​Craig Van Diesel

About the Chinooks

The Chinook tribe lived in the Northwestern part of America, around where common day Oregon and Washington is, and they spoke the Chinookan language.  The Chinooks were very successful at trading.  They lived off of the Columbian river which aided there trade, and accessibility to the northern and southern people.  The river not only aided in accessibilty but it was also a very rich source of fish.  The Chinooks traded lots of fish, but they also traded many other things such as slaves from California, Nuu-cha-nulth canoes, and dentalium shells, which were used for clothing and hair decorations.  The Chinooks had a trade language called Chinook Jargon, which is a mixture of other Native American languages, English, and French.  This was used throughout the western side of America.  The Chinooks were first described by the the Lewis and Clark in 1805.  The Chinooks lives drastically changed when the Americans moved in, they were forced onto reservations, which started the decline of the Chinook Tribe.

 

Gender Roles

• The women generally would gather plants, herbs, and clams, and would take care of the children

• The men generally would be fishermen, and hunters, and sometimes would go to war to protect their tribe

• Both genders would contribute in trading, artwork, music and medicine, and clan leaders could be of either gender

 

Chinook Homes

• ​The Chinooks lived in coastol villages with rectangular cedar plank houses

• They are fairly large, about 70 feet long, and each of them housed an extended family

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Important Products

• The Chinooks most important product was by far salmon, the Columbia River supplied that for them, and they were able to use salmon in trade very often

• The Chinooks also made things such as canoes, however salmon was their biggest product

 

 

Chinook Interaction

• The Chinook interact and traded mostly with the Nootka, Klamath, and Interior Salish tribes

• However the Chinook trade extended al the way to California and to the great plains

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rituals

• The first Chinook ritual was based on the first salmon-rite, which is when they would celebrate the first annual Salmon run

• The second important ritual was the individual vision quest, when adolescent male or female aqcuires a guardian spirit that would give them hunting, or curing powers, or give them good luck, or teach them songs or dances

• The Chinooks also had this thing called "potlaches," which is about ceremonial distributions of land