The Okanagan people, also spelled Okanogan, are a First Nations and Native American people whose traditional territory spans the U.S.-Canada boundary in Washington state and British Columbia. Known in their own language as the Syilx, they are part of the Interior Salish ethnological and linguistic groupings, the Okanagan are closely related to the Spokan, Sinixt, Nez Perce, Pend Oreille, Shuswap and Nlaka'pamux peoples in the same region.
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The Okanagan people, also spelled Okanogan, are a First Nations and Native American people whose traditional territory spans the U.S.-Canada boundary in Washington state and British Columbia. Known in their own language as the Syilx, they are part of the Interior Salish ethnological and linguistic groupings, the Okanagan are closely related to the Spokan, Sinixt, Nez Perce, Pend Oreille, Shuswap and Nlaka'pamux peoples in the same region.
When the Oregon Treaty partitioned the Pacific Northwest in 1846, the portion of the tribe remaining in what became Washington Territory reorganized under Chief Tonasket as a separate group from the majority of the Okanagans, whose communities remain in Canada. The Okanagan Tribal Alliance, however, also incorporates the American branch of the Okanagans, who are part of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville, a multi-tribal government in Washington state.
The bounds of Okanagan territory are roughly the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Okanagan River,...
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