NORTHWEST COAST INDIAN

Distribution of Northwest Coast Indians. member of any of the aboriginal North American peoples inhabiting a narrow belt of Pacific coastland and offshore islands from the southern border of Alaska to northwestern California. The most sharply delimited culture area of native North America was the Northwest Coast. It covered a long narrow arc of Pacific coast and offshore islands from Yakutat Bay in the northeast Gulf of Alaska south to Cape Mendocino in modern California. Its eastern limits were the crest of the Coast Ranges from the north down to Puget Sound, the Cascades south to the Columbia, and the coastal hills of Oregon and northwest California. The Kuroshio (Pacific Ocean current) offshore warms the coast and deluges it with rain. The northern Coast Range, cresting at heights of 5,000 feet and more, rises steeply from the sea and is cut by a myriad of narrow channels and fjords. The shores of Puget Sound, southwest Washington, and the Oregon coast hills are lower and less rugged. Coastal forests are dense and predominantly coniferous with spruces, Douglas fir, hemlock, red and yellow cedar, and, in the south, coast redwood. These forests support an abundant fauna. Most important from the cultural point of view was the aquatic fauna, for it was on this that the areal culture depended primarily. Five species of salmon; herring; oil-rich candlefish, or eulachon; smelt; cod; halibut; and mollusks abounded. The peoples of the Northwest Coast linguistically consisted of a series of units related to widespread stocks of native North America (see North American Indian languages). From north to south the following linguistic divisions occurred: Tlingit; Haida; Tsimshian; northern Kwakiutl, or Heiltsuq; Bella Coola; southern Kwakiutl; Nootka; Coast Salish; Quileute-Chimakum; Kwalhioqua; Chinook. Then along the Oregon Coast and northwest California a series of small divisions occurred: Tillamook, Alsea, Siuslaw, Umpqua, Coos, Tututni-Tolowa, Yurok, Wiyot, Karok, and Hupa. Culturally, Northwest Coast groups can be classified into four subareal units, or provinces: the northern one, including speakers of Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and the Tsimshian-influenced Haisla (northernmost Heiltsuq or Kwakiutl); the Wakashan province, including all other Kwakiutl, the Bella Coola, and the Nootka; the Coast SalishChinook province, which included various enclaves of other speech down to the central coast of Oregon; and the northwest California province plus the Athabascan-speaking Tututni-Tolowa. The Northwest Coast was densely populated. Estimates of density in terms of persons per square mile mean little in a region where long stretches of coast consisted of uninhabitable cliffs rising from the sea. But early historic sources indicate that many villages had hundreds of inhabitants. One conservative population estimate of 129,000 persons on the coast at the dawn of the historic period must represent nearly the maximum that the area could support without improvement of the already complex technology. member of any of the native North American Indian peoples who inhabited a narrow but rich belt of coastland and offshore islands from Yakutat Bay in the north, near the border of Alaska, to Cape Mendocino in the south, in northwestern California. From north to south there were the following linguistic divisions: Tlingit; Haida; Tsimshian; northern Kwakiutl, or Heiltsuq; Bella Coola; southern Kwakiutl; Nootka; Coast Salish; Quileute-Chimakum; Kwalhioqua; and Chinook. Along the Oregon coast and northwestern California there were a series of smaller divisions: Tillamook, Alsea, Siuslaw, Umpqua, Coos, Tututni-Tolowa, Yurok, Wiyot, Karok, and Hupa. The Northwest Coast Indians were primarily hunters and gatherers, who relied mostly on salmon fishing and the collection of such other marine life as mollusks, which was plentiful on the seashores. Because of the richness of its resources, the Northwest Indian territory was densely populated by comparison with other areas, with some of its villages numbering hundreds of inhabitants. The villages were permanent, the houses being built of planks around a rectangular floor plan and usually constructed large enough to accommodate several families. The people might migrate at certain seasons, following the salmon runs or the harvest fluctuations, but they always returned to their permanent dwelling places. In a group, the highest ranking member was the chief; subsequent chiefs descended in a direct line from him. The chief was the administrator of the group, the one who set the times for fishing, determined the ceremonies attendant on the first salmon caught in the new season, and guided the group from its summer to winter habitations. The chief also determined the times of the potlatch, a ceremonial feast to which other groups were invited and which celebrated certain occasions in the life cycle of the group: the death of a chief, the bestowal of rank or prerogatives, or the assumption of power by an heir. The economy of the Northwest Coast Indians was built around the fishery. In the main, they used dugout canoes, some very large, being built for the transport of the chief and his retinue, and others being used to transport lumber, fish, and foodstuffs. Northwest Coast Indians were also skilled craftsmen. Their famous totem poles were only one aspect of elaborate decoration in wood that involved animal and ancestral figures in highly stylized representations. Additional reading Books that treat Northwest Coast culture on an areawide basis include Philip Drucker, Indians of the Northwest Coast (1955, reissued 1963), and Cultures of the North Pacific Coast (1965), the former emphasizing material culture, technology, and art and the latter emphasizing social and ceremonial organization; Norman Bancroft-Hunt and Werner Forman, People of the Totem: The Indians of the Pacific Northwest (1979); Robert H. Ruby and John A. Brown, Indians of the Pacific Northwest: A History (1981), and A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest, rev. ed. (1992), including North American Plateau peoples; and Maximilien Bruggman and Peter R. Gerber, Indians of the Northwest Coast (1989; originally published in German, 1987). There are many good descriptions of individual Northwest Coast divisions: Aurel Krause, The Tlingit Indians (1956, reissued 1970; originally published in German, 1885); Viola E. Garfield, Paul S. Wingert, and Marius Barbeau, The Tsimshian: Their Arts and Music (1951); T.F. McIlwraith, The Bella Coola Indians, 2 vol. (1948, reissued 1992); Franz Boas, Kwakiutl Ethnography, ed. by Helen Codere (1966); Philip Drucker, The Northern and Central Nootkan Tribes (1951); Homer G. Barnett, The Coast Salish of British Columbia (1955, reprinted 1975); Pamela Amoss, Coast Salish Spirit Dancing: The Survival of an Ancestral Religion (1978); and Wayne Suttles and Ralph Maud, Coast Salish Essays (1987). Philip Drucker The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica