K'omoks Territory:
East central Vancouver Island and adjacent mainland.
Portals
K'omoks Population
Canada (2020) - 2,200 |
S
A L I S H
COAST
COMMENTS
Franz Boas's 1887
map, linked to above, indicates the original territory of the
K'omoks prior to the Kwakwaka'wakw invasion. Note the Walitsima
were an ethnic K'omoks Band living with the Kwakwaka'wakw.
When Captain George
Vancouver briefly met the K'omoks at Cape Mudge on the southern
end of Quadra Island in 1792, he would have had no concept of
whom he was meeting nor their territory. Nevertheless, given
that the mandate of First Nations Seeker to recreate North America
at the time of "First Contact", with the visit of Captain
Vancouver, the boundary between the K'omoks and Laich-kwil-tach
Kwakwaka'wakw on Vancouver Island has been fixed at their pre-conquest
location.
In fact, it was only
in 1842, that the K'omoks crossed into sustained "contact"
and entered the historical era.
In the fifty years
in between, their northern neighbours, the Laich-kwil-tach Kwakwaka'wakw,
had been agressively pursuing a policy of war and conflict. They
had occupied the northern part of Vancouver Island K'omoks territories
(see Robert Galois's  ) and were steadily advancing down the island.
Intermarriges occurred. The Laich-kwil-tach were also conducting
naval raids far to the south. These events occurred outside the
realm of European influence.
Significantly, it
was only in 1850, that the Laich-kwil-tach finally "took
over" the K'omoks completely with raids in the Courtenay
area.
Incidently, there
is a distinct possibility that the isolated Salish Nuxalk
Nation is an offshoot K'omoks Band who fled far to the north
in the pre-contact era due to Kwakwaka'wakw aggression.
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