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reports of the commissioner of indian affairs

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::: American Indians of the Pacific Northwest Collection :::

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An award-winning site on Pacific Northwest Native Americans from the University of Washington Libraries, featuring essays for K-12, historic images, treaties, maps, and Indian Agent reports.

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The Hall of Northwest Coast Indians highlights the traditional cultures of the Native peoples of North America's northwest shores, from Washington State to southern Alaska, including the Kwakw ak a 'wakw (referred to in the hall as Kwakiutl), Haida, Tlingit, Nuu-chah-nulth, Heiltsuk, Coast Salish, Nuxalk, Tsimshian, Gitxsan, Nisga'a, and others.

The hall, which is the Museum's oldest, opened at the turn of the 20th century to showcase the collections and research of the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, led from 1897 to 1902 by Museum curator and prominent anthropologist Franz Boas, who is often called the father of American anthropology. Exhibits include examples of extraordinary woodcarving, a longstanding artistic tradition on the Northwest Coast, represented by the striking totem poles that line the hall as well as by smaller artifacts that range from the ceremonial masks of the Kwakw ak a 'wakw to the decorative pipes of the Tlingit.

The daily life of various communities is presented through artifacts that include household utensils such as carved spoons and boxes, hunting and fishing tools, and cedar-bark garments common to the Northwest Coast. Models include illustrations of a late-19th-century Kwakw ak a 'wakw village and several types of salmon traps.

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The Hall of Northwest Coast Indians, the oldest hall in the Museum, opened in 1900 to showcase the traditional cultures of the native peoples of North America's northwest shores from Washington State to southern Alaska, including the Kwakwaka'wakw (referred to in the hall as Kwakiutl), Haida, Tlingit, and others.

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Native Americans in Olden Times For Kids

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Native Americans in Olden Times For Kids

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Compare the daily life of the first people who settled in the Americas a long time ago. What did they wear? What did they eat? How did they live? Build a totem pole. Weave a dream catcher. Enjoy a potlatch! Make pawpaws. Read the story of a very clever coyote, a very bad raven, and a very wise owl! Cheer the snow snake games, meet the arrowmaker, interpret secret messages and symbol stories, discover why baskets and blankets were so important. Explore pow-wow etiquette, the medicine men, and the butterfly games. Learn what these early people considered wealth and health and protection from spirits. Enter the world of the Iroquois, the Navajo, the Sioux, the Cherokee, the Lenape, the Ojibwa/Chippewa, the Seminoles, the Apache, the Anasazi, the Pueblo people and more!

The first people in the Americas arrived in North America across a frozen sea from Asia over twenty thousand years ago. They spoke many different languages and had many different customs. Some were hunters and gatherers. Some became skilled farmers and clever builders, engineers and weavers. As different as the many tribes were, they all made incredible art, pottery, baskets and blankets. They loved games of skill and of bravery. They created stories and poetry. They taught their kids about their beliefs and culture using games, myths, dance, and impersonation.

Today, there are over 500 federally recognized Native American tribes in the United States alone. Tribes are ruled by representative tribal governments. Native Americans today have a variety of jobs, including doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, ministers, writers, artists, and workers of all sorts. But they also hold jobs like tribal leaders. Neat frame houses have replaced former wigwams and tepees. Kids go to public school. Some kids additionally attend tribal school, especially tribal pre-school, where they learn about their traditions and history. Much has been lost, but much has been saved through the hard work of today's tribal leaders.

Native Americans in the US and Canada

Top 1% in K-12 Education

Our thanks to the many people who helped us with this site

Washington State History Museum, Tacoma, WA, for our private tour, and an opportunity to learn a great deal about the early Americas. Thank you!

Dr. Adams. Over the years, Dr. Adams has been a consultant to the Sioux, Winnebago, Fox, and other tribes in the Midwest on community development. He also participated in a federal project for communication and values differences among cultures, resulting in a website - a multicultural toolkit.

Several of our old professors and some new ones

This section could not have been written without the many Native American people who do not wish their names to be listed, who shared information generously with us. We are most grateful for it!

Books we used

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report this ad Compare the daily life of the first people who settled in the Americas a long time ago. What did they wear? What did they eat? How did they live? Build a totem pole. Weave a dream catcher. Enjoy a potlatch! Make pawpaws.

