The Chinook Tribe

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The Chinook Tribe
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• By Garrett, Bryan, and Coulson

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Location

• Northwest Pacific Coast and along the lower
  Columbia River. The terrain was rocky and trees
  were everywhere. See map.

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Shelter

• The Chinook Indians lived in longhouses that were
  usually 60-120 feet long and 40 feet wide. These
  longhouses were made out of cedar planks and
  bark. The longhouses were also called plank
  houses.

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Diet

• The Chinook ate salmon and clams, hares, venison,
  bird eggs, roots and bulbs of plants. They
  steamed shellfish by tossing rocks in baskets
  full of water. The Chinook cooked their fresh
  fish over an open fire. Fish and meat were
  preserved by smoking them on racks and hanging it
  from the rafters of the longhouses.

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Clothing

• The Chinook Indians made their clothing from
  cedar bark, which was beaten down to make the
  strips of bark soft. They also wore fur when the
  weather was very cold and stormy. Men and women
  wore capes and woven hats to protect themselves
  from the rain.

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Transportation

• The Chinook walked on land, and used 60 ft long
  dugout canoes for water travel. They did not have
  a need to travel from place to place, because the
  Northwest was filled with resources. The Chinook
  villages were semi-permanent, but sometimes in
  the summer the villagers would go on hunts or
  food gathering expeditions some distance away
  from their villages.

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Arts

• The Chinook weaved cedar baskets, carved shapes
  on their wooden tools, and made blankets out of
  wool and cedar bark. They always used geometric
  shapes, human shapes, or animal shapes when
  creating artifacts. The Chinook almost always
  used the colors of black, red, and white.

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Traditions

• The Chinook People had potlatches. In their
  language (the Chinook Jargon) potlatch means
  to give. The person who was hosting the
  potlatch would give away some of his/her
  possessions. Sometimes, the host would give away
  everything he/she owned.

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Past and Present

• The Chinook Tribe still exists today. The
  population counts to about 2,000 Native
  Americans. The Chinook people today are somewhat
  different than the Chinook people in the past.
  The Indians today where modern clothing and live
  in regular houses. They now rely on cars for
  transportation. The Chinook try to keep creating
  art to teach the young people in their tribe
  about the Chinook Indians in the past. Today, the
  Chinook have small potlatches.

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Interesting Facts

• Chinook infants were put in padded cradleboards
  to make their heads flat. This made them create a
  terrifying appearance.
• Lewis and Clark met with the Chinook Indians.
  Also, Robert Gray met the Chinook Indians at the
  mouth of the Columbia River.
• The Chinook died out with diseases from the
  white men. The effect of the sicknesses made the
  tribe today a lot smaller than the tribe in the
  past.

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Map
Chinook territory
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Artifacts
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