including In-SHUCK-ch in that terminology; Nequatque are Upper St'at'imc), "Lil'wat Nation" is also the name used by the more radical element in Mt Currie's people, who act above and outside the band government, often in defiance and condemnation of it (as with the Cayoosh Ski Resort debate). In some cases there is absolute synonymy between the band government and the term First Nation; in other cases it's more political in tone, one way or the other. There's also reserves like Douglas Lake First Nation, aka the Upper Nicola Indian Band, who are a mix of Spaxomin (the local Syilx group) and Scw'exmx (the local Nlaka'pamux group), though mostly Spaxomin (usually Spahomin in English). The Shackan Indian Band's people are the Sxe'xn'x (a subgroup of or allied group to the Scw'exmx) and even though it might use Shackan First Nation the fact is that Shackan is an anglicization and Sxe'xn'x is the preferred form; as with Xwemelch'stn vs the usual older English Homulchesan. I know it's a problem with terminology: First Nations means ethnicity as well as governments; so the convention is that articles with "First Nation" or "Nation" in the title, unless pre-existing as ethno articles (as with some US ones) should be government articles, and the ethnicity per se be dealt with in the stand-alone name form, even being a First Nation in the cultural sense, rather than in a political-organization sense. The reason has to do with multi-ethnic reserves and also multi-ethnic tribal councils, and also cultural preferences about the articles these people are about. And included in the cultural preferences are terminologies such as the distinction between Llenlleney'ten and High Bar First Nation, or between Skwxwu7mesh and Squamish Nation. I guess I'll get around to drawing up that table of who fits with which article and which ethnic group and which tribal council(s), although more as a talkpage resource/refereence than conceivably as an article, although it might better help organize List of First Nations in British Columbia - the opening text of which I'm going to try to adjust to deal with some of the different definitions/usages, and undoing having List of First Nations governments in British Columbia refer to First Nations in British Columbia or List of First Nations in British Columbia (one of those refers to the other, I'm sure); the latter will be for the ethnicity articles, the governments list for the government ones; subtle distinction to non-First Nations people(s), but a highly important one for First Nations people(s) themselves, and that should be respected; that's also how it evolved at WikiProject indigenous peoples of North America; see its "articles" sub-talkpage for the various categories and, somewhere in there, the discussion which established the article/structure-hierarchy paradigm at play, the why of it all. Confusing, cumbersome, true, but occasionally the only way to sort things out. First Nations in the traditional sense are ethnic and social entities; they are not synonymous with band governments; nor is the band government synonymous with the community. Certainly not; it's state vs nation as a dichotomy, complicated into trichotomy and more because of the Indian Act regimes, which are only sometimes identical with traditional bodies/sociopolitical structure (e.g. Nuxalk from what I understan, and sometimes the use of "Nation" or "First Nation" in something's title is an assumed and not politically-supported form within the community's own cultural definitions, as with Skwxwu7mesh-Squamish Nation and any number of other examples I could trot out.Skookum1 09:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
- Should we put Canadians in Government of Canada? OldManRivers 08:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
- But the generic wikilink usage for nationalities goes Canadians of course (to Canada), though not Government of Canada, and if we're discussing Canadians as an ethnicity, we use Canadians-to-Canada, if we're talking about the country, we have Canada, and if we're talking about the state as a constitutional organism we have Government of Canada. You see how it's breaking down? Squamish Nation is the official name of the Skxwxu7mesh First Nations government-as-defined/created-by-the-Indian-Act, and it is because of this that User:Oldmanrivers has been insistent on using "Skwxwu7mesh" as the correct name, even in English, of the Squamish people, as we would ordinarily say in English (Squamish people redirects to Skwxwu7mesh. If there was a non-Indian Act Skwxwu7mesh government in operation, it would be, I think, Skwxwu7mesh-ullh Uxwuimuxw, and similar breakdowns exist elsewhere and have to. Just as Canadian redirects, in Wiki standard/guidelines, to Canada, the parallel is Skwxwu7mesh as an individual Squamish, or as an adjective; the parallel with Squamish Nation is more clearly Government of Canada as the Skwxwu7mesh snichim's name for Squamish territory, whatever that sorts out to; and it may or may not be the same as Skwxwu7mesh Uxwuimuxw. Note - these are emerging official names in English, and there's similar usages emerging in St'at'imc and Secwepemc country.Skookum1 09:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
- This has not been done across the board yet, but by golly, one day it will!!! OldManRivers 10:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I'll admit that people isn't the ideal term, but government isn't either. As we've discussed before, a First Nation is also a people, and a place, not just a government, and all your articles suggest otherwise. I have consistently disagreed with "what has been explained to me" so there is certainly no consensus.
I don't think the people and the government need to be equated, but Hungary is neither just a government, nor just a people either. The main page links to culture of Hungary, hungarian people, geography, language AND government. Why can't we do the same with the First Nations articles? And smaller countries that don't have full Culture of X, People of X and Geography of X combine all that information in the main country site. Your current plan seems to be to have articles on Government of Hungary, Hungarian people, Hungarian language, but no Hungary. I think that's crazy.
I'm glad you created Ulkatchot’en, but I suspect you're not going to create a complete article for every tiny nation's culture in BC, at least not any time soon. My suggestion is that, until the content is sufficient to create two decent articles, we don't create a shitty empty stub for every government, reserve, and people in the country. I'm well aware that there are differences, but I'm also aware that you don't actually know what they are. =) - TheMightyQuill 19:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
- Actually, as you can see, I've begun to create all ethnicity stubs where their names are available - to establish the hierarchy rather than just redlink it, and will create {{Tsilhqot'in peoples}} and {{Dakelh peoples}} (or {{Carrier peoples}} because of the Wet-suwet-en vs Dakelh issue) and you will note that their contents will differ from the Tribal Council-based templates ({{Tsilhqot'in First Nations}}, {{Carrier Chilcotin Tribal Council}}, {{Tsilhqot'in Tribal Council}}, {{Carrier Sekani Tribal Council}} and whatever else. Compare {{Nuu-chah-nulth-aht First Nations}}, vs {{Nuu-chah-nulth-aht peoples}} and {{Kwakwaka'wakw peoples}} vs {{Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations}} - in that last case you have groups such as the Danaxdaxw and the Awaetatla in the same band council, but historically they're separate and actually very hostile peoples, and separate ethnographically although now united; in that particular case there's documented wars between them, in fact. And comparing Hungary to BC's First Nations doesn't work because of the unusual nature of First Nations politics/legalities/a-constitutionalities here, as laid out in Talk:Stewart Phillip. Hungary does not have a parallel regime/culture which has never been brought into the Hungarian constitution, and there are not puppet/proxy governments administering Hungarian state funds to disenfranchised aboriginal peoples who are official wards of the state; it was you who made the Government of Canada comparison in the first place, remember. And the "what has been laid out before" derives not from my own agenda, but from an agenda I learned from the Indigenous peoples' project discussions. Note, again, there is a big difference between "people" and "government", and I strongly disagree that First Nation can mean a "place"; I gather you mean "First Nations territory" as synonymous, somehow with "First Nation" but we have yet to use that term in that way in Canada, i.e. with set "national" boundaries. And because people such as Oldmanrivers distinguish themselves from the Indian Act governments, then Wikipedia should respect that and somehow cope with it; the distinction between ethnicity and government articles is one of the ways to organize and follow that. After I'm done creating the various ethnicity stubs I'll make up that reference table I was talking about; or may convert the List of First Nations in British Columbia over to table format.Skookum1 19:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
- See also Talk:Ulkatchot'en re Carey Price's non-status in terms of the above issues.Skookum1 19:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, yet you've left Carey Price included in the Ulkatcho First Nation article. My point is that you may consider the Ulkatcho Band Council a puppet regime, but it doesn't make sense to call the Ulkatcho First Nation a puppet regime, since it is equally a people and a place. I don't know how you can disagree that First Nation means place, when all the First Nations reserves I've ever been to have big signs that say "Welcome to XXX First Nation." If you want to limit something to government, then create XXX Band Council articles, because government articles don't include historic territory or modern land ownership either. Government articles don't include information on the economy, or on private businesses run on the land controlled by that government. Nor are treaty claims limited to what is done by the Band Council or Tribal council, since there is obvious disagreement within most nations as to what should be done. Again, I'll retract my edits suggesting each First Nation is a people, it's not a people, but it's not a government either, it's a nation. There's no other reasonable synonym for nation. I agree that First Nations are different that other major nation states, but that is the closest comparison. - TheMightyQuill 20:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Fine, he can be removed from that article, then, which was the only one at the time (since I created it because of him, in fact). The "First Nation" terminology has to be defined in each and every case; and the ethnological meaning should be stated, but it is IMPORTANT to distinguish between the government and the ethnicity/people. These aren't my biases, but inbuilt realities from First Nations' own cultural-political consciousness. The intro sentence can run something like "the XXX First Nation is the name of a First Nations government etc. It can also refer to the XXX people themselves see "XXX". This is what I meant about it being something like a disambig page; there ARE distinct meanings; but the article-title convention is to have "Nation/First Nation" for the government articles, and without those designations for the othe articles, albeit stating in each case that "First Nation" has variable meanings, and in a certain context is the official name of the band government/Indian Act proxy, but also refers to the ethnicity/group as a whole in a very distinct and nowhere-near-synonymous sense. I'll refer you AGAIN to the Skwxwu7mesh/Squamish Nation comparison (see those talkpages, esp. OldManRivers' comments). We can't use all three meanings of "nation" here, as you're suggesting in your last bit; that's fudging; they have to be disambig'd or otherwise clearly stated as different contexts/usages.Skookum1 20:11, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Here's some examples of the confusion:
- The "Shuswap First Nation" can mean either the Secwepemc people aka the Shuswap Nation (much larger, note, than the Shuswap Nation Tribal Council), or it can mean one band of that nation, the one located over in the East Kootenay south of Golden, who are also members of the Ktunaxa Kinbasket Tribal Council.
- "Nlaka'pamux Nation" is used by the Nlaka'pamux Nation Tribal Council, which also might call itself "the Nlaka'pamux First Nation" to the exclusion of other Nlaka'pamux governments, which are many. This is one reason why the cumbersome name Fraser Canyon Indian Administration exists, because there IS no unified Nlaka'pamux political entity with which to equate "nation" to "people". The Nlaka'pamux Nation, ethnographically speaking, includes the populations of the bands of the Nicola Tribal Association and also the Fraser Canyon Indian Administration AND thte Lytton First Nation. There is, conversely, no "Nicola Nation" although the Nicolas certainly described themselves as Nicolas, or as the Nicola people.
- Kwakiutl First Nation is a band of Kwakwaka'wakw, not the whole of the Kwakwaka'wakw; for ethnicity I've used Kwagyulh to refer to the smaller group, which is in fact the namesake of the mistaken application of "Kwakiutl" for the whole of the Kwakwaka'wakw and Owekeeno/Heiltsuk/Haisla. *Other such examples of various kinds abound in other parts of the province, though in some cases - Okanagan Nation Alliance and Ktunaxa Kinbasket Treaty Council they're pretty much synonymous with the ethnic-nation (except in the latter case which includes that one Secwepemc, i.e. non-Ktunaxa, band). Untangling Carrier/Dakleh/Wet'suwet'en articles is going to be a labyrinth, I know that already. There's also a similar problem with Sto:lo, which is NOT synonymous with "Fraser River Salish" because the Kwantlens, Katzies, Kwayquitlams, Chehalis and someone else I'm not sure of are not part of the Sto:lo Nation. It's all a tangle, and the point is to keep things separate, so articles aren't simultaneously ethnicity, language and government/institutional ones, and also because of the micr0-macro nomenclature problem as with Shuswap First Nation - "Lillooet First Nation" can mean the Lillooet Nation-in-the-sense-of-Lillooet Tribal Council, it can mean the entire St'at'imc ethnicity, or it can mean the Lillooet Indian Band (T'it'kt First Nation). You can't just use the term and pretend it means everything at once; it has to be by context. Same as in one breath we say "the province" to mean British Columbia physically, in another sense socioculturally, and in another sense to mean the government-of-the day.Skookum1 21:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I've begun List of First Nations governments in British Columbia, which formerly was rediret to First Nations in British Columbia. IMO there should also be List of Tribal Councils in British Columbia, with the first-named being for individual band governments only.Skookum1 21:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree it's complex and, more importantly, that each case is different. But if I can't pretend that First Nation automatically at once, you can't pretend it DOESN'T when in some cases (such as Ulkatcho First Nation perhaps) it does. Nation means nation. Government may be a part of it, but the Sto:lo Nation might well exist whether or not there was a Tribal Council. It's confusing, because the Tribal Council refers to itself as "Sto:lo Nation" even though it doesn't include all Sto:lo peoples, and it isn't even negotiating the land claims of all of its official member nations. But the term "council" denotes government, nation is something different. Read nation: A nation is a group of humans who assume that they share a common identity, and share a common language, religion, ideology, culture, and/or history. They are usually assumed to have a common origin, in the sense of ancestry, parentage or descent. AND The term nation is often used as a synonym for ethnic group (sometimes "ethnos"), but although ethnicity is now one of the most important aspects of cultural or social identity for the members of most nations, people with the same ethnic origin may live in different nation-states and be treated as members of separate nations for that reason. So nation is not the same as ethnicity either. - TheMightyQuill 23:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
- Okay, while we do that, I'll go and change Canada to Canada Nation-state. OldManRivers 23:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand your sarcasm. It's understood that Canada is a nation state, but some countries like Dominican Republic, Czech Republic, United States of America, United Arab Emirates do contain details in their titles that specifically refer to their form of nationhood. - TheMightyQuill 06:53, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- And who came up with those titles? White settlers, settler governments, and other settler institutions? OldManRivers 07:03, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- There are so many layers of meaning going on as to the context of "First Nation" that it's problematic, and that MUST be explained on First Nations in British Columbia, where I'll put a link to the new (and incomplete) List of First Nations governments in British Columbia and a parallel List of First Nations peoples in British Columbia, just to help the distinction along. I don't think, Quill, that you're getting it. The Kwayquitlams, Katzies, Whonnocks, Chehalis and (I think) the Yale Band are NOT Sto:lo and do not call themselves that; there is no "Sto:lo people" in an ethnographic sense, only Fraser River Coast Salish, an awkward term but which would include the un-Sto:lo groups. Then you have the case of the Douglas First Nation, who are ethnologically and linguistically St'at'imc, part of the In-SHUCK-Nation (a St'at'imc mini-tribal council), but who also belong to the Sto:lo Nation tribal council government but are NOT Sto:lo, or rather are not Fraser River Coast Salish, but rather a certain subbranch of the Lower St'at'imc of the Interior Salish. The Tsleil-waututh are ethnologically Skwxwu7mesh but are politically distinct, and so on. A Sto:lo Nation will NOT exist if there was not a Tribal Council unless it were to evolve as a nation in the sense you're talking about, and also constitutes itself as a state, rather than a legislated colonialist proxy-legacy regime; that many of the member bands of the Sto:lo Nation are themselves "Nations" or "First Nations" by self-definition complicates it even further; each one is a nation, but all together are a political nation; but it is not a political nation which includes all of the ethnic group. The same applies with Tsilhqot'in, Nicola, Nlaka'pamux, St'at'imc, Secwepemc and many other tribal councils, which do not include all of the ethnic group and may include other ethnic groups, but still present themselves as, e.g. "St'at'imc Nation" when the member bands and collective government of the Lillooet Tribal Council is meant only. "St'at'imc Nation" does not include the Nequatque and In-SHUCK-chf councils/governments or peoples, but "St'at'imc" does. There is no way to equate Sto:lo Nation with all Fraser River Salish; there is no way to equate St'at'imc Nation - because of its use in a political sense, by one organization which others have broken away from - now includes the In-SHUCK-ch or Nequatque. The Alkali Lake and High Bar bands are both Secwepemc and Tsilhqot'in, but belong to neither "nation", being nations in their own rights (and minds). So the layer cake has to be organized somehow, and the pattern emergent on List of First Nations governments in British Columbia is pretty self-explanatory, although I may get rid of the Alternate Names column and find another way to deal with that (Tsleil-wau-tuth Nation vs Burrard Band e.g.), and also of the population columns which is too much bother to research and irrlevant to the point of the list. But the band, people, language, tribal council breakdown is clear enough, and certain items already there help illustrate the need for different article-categories; the explanation in each article of the potential different meaning can be expressed in a dab line or some other explanatory device; but the article separation, and the reasons for them are more obvious the more of the articles you work with, despite overlaps in information. I can't and don't buy into the equation of First Nation meaning band government vs First Nation meaning a national group. It's a non-starter, and a matter of different definitions and contexts; differences which have to be explained, but cannot be ignored.Skookum1 02:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- Ah