What crops did the Chinook grow?
Their staple food was salmon. Chinook men also caught many other kinds of fish and sea mammals from their canoes and hunted deer, birds, and small game on land. Chinook women gathered clams and shellfish, seaweed, berries, and roots.
What was the Chinook tribe economy?
The river was a rich source of salmon, the basis of the regional economy, and many groups traded with the Chinook for dried fish. Other important trade items were slaves from California, Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) canoes, and dentalium shells, which were highly valued as hair and clothing ornaments.
How did the Chinook cook and store their food?
The Chinook devised many kinds of nets, lines, rakes, hooks, fish-baskets and traps which made them skilled fishermen, but the most common method of securing fish was by spearing. The women of the Chinook tribe preserved their food by smoking a year’s supply of salmon.
How did the Chinook tribe adapt to their environment?
The Chinook tribe used canoes made of birch bark. Birch bark is a strong and water-resistant bark that can be easily bent, cut and sewn. This made birch bark ideal for making the birch bark canoes that were so important for the Chinook way of life.
What are the natural resources in the Northwest region?
Common Resources. The abundance and usefulness of certain natural resources was a common element amongst many Northwest coast Native Peoples. These include western red cedar, salmon, deer, elk, huckleberry, wapato and camas.
What did the Chinook tribe trade for?
What are some of the things the Chinook traded with other Native American tribes? Fresh fish, silver, coconuts, and oriental vases. Dried fish, slaves, canoes, and ornamental shells. Animal fur, scalps, corn, and ornamental shells.
What is the definition of Chinook in geography?
chinook, warm, dry wind descending the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, primarily in winter. Winds of the same kind occur in other parts of the world and are known generally as foehns (q.v.).
How did the Chinook tribe cook salmon?
Each family had its own small fire in the longhouse. To roast the salmon, Chinook and Nez Perce people put the salmon into a split cedar wood stick that held the salmon tight like a clothespin, and stuck the wooden stick in a sand pit near their fire.
What kind of people are the Chinook Indians?
The Chinook Indian Nation is made up of the five western-most Chinookan speaking tribes at the mouth of the Columbia River.
How did the Chinook tribe preserve their food?
The women of the Chinook tribe preserved their food by smoking a year’s supply of salmon. They also pressed the rich oil from the eulachon (candlefish) and used large amounts of this oil as a dip for their food.
What kind of weapons did the Chinook Indians use?
The weapons were used by the Chinook tribe were spears, knives, bows and arrows and clubs. Unlike most other Native Indian tribes the Chinook used a form of defensive clothing called a clamon which was like a breastplate made from hardened elk hide and cedar bark and was designed to protect the wearer from arrow fire.
What did the Chinook Indians use to make totem poles?
Totem Poles. The Chinook were one the tribes of Northwest Indians who erected Totem Poles. Totem poles were carved with animals that symbolized their guardian spirits. The names of the other tribes who made Totem Poles included the Tlingit, Haida, Bella Coola, Tsimshian and the Coast Salish.
