Quamichan (or Kw’amutsun) is a traditional nation of the Coast Salish people, commonly referred to by the English adaptation of ''Qu'wutsun'' ("warm place") as the Cowichan Indians, or

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: ** First Nat ...

, of the

Cowichan Valley The Cowichan Valley is a region around the Cowichan River, Cowichan Bay and Cowichan Lake on Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. There is some debate as to the origin of the name Cowichan, which many believe to be an anglicized form o ...

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest by ...

, in the area near the city of

Duncan, British Columbia Duncan (pop. 5,047 in 2021) is a city on southern Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It is the smallest city by area (2.07 square kilometres, 0.8 square miles) in Canada. It was incorporated in 1912. Location The city is about 45 kilo ...

. The Quamichan are now part of the

Cowichan Tribes Cowichan Tribes ( hur, Quw’utsun) is the band government of the Cowichan, a group of Coast Salish peoples who live in the Cowichan Valley region on Vancouver Island. With over 3,800 registered members, it is the single largest First Nation ...

band government In Canada, an Indian band or band (french: bande indienne, link=no), sometimes referred to as a First Nation band (french: bande de la Première Nation, link=no) or simply a First Nation, is the basic unit of government for those peoples subjec ...

, along with several other Cowichan-area peoples.

History

At the start of the colonial era, Quamichan was the largest and wealthiest of the eight Cowichan villages in part due to the fighting prowess of chieftains such as Tzouhalem, who once led a two-day assault on the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trade, fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake b ...

's Fort Victoria in 1844. The original name of this village, ''kwómetsen'', means 'humpback' or 'hunchback' and is derived from a character in a Cowichan story, a hunchbacked cannibal-ogress-giantess who 'kept children in a basket and placed pitch over their eyes before she ate them'. The English name is 'Quamichan.' There are varying historical accounts of the size of the village; however, in all descriptions the Quamichan village was large. The village extended for five kilometres along the Cowichan River, stretching from one kilometre above Quamichan Creek down almost to Comiaken village. The first census after European contacts estimated 1,700 people residing in the village. The British

Colony of Vancouver Island The Colony of Vancouver Island, officially known as the Island of Vancouver and its Dependencies, was a Crown colony of British North America British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America ...

later named the area north and west of

Cowichan Bay Cowichan Bay () is a bay and community located on the east coast of southern Vancouver Island near Duncan, British Columbia, Duncan, in British Columbia. The mouth of the Cowichan River is near Cowichan Bay. Mount Tzouhalem and its hiking trails a ...

as the Quamichan District, properly the

Quamichan Land District Quamichan (or Kw’amutsun) is a traditional nation of the Coast Salish people, commonly referred to by the English adaptation of ''Qu'wutsun'' ("warm place") as the Cowichan Indians, or First Nations, of the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island ...

, which is part of the cadastral survey system for land titles. The cultural traditions of the annual Winter Dances were regarded as vibrant despite efforts by missionaries and government agents to prevent the

potlatch A potlatch is a gift-giving feast practiced by Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States,Harkin, Michael E., 2001, Potlatch in Anthropology, International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Scienc ...

and other events regarded as "pagan". The annual gathering of kin and village for dances and ceremonies continued into the 20th Century. In colonial times, they subsisted by fishing, hunting, and the gathering of wild berries and roots. By the 1900s, they lived by farming, fishing, hunting and working on the railway and in canneries.Mooney, J. (1911). Quamichan Indians. In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia''. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved June 15, 2014 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12590a.htm

Smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) ce ...

and other diseases reduced the Quamichan population from about 1,000 people in the mid-1800s to 300 in 1901 and 260 in 1909.

Religion

Catholic priests visited them as early as 1847 and more conversions occurred after the Oblate Fathers arrived in Victoria in 1857. In 1864, the

Sisters of Saint Anne The Sisters of St. Anne (S.S.A.) is a Roman Catholic religious institute, founded in 1850 in Vaudreuil, Quebec, Canada, by the Blessed Marie Anne Blondin, S.S.A., to promote the education of the rural children of the Province of Canada. Their vis ...

established the Cowichan Convent School in Quamichan for aboriginal girls. By 1909, there were 200 Catholics and 60 Methodists.

References

{{Authority control Coast Salish Southern Vancouver Island