heck why not, do America Nation-state too while you're at it ;) OK, so we're at a bit of an impasse as to where to direct specific 'First Nation' designations, if I read the thread correctly? The idea we seem to agree on is that there should be separation between the gov't/people, duh... but it's where to redirect the Nation thingy. I think the page for each people can be taken to mean nation within the definition TheMightyQuill mentioned for Nation already, no? Almost every article I've read here does, albeit mostly without the type of precise border details found in nation/people articles such as Canada, because no one's supplied that information yet and there's the odd dispute. It begs the question, say in the Nisga'a example, of someone adopted into their Nation.. how do they fit into this little wiki-conundrum? Well, why not create/re-name the gov't pages to 'Government of ' whichever people, and redirect the 'Band Council/Tribal Council' titles to that page. This way it's uniform and clearly differentiates between the two, and in the first line of this page, mention the actual name 'Nisga'a Lisims' for example...(The governing body of the Nisga'a people is called the Nisga'a Lisims Government) just a thought. If it is a built-in redirect then it is taken to mean the same thing. In turn, when the governments style themselves as 'So,in,so First Nation', that page will unambiguously direct to the government page. But when the government doesn't style themselves this way (as in the case of Nisga'a Lisims), then 'Nisga'a Nation' and 'Nisga's First Nation' can both go to disambig pages. Bottom line, two types of pages one for gov't one for people, with the necessary redirects on a case by case basis, and a disambig for things like "Gitksan First Nation" and "Gitksan Nation". I don't think this proposal meddles too much with the good work Skookum is doing on the lists--Keefer4 02:13, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- So in summary, and for clarity-- my proposal, using the Nisga'a example... Two pages: one being Nisga'a, the other being Government of the Nisga'a, with immediate mention of Nisga'a Lisims and a redirect from there. Both "Nisga'a Nation" and "Nisga'a First Nation" would be disambigged to offer both of the above.Keefer4 02:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Thing is they nearly all use Nation or First Nation in their government titles, and have alternate names as either an Indian Band or a Tribal Council, depending on which. This is why the title I used for [[tl|Kwakwaka'wakw peoples}} - which can eventually include documented but extinct groups, some of which never came into being as bands, or as in the Mowachaht-Muchalaht case and Danaxdaxw-Awaetatla are a union of two different ethnographic groups. Small-n nation, fine, but the capitalized form has been "co-opted" by Band Governments while at the same time having an ethnographic context; Nisga'a Nation, Gitxsan Nation, St'at'imc Nation, Sto:lo Nation are governments for the nation of the Nisga'a, the nation of the Gitxsan, and particular groups of the nations of St'at'imc and Fraser River Salish (it may be that Kwayquitlams and Kwantlens etc may be occasionally, or inappropriately, referred to as Sto:lo, but the Chehalis never are. Anyway, the point is that the "First Nation" title/designation is nearly always an option for "Indian Band" and they're generally used interchangeable; Seton Lake Indian Band, Seton Lake First Nation. But their nation-as-nation grouping is St'at'imc, although the particular people are Tsalalh'mc and they, too, are a separate First Nation within the larger St'at'imc Nation, which again is not the same thing as the nation of the St'at'imc. There are parallel examples all across the province; and it's nearly an ironclad rule about "Alkali Lake First Nation" and "Alkali Lake Indian Band"; in most cases of newly-created articles I went with the most recent incarnation online in various directories, i.e. as to whether Indian Band or First Nation, but at some time or other, and probably simultaneously on occasion, they've used the other one of whichever they're listed as now. Separating all that out from "First Nations" in an ethnographic sense is the context of what's at debate here; the existing convention, which granted *I* established (very much in response to OldManRivers' objections to Squamish Nation as an imposed and artificial name that is a construct supplanted on the Skxwxwu7mesh Uxwuimixw, which would be the name of a Skwxwu7mesh state, as Nisga'a Lisims if of the Nisga'a state), is to respect the band governments' desire to be called First Nations, and that of tribal councils to be called Nations, e.g. Okanagan Nation Alliance, which does include all Okanagans, even the American group, whereas Nlaka'pamux Nation Tribal Council and Sto:lo Nation etc do NOT include all their respective "nations" (using the quotes to emphasize lower-case n, not to degrade that meaning, the ethnograhpic one, only to specify it).Skookum1 02:34, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- True. Thing is, perception of the term is widely disambiguous among people in general regardless of background. And these are the people who are searching Wikipedia. Separating the ethnographic sense from the FN sense makes perfect sense, but I'd opt for a more generic 'Government Of...'. But then I've heard conversations between people (a Haisla guy and a Nisga'a guy) go like this: "What nation are you from?", "I'm Nisga'a". Someone self-identified (to me the white guy mind you) as Sto:lo last month... I'm just starting to think disambigs are the way to go here when it comes to 'Nation'. That's about all I have to say about it. Whatever happens I think we're all pretty much on the same page, like you said common usage is interchangeable. --Keefer4 03:01, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm all for a dab line, or mini-disambigs, and I've been toying with the syntax; I find the wording on Talk:Squamish Nation and its counterpart to be a bit POV, but also to the point. The basics are "this page is for the government of the xxx. For an article on their history and culture see etc.", and vice-versa, with the full explanation of the different meanings in the First Nations and First Nations in British Columbia articles/intros.Skookum1 03:14, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- Sounds good. A second read-through of your earlier response (lower case/upper-case) and it's starting to make more sense. The 'perception/public interpretation of the term' issue is still a concern I think, but I see through your recent additions such as Cook Ferry First Nation the rhyme and reason for keeping it is the title rather than disambig. (upper/lower case). Ok, I'm fizzled out... actually all this talk about designations I feel like I'm contributing to dehumanizing all concerned. It feels too much like a parody of something very bad. ick. Necessary I guess though for wiki purposes... later--Keefer4 03:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I agree with Keefer that all this categorization is dehumanizing at best and neo-colonial at worst. Let me pitch this another way. What if an XXX Nation page acts as a sort of disambiguation page which links to
- an ethnicity page (which contains culture, language, etc, like French people),
- the standard format in the Indigenous project, or one of them anyway, is exactly that format, w/wo parentheses and maybe, with parentheses, the word "tribe" instituted (you'll find "tribal" here in BC, but not usually "tribe"). Thing is that names like Secwepemc, Skxwxu7mesh, Nlaka'pamux, Muchalaht, Ditidaht etc all contain particles meaning "people", so "people" is redundant unless it's to be assumed that these names are to be also used as adjectives; it seems unnecessary; there are other cases where the usual name does NOT include the word/concept "people" - Sto:lo is one of them. Anyway, with whatever title - and I'm going for the simple form without "people", though there are pages like Nicola people already, especially if the translation of the indigenous name includes "people". "French" doesn't include "people" inside it the way "Secwepemc" means "Shuswap people", or rather "people of Secwep" (which is all the better if you know it's pronounce ShaKWAP).Skookum1
- Yes, fine, I wasn't suggesting the same name format as French people, just a page that includes all aspects of culture. As for including history under culture, it could work. I would guess that for most indigenous peoples, their history and culture are more closely linked than, for instance, the History of France and the Culture of France. On the other hand, we should be careful not to limit a history to only "traditional" or pre-/early-contact history and ignore more recent developments. Obviously if a good history is written it would outgrow the main article and require an article of its own, but I don't know of any article like that yet. TheMightyQuill 21:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- a XXX First Nation or XXX Nation page (with council, resource/development, land negotiations status, tribal council membership, etc. like Government of France)
- Yes, that's the point of the separate government articles, including particulars of its other agencies, e.g. Upper St'at'imc Language Authority is an autonomous body under the aegis of the Lillooet Tribal Council (aka St'at'imc Nation), and there are the Stl'atl'imx Tribal Police and the Lower St'at'imc Education Authority (or is it health authority?) and so on. Similarly there would/should also be articles for treaty groups, like the Te'Mexw Treaty Association and the Winalalagis Treaty Group, but these of course don't have the disambig problem - except for ones like Maa-nulth First Nations (not a tribal council but a treaty group of only some of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council member bands. In cases where there is e.g. a Shuswap Nation, ethnographically speaking, there is also the smaller Shuswap First Nation/Shuswap Indian Band over by Invermere, and of course either of the Shuswap tribal councils might refer to itself as the Shuswap Nation (and that is, of course, part of the name of the largest, Shuswap Nation Tribal Council). So XXX First Nation or XXX Nation might have to be, occasionally (or consistently?), XXX First Nation (band government) or XXX Nation (band government) - and here using "band government" instead of "government", in order to distinguish the special status, and cases like the Nisga'a Lisims (and of which there'll theoretically be more of), of Indian Act government; as in some cases, e.g. Lil'wat Nation, that term is used by the "radical hardcore" who do not recognize the existence of Canada; and in terms of their laws and history, it doesn't, except as a nuisance. So while the poeple of Lil'wat - Mt Currie, do form a nation (properly Lil'wat'ul - /-'ul/ being something like /-imc/ but not quite) - but the band government is nearly always the Mount Currie Indian Band/First Nation, while the term Lil'wat Nation is often used locally by and in reference to the traditionalist elements within the Mt Currie people. Lillooet Nation is near-always going to be meant ethnographically, or in ref to the LTC (the tribal council); but Lillooet First Nation will tend to mean the same thing as Lillooet Indian Band, unless used by someone outside the area or unfamiliar with its usages. Don't mean to go on, just elaborating on the idea of XXX (First) Nation (band government); presumably XXX Indian Band (band government) would be redundant, except in the context where "the band" can refer to the community rather than its governing institution(s).Skookum1
- Shit, I meant that to say XXX First Nation rather than XXX Nation. My whole suggestion was that XXX Nation be used as the disambiguation page. At any rate, you seem to agree with having the multiple articles, but didn't respond to my idea of a separate disambig article containing all of these other articles in Wikipedia:Summary style. Please comment. - TheMightyQuill 21:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- a History of XXX (including both pre and post colonization history), History of France
- I guess so...but I presumed that would go in the "people" article; depending on the detail available I guess, which post-Contact can be considerable; so there'd be a condensed version on the main people page, a shorter condensed version on the government page, and a "main page" template on each section to the History article....hmmmm.Skookum1
- and possibly, XXX land(?) (with details on historic territory, overlap with neighbours, and current reserve land.
- This is the point of cases where there are either already Indian Reserve articles, i.e. Indian Reserves written about in the same way as any other institution, such as a municipality, and as you'll see on Ulkatcho First Nation I made a stab at enumerating reserves; such lists and stats on hectares-per-person and such can all be included; I'd say each band government page should list the reserves it "runs", and in some cases the reserve itself is notable (or at least an article already exists, cf. the main category); there's also bands with multiple communities on the same reserve, and/or also collections of reserves. I'd say in the same vein as the distinction between Indian Act and non-Indian Act "Nations" there's a simliar distinction between traditional-territory articles and Indian Act-defined territories; perhaps there should be Gitsxan Territory or Skxwxwu7mesh Territory as geographic/historical articles?Skookum1 07:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Rather than being a simple list of links to these other related articles, the XXX Nation could include a summary of these other articles. IF these articles do not yet exist, the summary could remain on the XXX Nation page until the individual article are created, thus avoiding 4 pages with two sentences or a bunch of empty subsections. Any problems with this? This avoids confining the ethnicity to just the government's definition, or from restricting the definition of nation to just government and ignoring the population and territory. Any takers? - TheMightyQuill 07:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- For whatever reason, I came back to continue reading this... The Nation disambig concept makes sense and seems in line with other precedents. However, as Skookum has noted, the potential lands articles will either have to be split up into traditional and act-defined articles or face an unhappy co-existence in the same article, with clear delineation between them. 'History of' would have a seperate article only once enough information to justify an article is gathered and written. And the 'people' article wouldn't make sense as Skookum1 has pointed out, because it is already incorporated in many of the names (ie: Gitksan - People of the Misty River)(So Gitksan People='People of the Misty River People'?!). Drop that and I think we have a workable disambig template. Together with oldmanrivers templates for the actual article pages below, we may have a working structure. There will be quandaries that arise on a case by case basis but the principle here seems sound.--Keefer4 08:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Retraction...
