![]() The buildings were rectangular and up to 100 feet (30.5 meters) long. Northwest Coast Indians made their houses with wood from the forests, usually red cedar. There was also at least one very large structure in which the highest-ranking group lived and where the village could hold a large potlatch, or celebration. ![]() Most villages had several such buildings, each one the home base of a large extended family group. In the winter most people lived in their kin group’s main building, which was usually in a village on the coast. The members divided themselves into small groups that moved between good fishing and berry-picking sites. In this season a house usually had several bases of operation. Summer was the time for catching and gathering food and processing it for winter storage. Like other hunting and gathering peoples, Northwest Coast Indians had seasonal settlements. Usually home sites and settlements were limited to narrow beaches or terraces because the land fell so steeply to the shore or riverbank. Most groups built villages near waterways or the coast. The women collected bulbs, roots, berries, and seeds. Families traveled to the mountains, where the men hunted deer, elk, mountain goat, and bear. Northwest Coast peoples varied their fish-based diet through hunting and gathering. People also dug clams along the beach and smoked them just as they did salmon. Other important fish were herring, smelt, cod, and halibut. The Indians used large amounts of this oil, dipping dried foods into it at meals. The women preserved a year’s supply of salmon by drying the fish over a smoky fire and pressed the oil from candlefish. The men built weirs (underwater enclosures) and traps to catch huge hauls of salmon and candlefish as they swam upstream to spawn. They could get plenty of fish, shellfish, and even whales, seals, and porpoises from the sea and local rivers. Northwest Coast tribes had no pressing food problems. Well-known tribes included the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakiutl, Bella Coola, Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), Coast Salish, and Chinook. It was home to peoples speaking Athabaskan, Tshimshianic, Salishan, and other languages. Northwest Coast was densely populated when Europeans first made landfall in the 1700s.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |