Mali Quelqueltalko: The Writings of a Nineteenth-Century Nlaka’pamux Woman

Abstract

Mali—a Nlaka'pamux inhabitant of the Fraser Canyon—left behind a small but significant legacy of published articles about her life and her people at the turn of the 20^th century. Completely unknown today, she was nonetheless one of the first women writers, if not the first Indigenous female writer, published in British Columbia. Her small collection of writings deserves attention not only for its first-person perspective on aspects on Nlaka'pamux culture, but for the window into the way this young Indigenous woman thought about the world around her at the turn of the 20^th century.