Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast

The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast are composed of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities.

[1][2][3] The land and waters provided rich natural resources through cedar and salmon, and highly structured cultures developed from relatively dense populations.

They developed a complex hunter-gatherer culture in the temperate rainforest of the Alaska Panhandle and adjoining inland areas of present-day British Columbia.

The vast forests of cedar and spruce where the Haida make their home are on pre-glacial land, which is believed to be almost 14,000 years old.

The Haisla (also Xaʼislakʼala, X̄aʼislakʼala, X̌àʼislakʼala, X̣aʼislakʼala) are an indigenous nation living at Kitamaat in the North Coast region of the Canadian province of British Columbia.

They are believed to have been more connected to Interior Salish peoples, before Athabaskan-speaking groups now inland from them spread southwards, cutting the Nuxalk off from their linguistic relatives.

Territory claimed by Coast Salish peoples spans from the northern end of the Strait of Georgia, along the east side of Vancouver Island, covering most of southern Vancouver Island, all of the Lower Mainland and Sunshine Coast, all of Puget Sound except (formerly) for the Chimakum territory near Port Townsend, and all of the Olympic Peninsula except that of the Quileute, related to the now-extinct Chemakum.

Beset by warfare from surrounding Salish peoples, their last major presence in the region was eradicated by the Suquamish under Chief Seattle in the mid-19th century.

Some survivors were absorbed by neighbouring Salish peoples, while some moved to join the Quileute on the southeast side of the Olympic Peninsula.

Close allies of the Nuu-chah-nulth, they are also a canoe people, and pre-European contact, Chinook Jargon arose as a trading language incorporating both Chinookan and Wakashan vocabulary.

One likely reason for the cultural prominence of the Chinookan peoples was their strategic position along the Columbia River, which acted as a massive trade corridor, as well as near Celilo Falls, the longest continuously inhabited site in the Americas, used as a fishing site and trading hub for 15,000 years by a wide range of indigenous peoples.

[11] The area referred to as the Northwest Coast has a very long history of human occupation, exceptional linguistic diversity, population density and cultural and ceremonial development.

"the Indian history of British Columbia... began at least a hundred centuries before the Province itself was born...." Wilson Duff[13] On the northwest coast of North America, the mild climate and abundant natural resources made possible the rise of a complex Aboriginal culture.

[citation needed] The indigenous populations were devastated by epidemics of infectious diseases, especially smallpox, brought in by European explorers and traders.

Significant issues persist as a result of colonial laws and the now infamous Canadian Indian residential school system.

Both the sea and the land provided important sources of food and raw materials to Indigenous Peoples of the Northwest Coast, and many of these resources needed to be managed to ensure continual harvest.

Historians and ethnographers provide evidence of cultivation practices and environment management strategies that have been used by First Nations peoples for centuries along the Northwest Coast.

[20] Practices like digging and tilling, pruning, controlled burning, fertilizing, streamscaping and habitat creation allowed Indigenous groups to intentionally manage the environment around them in order to encourage greater production of a resource for sustained harvesting.

[22] The salmon were caught with hook and line or small nets, and then pierced with cedar skewers and roasted or smoked over open pit fires.

[23] The tribe would have to rely on the dried or smoked salmon over the winter, so the first fresh fish caught in the spring was welcomed with great ceremony.

Indigenous peoples engaged in the active management and cultivation of camassia by clearing land, by tilling and weeding, and by planting bulbs.

Using a digging stick made from hard wood, First Nations people would work the ground between tree roots and in bulb and rhizome patches, which loosened the compacted soil.

Women and men, families own their own songs as property which can be inherited, sold or given as a gift to a prestigious guest at a Feast.

Due to the abundance of natural resources and the affluence of most Northwest tribes, there was plenty of leisure time to create art.

Many works of art served practical purposes, such as clothing, tools, weapons of war and hunting, transportation, cooking, and shelter; but others were purely aesthetic.

Pacific Northwest Coast: Spiritualism, the supernatural and the importance of the environment played integral roles in day-to-day life.

Such symbols could be compared to a coat of arms, or running up the flag of a country on a sailing ship, as it approached a harbour.

After the arrival of the Europeans, Indigenous artifacts suddenly became a hot commodity to be collected and placed in museums and other institutions, and many tribal groups were looted of their precious items by overzealous collectors.

In recent years, many Indigenous organizations have been calling for a return of some of their sacred items, such as masks and regalia, that symbolize their cultural heritage.

[29] The Q-M3 mutation appears on the Q lineage roughly 10 to 15 thousand years ago, as the migration throughout the Americas was underway by the early Paleo-Indians.