K'omoks

The K'omoks, also spelled Comox, are the northernmost of the Coast Salish peoples, centred on the Comox Valley of eastern Vancouver Island and adjacent mainland inlets, where kinsmen lived in several groups. Their language, Ayajuthem, belongs to the Coast Salishan branch, and their culture blended Salish customs with those of the Kwakwaka'wakw to the north: they were famed canoe builders and carvers, raised petroglyphs on Chrome Island, and distributed wealth in potlatches in winter villages such as the Whale House on Quadra Island.

A smallpox epidemic reached them in 1790, ahead of any European, and direct contact came in 1792, when George Vancouver's ships and the Spanish expeditions of Galiano and Valdés circumnavigated Vancouver Island.

Around 1830 pressure from the southward-moving Laich-kwil-tach began driving the northern K'omoks bands into the Pentlatch lands to the south.