Q&A

What did the Northwest Indians do for art?

What did the Northwest Indians do for art?

Traditional art forms include baskets, hats, capes, blankets, carved wooden household items, masks, paddles, canoes, totem poles, screens, bentwood boxes, stone carvings, and copper works. Northwest Coast art tells stories, teaching history and passing wisdom from generation to generation.

What did Native Americans of the Northwest Coast wear?

Throughout the region women wore skirts or gowns of buckskin, soft leather, or woven wool or plant fibers. Men’s dress varied from tribe to tribe but was in general quite minimal—most men wore nothing but ornaments on warm days. For protection from the rain, they had cedar-bark raincoats and a brimmed hat.

What was the Northwest tribe culture?

The Northwest Economy was based on abundant natural resources, especially fish and wood. The people were atypically wealth-conscious, with a highly stratified Society and a distinctive Culture. Their Lifestyle was organized and stable. They would later be influenced by European explorers, trappers and settlers.

What was the major resource for the Northwest Coast natives?

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.

Why do people use totem poles?

Totem poles are monuments created by First Nations of the Pacific Northwest to represent and commemorate ancestry, histories, people, or events. Most totem poles display beings, or crest animals, marking a family’s lineage and validating the powerful rights and privileges that the family held.

How did the wealthy Indians of the Pacific Northwest show their power?

The clan with the most wealth had the most power. They set great store by wealth, family connections, and slave ownership. They took social climbing to a new level. One of the ways you gained great respect was by giving things away.

What other resources did the Northwest Coast people have that were important to the economy?

The traditional Northwest Coast economy was a complex whole. One of its most important distinctions was the highly efficient use of natural resources. Aquatic resources were especially bountiful and included herring, oil-rich candlefish (eulachon), smelt, cod, halibut, mollusks, five species of salmon, and gray whales.