Lillooet People - Groups

Groups

The St'at'imc are divided linguistically, culturally and geographically into two main tribes or First Nations.

• Upper Lillooet (Upper St'at'imc or Fraser River Lillooet, living near the present city of Lillooet on the Fraser River) - they refer to themselves as STLA'tlei-mu-wh-talk and speak St'at'imcets dialect.

• Lower Lillooet (Lower St'at'imc or Mount Currie Lillooet, living in the vicinity of today's Mount Currie in the Pemberton Valley and south to Skookumchuk) - they refer to themselves as LEEL'-wat-OOL - 'The true People', 'The true Lillooet' (of which were the words 'Lillooet' and 'Lilwat' derived) and speak Ucwalmícwts ('oo-Kwale MEWK') dialect.
• Lakes Lillooet (Lexalexamux or Tsala'lhmec - 'Lake People'), a group only sporadically recognized, living between the territories of Upper St'at'imc and Lower St'at'imc around Seton Lake and Anderson Lake - whose descendants are today's N'quatqua First Nation (also known as Anderson Lake Indian Band) and Seton Lake First Nation (also known as Seton Lake Indian Band), historically a group at the foot of Seton Lake, near Lillooet, known as the Skimka'imx were also included in this group.

Because the terms St'at'imc and Lillooet is in use as a collective term for the main groups and the single bands and First Nations of this Interior Salish people, confusion can arise between the single groupings or bands (especially with regard to historical sources) and so they could and can easily mistaken for one another, therefore it is today no longer clear whether the report refers to one of the main groupings or the entire First Nation.