Talk:First Nations in British Columbia

Insertion of items in Tribal Council Templates
I wanted to add Cácl'ep (Xaxl'ip - Fountain) to the Lillooet Tribal Council section, but couldn't see how. Pointers? (Fountain/Cácl'ep hasn't been written yet, but it's coming).Skookum1 06:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Hi Skookum1! The Lilloeet Tribal Council is included in this article as a Template, and so can be edited like other pages at Template:Lillooet Tribal Council.  To include a template on a Wikipedia page you can use the syntax of "Template Name" or "Template:Template Name".  Your recent work is great by the way! Kurieeto 01:56, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Note on governments vs. people/ethno articles
Currently List of First Nations governments in British Columbia redirects here, and the content here conforms with that. But there should be a simpler listing of First Nations by ethnic group only, not directed to band governments; see notes on Skwxwu7mesh_Uxwuimixw/Squamish Nation merge discussion as to why, as it's too complicate to explain/explicate twice... ;-) . Skookum1 06:32, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Issue with intro
Hi BrainyBabe....in regards to your reworking, just to note re the following:
 * ''Many of these Canadian aboriginal peoples are affiliated in tribal councils. Ethnic groups include the Haida, Salish, and Nisga'a, all examples of the Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast.

With that wording Coast Salish should be used, and the Tsimshian and the Wakashan peoples should be mentioned; might be too cumbersome to say "Nuu-chah-nulth, Kwakwaka'wakw, Heiltsuk, Wuikinuxv and Haisla]], and taht still doesn't include the Ditidaht or Gitxsan (who are reckoned as being part of the coastal culture, though Interior in geography). But also, since this is the intro the peoples of the Plateau should be mentioned; again too many to list and there's no Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau though of course there should be (as per Category:Indigenous languages of the North American Plateau, which again still doesn't include the Sub-Arctic peoples).  I hvaent' had time to write the Plateau article - it's very complex south of the line so had avoided it .... ;-)Skookum1 (talk) 17:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the info! I am no expert in these areas, but I thought it a pity that the excellent article Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast was not included in the intro and so reworded it to include it, also finding room for a link to Aboriginal peoples in Canada. By all means change Salish to Coast Salish, if my changes have created an inaccuracy, but on the whole I would oppose putting many names of groups into the intro.  That paragraph is there to lead readers into the subject, not baffle them with a lot of complexities or lists.  BrainyBabe (talk) 08:10, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

should be renamed a list
In its current state, without a write up, and very much like a directory, this is really just a list of First Nations governments and shoudl be titled as such List of First Nations governments in British Columbia. Either that or some effort is made to account for the size and composition/history of the various groups of bands laid out in the sections; I think that's an inappropriate use of templates/navboxes - to build a directory page - and some account of the band/tribal council structure in each region laid out; as with my expansion of the Lower Mainland (formerly Sto:lo) section, because of the many non-Sto:lo there, there are lots of bands that aren't part of tribal councils - and this is not a list of tribal councils; tribal council lists are separate pages List of tribal councils in British Columbia. A table sortable by tribal council is still desirable, but the reality is that tribal councils come and go, bands are semi-permanent and many are not in tribal councils, or are in two or even three; loose equations between capital-N Nation and ethnic nation and linguistic group and so on do not hold in face of this; many tribal councils are also multi-ethnic; it's a common misperception taht political life and culture was borken down along linguistic lines; in reality historically alliances were across linguistic lines, with neighbouring groups of the same langauge or "ethnicity" often the main enemy. My point with that is the artificial divisions by language and ethnicity - and tribal council - are modern fictions; the reality is each band has its own situation; the complicated web of governments in Dakelh territory I'm still trying to get my head around, there's so many bands and reserves. If this page isn't meant to be a list page, it should have more descriptive text, maybe maps if the directory of tribal councils remains; ethnic territory, political claim and actual band territory are all very different things; also in any text expansion shoudl be a breakdown of what "First Nations in Briitsh Columbia" can mean; Wiki-convention is it's a reference ot the governments' "indigenous people" or "aboriginal people" or even "Indian" to the "native people"; suing capped "First Nations", given the existing of so many Matsqui First Nation, Spuzzum First Nation, etc etc but also the use of "First Nations" as an all purpose adjective e.g. First Nations person. We, as Canadians, are used to that usage; it takes some explaining to those not familiar with it that it can mean only a government, and while it means the people as a whole also it's kidn of a stilted and also POV use. "First Nations reserve" for instacne is over-correction if teh legal designation remains "Indian Reserve"; not just a neologism, a POV neologism. Here Ithink it's different "the First Nations of British Columbia" could mean both a study/article on ethnicity/culture/politics, and also a survey of the nature of band governments in BC; but as a separate topic, since the two are very different contexts. Anyway it's late; this page has stood as a directory for quite a while; maybe it was even me who made it that way; is it a list, or should it be expanded into a textual/visual treatise/assemblage of....what, exactly?Skookum1 (talk) 04:48, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's definitely a list. IMO go ahead and move it.  PK T (alk)  17:02, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Needs an admin; I already tried....which is why I posted it on CANTALK.....what do you think of all those templates being used instead of a proper list? I'm thinking maybe it would be better to copy over and re-order the table from List of Indian Reserves in Canada.Skookum1 (talk) 19:55, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Complicating the matter somewhat is that List of First Nations in British Columbia is currently a redirect to List of First Nations governments in British Columbia, which User:Esmono created without bothering to consider that it already existed under another name (typical). Now, it's become a convention in wikipedia for "First Nations" to refer to the band govenrments, and not to the peoples/ethno articles, so List of First Nations peoples in British Columbia is still called for, especially because there are a number of peoples now extinct (Tsetsaut and Stuwix for starters, but others who are vanished subunits of the Nuu-chah-nulth, Sto:lo, Kwakwaka'wakw, Haida etc, but also the Sinixt who do not have a band government).  Also band governments do not correspond to peoples, not in BC anyways.  So ultimatley one list for reserves, one for band governments, one for peoples; and also List of British Columbia communities with significant aboriginal populations, correspnding to List of United States cities with majority Native American populations and the like....Skookum1 (talk) 20:02, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There does not appear to be any controversy (given this discussion and the fact that it's been posted at WP:CANBOARD for almost a year), so the request for an admin to move the moves should be made at WP:RM under "uncontroversial requests". --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:46, 6 July 2010 (UTC)