Talk:Nicola (people)

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View comments (edit) This should be titled Stuwix (see notes in its history file and talk page), which currently redirects here. Second article exists also (see following); one has to be deleted, or re-used. Separate language stub/short article already exists, and again should be renamed. --Skookum1 (9 May 06) I disagree about renaming. See article's discussion. --Billposer Article needs sources; still essentially a stub --Miskwito 21:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

There are two pages currently, Nicola people and Nicola (people), the latter being this one. The one without parentheses in the main title is about the people more easily called the Nicola Athapaskans, which is one of the scholarly terms for them. Now, since "Stuwix" (which currently redirects there) means "strangers" or "strange/different people" in Nlaka'pamux, it appears that the ethnological description of the Stuwix/Nicola Athapaskans as simply "Nicola people" was invoked to write the other article (Nicola people). The problem with that is that there is a common usage in modern English, both as used by non-natives as well as by the people of the native people of the Nicola Valley themselves, who use the label Nicola(s) and not just as the short form of the name of the Nicola Valley Tribal Council; it's because their community was founded by Nicola and they are named for his legacy, in the same way that the valley and the river are; the area was in fact known as Nicola's Country before the river was officially given the name Nicola River. So rather than the people being named for the valley/river, they are named for the same person that the river/valley is named for. What I'm getting at is that "Nicola" in its primary modern usage refers to the Okanagan-Nlaka'pamux "confederacy" (of sorts) comprised of the Nicola Valley Bands (plus Cook's Ferry IR at Spences Bridge, right at the confluence of the Nicola and Thompson; and maybe one other Nlaka'pamux band farther away); their distinction from the larger Okanagan and Nlaka'pamux is partly clarified by their own indigenous names, the Spaxomin and Scx'exmx. So my "solution" is to create a Nicola Athapaskans article where the current contents of Nicola people can go, with that becoming either a redirect to Nicola (people) or it can become the main article with the latter the redirect; the page would, as here, have a dab and/or other mention of the Nicola Athapaskans, and be linked accordingly. It is no more proper to call them Nicola than it is Stuwix, and it is not suitable nor under Wiki naming conventions for the modern usage of Nicola to be given short shrift by a now-extinct people whose actual name for themselves is not even known....Skookum1 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] time for split

The two peoples subject of this article shoudl not be in the same article; the Nicola Athapaskans seems to be hte natural title for the Stuwix (a name that could also be used even though it's Secwepemc'tsn, in the same way that Makah is used fror the article title but that's not their proper name either, ditto Okanagan/Syilx. Linguists and academics seem to automatically consider the Nicola Athapaskans as what's meant by "Nicola people" but "Nicola's people" is clearly the Spaxomin-Scw'exmx alliance, which although it included the dregs of the Stuwix no longer does, so "Nicola people" w/wo brackets will be used for the alliance, with a dabline to Stuwix (just to use an indigenous name, if not from their language, instead of "Nicola Athapaskans", which is a linguistic-only designation. It's odd to me that langauge maps still show a pocket of Athapaskan-speakers in this area, i.e. in maps of current langauge distributions; but it's not hte only failing of specialist academics.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:34, 23 May 2008 (UTC)