I'm quickly being convinced of your organization plan, and especially because Oldmanrivers' template below looks good. I still retain my complaint that XXX First Nation is not just a government, as it also refers, in common usage, to the territory. So I guess my main problem is the wording "XXX First Nation is a government..." when it's a nation not a government. Can we find some solution to that? - TheMightyQuill 22:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- While I appreciate your coming around, I have to clarify for you that "XXX First Nation" does not refer to territory in the sense of conventional English "nation" referring to a territory (when it does). The dual context here is on the one hand the government institution which has adopted the First Nation designation, on the other the sense of nation-community that underlies and preceded band status. Yes, you do see signs saying "you are entering the Lil'wat Nation" or "you are entering traditional territory of XXX Nation" but NB that, say in the Lil'wat case, that sign is found (when it's up) only at Mt Currie, and not at the boundary of Lil'wat Territory (around Daisy Lake). As you'll find as you dig around, there are no precise boundaries, or not usually anyway, and many cases of overlap (Chilcotin and Lillooet hunting territories overlap in the Bridge River basin, those of the Mt Currie Lillooet and the Lytton Nlaka'pamux in the Stein, border places like Pavilion and Port Douglas identify with two cultures, as well as two tribal councils; and in fact the ___location of Port Douglas was Chehalis-dominated until the gold rush, with the St'at'imc limited a few miles upstream away from raids off Harrison Lake...). Historical linguistic boundaries are also irrelevant or out-dated now; linguistic maps continue to show the presence of the Nicola Athapaskans, but they were extinct in the 1870s; in the 17th Century the Sekani were in the North Thompson, but were driven out by the Shuswap (under Nicola's great-grandfather, who was actually Okanagan, but of Spokane name/origin...), and the Nicola Athapaskans were in the Keremeos and Princeton areas (no one knows where they were a few centuries before that); at some point the Interior Salish group connected to the Nuxalk (who are not Coast Salish, apparently) but this contiguity was disrupted when the Tshilhqot'in moved in from the north at some point (despite the usual "from time immemorial" incantation in political statements). Any context for territory descriptions - and again, the meaning and application of territory is different in the FN context, specifically that they can overlap - should just be in the ethno/people/culture article, and IR maps would be in the Indian Band/First Nations government articles. And again, I have to emphasize that linguistic divisions do not work well; not just because of dual-culture tribal councils, and fragmented-nation multiple tribal councils (the Nlaka'pamux being the most extreme case, so far anyway), but also because linguistic areas overlap; there's a good FN-gov collaboration map somewhere of language areas, and in their texts there they emphasize that the linguistic boundaries do not and cannot be taken as implying anything politically or re treaty claims. Only in some cases, such as the Gitxsan, are there precise territorial boundaries attached to individiual chieftaincies. Anyway, the growing List of First Nations governments in British Columbia should give you an idea of why the ethnic articles have to be separated from the government ones.Skookum1 22:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
Skookum, my friend, you don't need to write a whole novel just to tell me that territories overlap and linguistic divisions are problematic, especially when it's something I already know. =) I also don't see why you keep bringing up tribal councils, since we're not talking about tribal councils, or why you finish by suggesting gov't articles should be separate from ethnic articles, when I've already agreed to this.
- Because, tribal councils either often embody nations, or presume to convey the whole - as with Nlaka'pamux Nation Tribal Council, which in a Nlaka'pamux=Nlaka'pamux Nation formulation doesn't embrace the whole of the Nlaka'pamux people. Similarly Lillooet Tribal Council/St'at'imc Nation. Tribal councils I'm including in this discussion/context because they're constructs of band governments, and therefore Indian Act-derived, although expressive (sometimes) of national identity (hard to claim with Carrier-Chilcotin or Carrier-Sekani, and again re fragmented/multiple councils). One reason I'm laying this out here is because sooner or later someone is going to come looking for the reasons why; you may know, but others don't. And since you do know, i.e. about overlapping linguistic and territorial divisions, then you should realize that the term "First Nation" doesn't have an adequate territorial application/context. THAT is what I was trying to say; and yes, I finished underscoring the main point, "even though you'd already agreed to it". You hadn't exactly, for one thing, but for another, I was simply making a summation/emphasis of the central point, since I'd covered others. And this isn't a book; I just can't write in point-form.Skookum1 23:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- In those cases when a tribal council uses the name "XXX Nation" it would probably make sense to name the article "XXX Nation (Tribal Council)" to be clear what we're talking about. - TheMightyQuill 00:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
The point is this: I know from experience, and you seem willing to concede, that "XXX First Nation" is used as an indication of place as well as a title for government. It's really irrelevant whether it is used to describe simply reserve lands or traditional territory, because my argument is that it is incorrect to begin every article with "XXX First Nation is a government" when we both know it also indicates, in some way, a place. - TheMightyQuill 23:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- As an expression of place, e.g. "Squamish Nation", in the context of Skwxwu7mesh Uxwuimixw (or St'at'imc Ucwalmicw, for a parallel), i.e. as the territory of the Skwxwu7mesh people, then "nation" is not the appropriate term (for the territory) as the Skwxwu7mesh Uxwuimixw (the shadow traditional constitution/government, essentially), while it has boundaries, is not a constituted state (neither, properly, is the Province of British Columbia but that's another matter); and back to another point somewhere above, the Skwxwu7mesh article can have a description of Skwxwu7mesh Territory, (including explaining the overlaps with Lil'wat, Shishalh, Tsleil-wau-tuth, Kway-quit-lam and Musqueam). "XXX First Nation" refers to the people on the one hand, the imposed governmental body on the other; the "territory of the people" would be the name of the physical place (OldManRivers did supply us with one, once). "Nation" is a troublesome enough word in Canadian political milieus, and doesn't have an adequately-defined meaning in English; and any of those standard English meanings do not fully address what the term has come to mean in BC, and what it means to people like OldManRivers. "Nlaka'pamux First Nation" is in fact a redundancy, as "people of Nlaka'p-" is the meaning; the "nation" in the ethnographic sense would be something like Nlaka'pamux-ull (-ull is the Sta't'imc ending, I don't know the Nlaka'pamux, meaning something like "we are the Nlaka'pamux", and the "incipient state" would be Nlaka'pamux Uxwuimixw (using the Skwxwu7mesh snichim equivalent to whatever the Nlaka'pamuxtsin is). If you want the equivalent for "Nation" or "First Nation", then it's more like "Nlaka'p people", "Nlaka'p nation", "Nlaka'p (First) Nation" (note caps). I'll leave it to OldManRivers to comment on the territory issue, but for myself I'm emphatic that there is no sense of "nation" in the sense of a territory having boundaries; that terminology in FN usage is "Territory of the XXX Nation" or "Territory of the XXX" ("XXX Territory", "Territory of the XXX", with "Traditional Territory" substituted in there often enough.Skookum1 23:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
