Songhees (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles The Songhees or Songish, also known as the Lekwungen or Lekungen, are an indigenous North American Coast Salish people who reside on southeastern Vancouver Island, British Columbia in the Greater Victoria area. There is evidence of a fortified village existing at Finlayson Point in Beacon Hill Park prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The Songhees' traditional foods included salmon, shellfish, whale, deer, duck, berries, camas root, and herbs. The Coast Salish traditionally lived in bighouses. The Songhees population was estimated to be 8,500 in 1859 but by 1914 had dwindled to less than 200. At the time of the establishment of Fort Victoria by the British in 1843, a Songhees village was situated adjacent to the fort. The village was subsequently moved across Victoria Harbour in what is now the Victoria West neighbourhood. The village was subsequently moved and a reserve established adjacent to what is now the municipality of View Royal.