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Northwest Coast Village Project - The Bill Reid Centre - Simon Fraser University

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The Northwest Coast Village Project brings together sketches, drawings, paintings, and photographs that capture the history and the cultural expressions of Northwest Coast First Nations from the 18th century to today. The objective is to digitially reunite, and make accessible the visual heritage of Coastal communities that has been scattered across various libraries and archives in North America and Europe.

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Northwest Coast Indian | Art, Facts, & Culture | Britannica.com

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Northwest Coast Indian | Art, Facts, & Culture | Britannica.com

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Northwest Coast Indian, member of any of the Native American peoples inhabiting a narrow belt of Pacific coastland and offshore islands from the southern border of Alaska to northwestern California.

The Northwest Coast was the most sharply delimited culture area of native North America. It covered a long narrow arc of Pacific coast and offshore islands from Yakutat Bay, in the northeastern Gulf of Alaska, south to Cape Mendocino, in present-day California. Its eastern limits were the crest of the Coast Ranges from the north down to Puget Sound, the Cascades south to the Columbia River, and the coastal hills of what is now Oregon and northwestern California. Although the sea and various mountain ranges provide the region with distinct boundaries to the east, north, and west, the transition from the Northwest Coast to the California culture area is gradual, and some scholars classify the southernmost tribes discussed in this article as California Indians.

The Kuroshio, a Pacific Ocean current, warms the region; temperatures are rarely hot and seldom drop below freezing. The offshore current also deluges the region with rain; although it falls rather unevenly across the region, annual precipitation averages more than 160 inches (4,060 mm) in many areas and rarely drops below 30 inches (760 mm) in even the driest climatic zones. The northern Coast Range averages an elevation of about 3,300 feet (1,000 metres) above sea level, with some peaks and ridges rising to more than 6,600 feet (2,000 metres). In most of the Northwest, the land rises steeply from the sea and is cut by a myriad of narrow channels and fjords. The shores of Puget Sound, southwestern Washington, and the Oregon coast hills are lower and less rugged.

In general, traditional Northwest Coast economies were oriented toward aquatic resources. The region's coastal forests-dense and predominantly coniferous, with spruces, Douglas fir, hemlock, red and yellow cedar, and, in the south, coast redwood-supported abundant fauna and a wide variety of wild plant foods.

Traditional culture patterns

Linguistic and territorial organization

The peoples of the Northwest Coast spoke a number of North American Indian languages. From north to south the following linguistic divisions occurred: Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, northern Kwakiutl, Bella Coola, southern Kwakiutl, Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), Coast Salish, Quileute-Chimakum, Kwalhioqua, and Chinook. Along the Oregon coast and in northwestern California, a series of smaller divisions occurred: Tillamook, Alsea, Siuslaw, Umpqua, Coos, Tututni-Tolowa, Yurok, Wiyot, Karok, and Hupa.

Northwest Coast groups can be classified into four units or "provinces." The northern province included speakers of Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and the Tsimshian-influenced Haisla (northernmost Heiltsuq or Kwakiutl). The Wakashan province included all other Kwakiutl, the Bella Coola, and the Nuu-chah-nulth. The Coast Salish-Chinook province extended south to the central coast of Oregon and included the Makah, Chinook, Tillamook, Siuslaw, and others. The northwestern California province included the Athabaskan-speaking Tututni-Tolowa as well as the Karok, Yurok, Wiyot, and Hupa.

The Northwest Coast was densely populated when Europeans first made landfall in the 18th century. Estimates of density in terms of persons per square mile mean little in a region where long stretches of coast consist of uninhabitable cliffs rising from the sea. However, early historic sources indicate that many winter villages had hundreds of inhabitants.

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Northwest Coast Indian | History, Art, Region, Facts, Religion, & Culture

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Northwest Coast Indian, member of any of the Native American peoples inhabiting a narrow belt of Pacific coastland and offshore islands from the southern border of Alaska to northwestern California. Learn more about the history and culture of the Northwest Coast Indians in this article.

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The Northwest Coastal People - Groups in this Region

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The Northwest Coast can be divided up into several main groups, although some estimates actually put the number of distinct First Peoples groups in British Columbia at 70. The main groups are the Haida, the Tlingit, the Tsimshian, the Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), and the Salishan.