Northwest Coast Indians Tribal Inhabitants Of Shuswap And Swinomish

Northwest Coast Indians were the inhabitants of the Oregon, which is in Washington. Their inhabitance stretches in the north up to Alaska by the side of Pacific Ocean to the coast of Northern California. They were divided into many tribes namely, Shuswap, Swinomish, Tlingit, Bella Coola, Haida, Kwakiuts, Nisqualli, Nootka, Quinault, Makah, Nez Perce, Puyallup, and Tsimshian. The area where this tribe is living is crowded with narrow beaches, small islands and deep inlets, which are rugged stripes of land. The area was very rich in its natural resources. Thick forests of spruce, cedar, and fir dominate the area supplying and continuous supply of wood.

The total population of Northwest Coast Indians was not more than 100,000 who were the permanent residents of the area by 1750. The land is full of scenic beauty with high mountains and many rivers crossing the stretch of land, and making the area richer in natural resources than any other area of North America.

The shape of the houses of Northwest Coast Indians were large and rectangular, the houses have a large beam with planked sides gabled in the north, with carved figure decorated polls, this large structure was used by several families as a house the earth floors were distributed among the family units. Cook fires were shared by all the families sharing the big house, though they had their own fires, this was the custom prevalent there. There were large totem poles built in front of the homes these poles were carved from tree trunks. These were the symbol of the titles in the community of Northwest Coast Indians.

The way of dressing of the Northwest Coast Indians was similar to nomadic people. They used very less cloth and it was the trend of the time. They used to live barefooted only occasionally or while in journey they wore shoes. They wore skin robes, fiber rain cape, breech clouts and the fur or basketry hat were worn by the men. They tattooed their arms and hands to measure Dentalium their money.

Potlatch was one of the favorite customs of Northwest Coast Indians, where the host used to distribute gift according to its means these ceremonies shows their economic condition which was quite rich. There was description of slaves too children were guarded from other tribes so were kept near. The two tribes Makah and Nootka used to haunt in the sea on the great seagoing canoes, the size often exceeded more than 60 feet long. These canoes were made from bark of cedar and redwood trees. They had belief in the theory that every individual of their tribes were associated with particular animal. They used totem poles for the description of their stories, though they were not the originator of the totem poles. Northwest coast indians