How can you be emphatic, when you know what I'm saying is true. You know you've seen signs that say "Welcome to XXX First Nation." I have friends that talk about "life at Wet'suwet'en First Nation" - AT denotes place. It's common usage. Just because you don't believe it should be used this way, or is somehow insufficient doesn't change the fact that it IS used this way BY the people who actually live there. I've never been to Squamish First Nation, nor do I know any Skwxwu7mesh people, so I can't speak to that. Maybe it's different there, but that doesn't solve the problem. - TheMightyQuill 00:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
Template for Indigenous
I know we talked about this breifly, but I cannot remember what we came up with. I'm trying to think of a good template for the First Nation's pages, and the ethnic/cultural pages. I created pre-contact and post-contact to the Skwxwu7mesh page, which would probably be best since a lot of traditions still carry on (although history books would have you belief we're all dead). I came up with:
For culture and ethnic pages. (Examples being Haida, Skwxwu7mesh, Sto'lo, Kwakwaka'wakw)
- Histoy
- Culture
- Pre-contact
- Post-contact
- Language
- Villages
For Indian act political affiliation (Examples being any __________ First Nation)
- History
- Elected Councilors (and/or Chiefs)
- Reserves
- Treaty Claims
- Resource and Development
I wanted to add to this list for some constancy among the pages. There are also the actual government institutions such as Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council, and other Tribal Councils or tribal affiliations, which are political institutions representing a varying degree of native peoples from different groups, from different blah blah blah.
Anything else we should add? Or a place to talk about this with more people. I get the notion at Project Indigenous Peoples of North America, there isn't many people that understand BC clearly, but anywhere for forum on this would be great. (Still learning how to navigate wikipedia.) Thanks for any help OldManRivers 04:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
- I think this is the best spot for discussing it, although possibly at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject British Columbia too. We need more involvement from local communities for sure on all of this stuff. I guess things like clans/hereditary chiefs would fall under 'culture' or possibly warrant their own section? Heck, I'd like to see stuff on things like food, attire, homes... I guess it'd all fit under something you've already got. Let ya know if I think of anything else.--Keefer4 09:12, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
What definition of Nation are you using here? This article has "people articles" like Nlaka'pamux and Kwakwaka'wakw listed as nations (not to mention Halkomelem language). Even weirder, Carcross/Tagish First Nation is listed as being from the Dene Nation, although they are Tagish and Tlingit. Although those are linguistically part of the Na-Dené languages, we know linguistic categories are bogus, and Carcross/Tagish aren't to my knowledge, even part of the Dene Nation Tribal council. - TheMightyQuill 01:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
You mean "nation" in the table header? That was my attempt to address your concerns; in the title "First Nations governments" is obvious enough; "Ethnicity"? It's a sliding scale; the Tsalalh'mc are a nation within the St'at'imc Nation (actually within the Lc'lc'mc, the Lakes Lillooet, which until mid-19th Century was a separate identity within the St'at'imc; mind you so, still, are Cayoose Creek, Lillooet and Bridge River Bands i.e. separate identities, within the "metropolitan Lillooet" native community). If Carcross/Tagish is in that way it was my mistake; I was thinking of the Gwi'chin and Han and other Yukon peoples, who are in the Dene group (as are, by their own determination, the Tshilqot'in and Dakelh and other Athapaskans in BC). If there are mistakes in who belongs where, by all means fix them; I was copy-pasting at high speed, transferring link-names from other pages, and there are doubtless mistakes here and there; I'd put Union Bar in Nlaka'pamux originally, but it's non-Sto:lo Halqemeylem-speaking (that is to say, Fraser River Coast Salish or Fraser River Salish). As to the labelling of the table header, if you have something better to put in place of "nation" in that field (Kwakwaka'wakw, Haida, Tsilhqot'in, Secwepemc, not local ethno-nations like Esketemc or Tsalalh'mc or Spaxomin, who belong in the other column). I'm thinking the way to deal with the alternate names is to ditch that column and make multiple entries, so that the entire thing is sortable; also "Language 1" and "Language 2" so those are also sortable. I may also have town/locations wrong, or in some cases didn't bother (e.g. 'Namgis because I couldn't remember if it's Port Hardy, Port McNeill, Sayward, or what).Skookum1 02:29, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- No, I don't have a better suggestion, but that article is using "nation" in the sense of "a people" (rather than government or territory) which is how this whole discussion started. The problem with using "culture" or "ethnicity" is that the 1969 White Paper proposed eliminated Indian Status for indigenous people in favour of considering simply "ethnic groups." This would have made Secwepemc-Canadian no different from Ukrainian-Canadian. Obviously, this was pretty insulting to most indigenous peoples, many of whom considered themselves nations rather than simple ethnic groups. Nations have the right to negotiate with Canada as equals, whereas ethnicities or groups of people do not. - TheMightyQuill 03:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- How about we use the damn names they are. None of this Nation, nation, People, people, stuff. OldManRivers 05:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redlinking these for later:
- List of First Nations peoples in British Columbia - with spare columns for "Component Nations" (with "Nations" there being the local-ethnicity); basically the same table as overleaf but laid out by local people/ethnic group-name; this will allow for inclusion of the Nicola Athapaskans and other extinct groups also.
