(b) MIGRATION LEGEND.
(Continued)These were Indians, and not animals. Some people claim that the Lytton people sprang from these original inhabitants. At the close of the mythological period there were four lodges at Lytton, each representing a family, or family group. These families intermarried, and from them have sprung all the Thompson people. Cexpe'ntlem, Tso'sietEn, and other leading chiefs, all claimed descent from one or more of these families. In course of time these four lodges increased, and some families broke away and settled in other places where there were good hunting and fishing. Thus from Lytton the people spread up and down the Fraser River, and up the Thompson River. Some families migrated from Lytton, and settled at Neqa'umin, or Thompson, which was a great salmon fishing place, and was annually visited by the Okanagan. The people of many of these places sent forth offshoots, a family or two breaking away and making their headquarters at a certain place, which in time became the centre of a band. Thus our country was settled, until at last our people spread down the Fraser to Spuzzum, and up the Fraser to La Fontaine, also up the Thompson River to Spences Bridge, and over to Nicola and Similkameen. At these points they came in contact with other tribes, with whom they intermarried. This is why our chief Cexpe'ntlem, in talking to the whites (in 1858), told them they had entered his house and were now his guests. He asked them to treat his children as brothers, and they would share the same fire. He did not know that they would afterwards treat his people as strangers and inferiors, and steal their land and food from them. Had he known it, there would probably have been war, and the land would have been red with blood. They asked him where his house was. He said, "You are in it. The centre of my house is here at Lytton. The fireplace is right here, and you are sitting by it. The floors of my house are at Spuzzum, at Laha'hoa,1 at Stle.z,2 at .stce'kus,3 and at Tcutcuwi'xa.4 Between these places is our tribal territory, from which we gather our food." This is why Lytton was considered the chief and central place of the tribe, and our head chief was there. This is also the reason the why Lytton people had the right to hunt anywhere in the country of the tribe. They were called the "real Ntlaka'pamux" other Ntlaka'pamux were considered their offspring or children, but they were not real Ntlaka'pamux. They were all more or less mixed with alien blood, and they do not speak the language so purely as the Lytton division. Not long ago nearly all the families along the Thompson River could trace their descent from a few families at Lytton, who were considered the original families. Therefore we believe that it is not so very long since the time of the four lodges at Lytton, but still the time is too great for us to count it. Perhaps the people two or three generations ago could count the time. Stories used to be told of a migration of Thompson people from the Columbia River to Lytton, and also later from Lytton to the Columbia River. Latey at Lytton I heard an old man called Hwi'kwal tell one of these stories. There are still some Thompson speaking Indians on the Columbia River. They speak our language, but Some of their words are a little different from ours. They also speak the Wenatchie dialect (Peskwa'us), which is like 0kanagan.
I have never seen any of them, but have often heard of them, and seen men who have seen them, and one or two men who claimed to have been at the place where their remnants now live. Some say that long ago they lived at two or more places near the Columbia River. It is said that now only a few are left, who live at one place, a little distance from the Columbia River, I think in some part of the Peskwa'us country.5
1 Name of an old Indian settlement at La fontaine, nine miles above Lillooet, on the east side of the Fraser River.
2 Indian name of a place near Cornwall, Ashcroft, where the most eastern village of the Thompson, on the Thompson River, is situated.
3 On Quilchena Creek, Nicola Valley, on the north side of the river, near Hedley.
4 In the Similkameen Valley, on the north side of the river, near Hedley.
5 Compare preceding stories.
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