Chinook Indians The Chinook Indians live next to the Columbia River, close to the Pacific Ocean. They live in the northwestern area of Oregon. The Lower Columbia River Indians lived down river, and the Plateau Indians lived more up river. That is why the Lower Columbia River Indians have that name. The climate where the Chinooks live is mostly rainy. It snows in the winter, also the area freezes a lot in the winter. It is also foggy which makes it hard to hunt food. There are also many storms. These are the tribes' names in the lower Columbia River region: There are the Cooniac, Cascade Indians, Clatsop, Clackamas, Multnomah, and the Wasco Indians. The food that they ate was fish, mainly salmon, rabbits, deer, elk, bird eggs, parts of weeds, roots, and bulbs, they also ate clams. The children usually went down to the beach to dig them up in the sand. The shelter they had was very weather resistant, and animals couldn't get in. The houses they had were plank long houses made of cedar bark, they also used teepees and brush tents. Some families lived all together in one house. They had enough room that each family had their own fire! In the plank houses there was an opening in the roof so smoke can escape. The transportation the Indians had was cedar canoes. They were hollowed out cedar trees. The Indians also had horses and rode horseback and walked by foot. This next part is some interesting facts about the Chinook Indians. Boys helped the men make fishing nets attached to poles. They caught fairly large salmon. Babies are put in a cradleboard to flatten their foreheads out. To do this the adults had a piece of very strong fabric attatched to the board and put across the head of the baby putting pressure on the head and they did this while the head bones were still soft. The clothing that the Indians wore was made of cedar bark pounded down to make it softer. The clothing was also made of animal skin such as wolf, deer, elk and rabbits. Some clothes were also made of grass. Other supplies the Indians used were nets of woven grass and many uses of the canoes. They were used for going up and down river and trading goods like salmon and whale oil. I hope you enjoyed my report. | |
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