Nicola (chief)

Nicola (1780/1785 — ~1865) (Spokan Hwistesmetxe'qen, Walking Grizzly Bear), also Nkwala or N'kwala, was an important First Nations political figure in the fur trade era of the British Columbia Interior (early 19th century to 1858) as well as into the colonial period (1858–1871). He was grand chief of the Okanagan people and chief of the Nicola Valley peoples, an alliance of Nlaka'pamux and Okanagans and the surviving Nicola Athapaskans, and also of the Kamloops Band of the Shuswap people.

The name Nicolas (/ˈnɪkələ/ NIK-ə-lə in approximation of the French) was conferred on him by French-Canadians in the employ of the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Companies who worked at a temporary unnamed trading post at the head of Okanagan Lake. The Scots and English in the employ of the companies adapted this to Nicholas and Old Nicholas, while First Nations people adapted it to Nkwala’.

Nicola was one of the four children and chiefly heir of Pelka'mulox ("Rolls-Over-The-Earth"), third chief in the lineage of Okanagan chiefs to bear that name (which was by linguistic origin Spokane), the first and second being born c.1675-1680 and c.1705-1710 respectively. The date of birth of the third Pelka'mulox, Nicola's father, is uncertain but his death was sometime in the first decade of the 19th century, caused by an arrow fired by a chief of the Lillooet (St'at'imc) at the historic fishing grounds around Fountain and Pavilion. The argument between the two chiefs had begun when chief of the Lakes Lillooet provoked a violent argument by denouncing Pelka'mulox, who had hunted buffalo on the plains and met North West Company traders Lagace and MacDonald in what is now Montana, for describing the existence of white people and their new civilization, and calling his story a lie.

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