- List of First Nations languages in British Columbia - might already exist and could be redundant in terms of this or that linguistics-related article, and easy enough I guess to source just by looking at cats (is there a "Category:Languages of British Columbia" cat within Category:Languages of Canada?
- List of First Nations communities in British Columbia - including non-Reserve communities and towns where there are strong reserve agglomerations (Lillooet, Hazelton, Merritt, Duncan, Campbell River etc) this one could have a population - numbers and percentage;
- List of First Nations Reserves in British Columbia - this will mostly focus on which reserve is run by or allocated to which band.Skookum1 02:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- Redlinking these for later:
New templates re the above issues
I'd already made {{Kwakwaka'wakw peoples}} and {{Nuu-chah-nulth-aht peoples}} but just tried a different, perhaps better, title: {{Peoples of the Secwepemc Nation}}. A similar retitling of the governments ones, currently {{Kwakwaka'wakw First Nations}} could be {{Governments of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nation}}. Except that "Kwakwaka'wakw Nation" is never (usually) put that way, and IIRC has political overtones (as being an organizational name separate from the Laich-kwil-tach-Comox-Kwagyulh formation of the Kwakiutl District Council; well, which doesn't include the Kwagyulh/Kwakiutl First Nation any more (the Fort Rupert Band). Maybe {{Governments of the St'at'imc people}} might be a better format; because in that case, as elsewhere, "St'at'imc Nation means a particular tribal council, or can (also Nlaka'pamux Nation, Kwakiutl Nation, Shuswap Nation, just for starters). Anyway, I think the new title(s) might work better, and be less confusing, and also address the concept of ethnolinguistic nations spanning several smaller nation-groups.Skookum1 03:15, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- How about removing people, nation, and all those extra words to the end. Just Kwakwaka'wakw. Just Skwxwu7mesh. Just Secwepemc. OldManRivers 04:56, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- Not a bad idea. We can probably fit all the information, cultural, history, government, territory, reserve in one article. I'd support it, but I'm not sure what we do with something like Alexandria First Nation - we can't move to Alexandria because it's already taken. We could try to figure out the name of each people in their own language. - TheMightyQuill 07:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- It'll have a name in Tsilhqot'in - or rather they will. I remember seeing "E?sdilageh" or something like that somewhere - evidently a Tshilqot'in pastiche of Alexandria, something like Samadlin by way of origin, which was their adaptation of Sieur MacLean, their name for Donald Maclean (fur trader) as overheard from his francophone underlings. And it's important to note that I think that's a placename, not a people-name; the people-name would be more like E?sdilageh'tin, at least if that's a Tsilhqot'in name and it might be Carrier or Shuswap instead of French in origin. In the {{Peoples of the Secwepemc Nation}} template - and yes, that's redundant as you've noted OMR (Secwep-people peoples) I'm certain some of the native names, garnered from the Shuswap Nation website as I recall, are place rather than people names; I amended the only one I could be sure of enough to change it, the last one (Tsk'waylacw'mc, which might not work if that's not spelled right...). So anyway, yeah, there's a name for each local people, as has come out as a spin-off from Shackan First Nation to Sx'ex'nx, who previously I thought were Scw'exmx or maybe are a part of them; but I know there's place-specific people names throught St'at'imc/Lil'wat territory, and elsewhere. As far as I can tell, those on {{Kwakawka'wakw peoples}} are all people-names, but OMR (who's part Kwakwaka'wakw AIRC) can maybe verify that. All the -aht endings on Nuu-chah-nulth-aht names mean "people" (and the -ah ending on Makah), and "Aht" was in fact the name for all of what later on became referred to as the Nootkas; "Nuu-chah-nulth" is of modern invention, relatively; Nuu-chah-nulth-aht I used in that case because it implies the whole ethnic group, rather than just the Nuu-chah-nulth (whom the Pacheedaht stand separate from, and the Ditidaht are slightly linguistically different....but then again, so probably are the Kyuquots and Tshesahts etc.). Anyway I'll find the Tsilhqot'in name for Alexandria - and also the name for the Chilcotin language itself - by writing someone and just asking; the Shuswap Nation site is very well-developed and written so I imagine their webmaster might be fairly forthcoming.Skookum1 09:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
- Not a bad idea. We can probably fit all the information, cultural, history, government, territory, reserve in one article. I'd support it, but I'm not sure what we do with something like Alexandria First Nation - we can't move to Alexandria because it's already taken. We could try to figure out the name of each people in their own language. - TheMightyQuill 07:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC)