Kwah is the usual English form of the name of the famous Carrier leader Kw'eh. He was born around 1755 and died in 1840. Chief Kw'eh was the chief of his Keyoh called Nak'azdli in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, now known as the Nak'azdli Indian Reserve no1. In his time, few people lived at Nak'azdli (Fort Saint James), which attracted people due to the location of the North West Company (later Hudson's Bay Company) fort there, which was not established until 1806.
Chief Kwah was a significant Keyoh Chief and his land was situated along the Stuart River. The Keyoh system is the customary land governance structure (pre 1846) of the Stuart Lake Carrier peoples and has been in place for at least 500 years. Each Keyoh consists of an extended family and a Keyoh Chief (Holder or noble) appointed per the keyoh system customs. Furthermore, each Keyoh Chief could decide to contribute any additional resources to a gathering.
Chief Kw'eh held the very important name Ts'oh Dai in the Lhts'umusyoo (Beaver Clan).
Chief Kw'eh received the explorer Simon Fraser in 1806 when Carrier people brought his foundering canoes into Tsaooche village, another family's keyoh in Sowchea Bay. In gratitude, Simon Fraser presented Kw'eh with red cloth. This red cloth was later returned to the state of Canada by Kwah's predecessor Ts'ohdai Pete Erickson in 1997. Giving the cloth back to Canada is recognition of the deplorable relationship the State of Canada has with the Dakelh Nation.
Chief Kw'eh is also known for the incident in which, in 1828, he spared the life of his prisoner, the fur trader James Douglas, who later became the first governor of the united Colony of British Columbia. He was also known for his acquisition of an iron dagger prior to the arrival of the first Europeans in the area, presumably one traded in from the coast. He is the ancestor of a large percentage of the Carrier people in the Stuart Lake area.
References
- Bishop, Charles A., "Kwah: A Carrier Chief," in Old Trails and New Directions: Papers of the Third North American Fur Trade Conference, C.M. Judd & A.J. Ray (eds.), Toronto, 1980, pp. 191–204.
- Bishop, Charles A., "!Kwah (Quâs)," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 2000.
- Klippenstein, Frieda Esau, "The Challenge of James Douglas and Carrier Chief Kwah," in Reading Beyond Words: Contexts for Native History, (2nd ed.), edited by Jennifer S.H. Brown and Elizabeth Vibert, pp. 163–192, Broadview Press, Peterborough, Ontario, 2003.
- Klippenstein, Frieda Esau, "Myth-Making At Fort St. James: The Search for Historical ‘Truth'," in The Beaver, August–September, pp. 22–29, 1994.
- Steward, Julian H., Anthropologist and Ethnographer, 1941a Investigations among Carrier Indians.
- Morice, Adrien-Gabriel (1904) History of the Northern Interior of British Columbia. Toronto: William Briggs.
- Rosetti, Bernadette (1979) Kw'eh Ts'u Haindene. Descendents of Kwah - a Carrier Indian genealogy. Fort Saint James: Carrier Linguistic Committee and Necoslie Indian Band.
- Sam, Lillian (ed.), Nak'azdli t'enne Yahulduk - Nak'azdli Elders Speak, Penticton, B.C.: Theytus Press, 2001.