ATHAPASCANS—tribes speaking languages in the Athapascan language family—were centered in present-day northwestern Canada and are classified as SUBARCTIC INDIANS. Some of them migrated southward to other parts of western North America. Among these were the Stuwihamuk, who settled among the PLATEAU INDIANS in present-day southern British Columbia. They may have separated from the Chilcotin, fellow Athapascans living along the Chilcotin River to the north. The significance of the name Stuwihamuk, pronounced stoo-wee-HAH-muck and also recorded as Stuwik and Stuichamukh, is not known; it was probably given to them by the Salishan-speaking NTLAKYAPAMUK (THOMPSON), near whom they settled. Because of their location in the Nicola Valley and the nearby Similka-meen Valley, the Stuwihamuk have been referred to in some texts as the Nicola.
The Stuwihamuk were originally enemies of the Ntlakyapamuk, but they managed to seize lands nearby them and establish their own villages. They came to adopt many of the customs of their Plateau neighbors, establishing permanent villages of circular earth-covered pithouses and setting up temporary lodges of brush at fishing, hunting, and gathering sites. By the time the Ntlakyapamuk had contacts with traders in the early 19th century, such as Simon Fraser of the North West Company, they had absorbed the Stuwihamuk. Among the contemporary Ntlakyapamuk First Nations known as Upper Nicola and Lower Nicola, it can thus be assumed are some people of Athapascan ancestry.