The Pacific Northwest people lived along 2,000 miles of coastline from southern Alaska to northern California. The plateau region was to the east beynd the Cascade mountain range, and California people lived to the south.

More than 500,000 people in tribes such as the Chinook, Haida, Nootka and Tlingit lived in the region before 1800. There was plenty of food and cedar to built their homes and make their canoes.

Homes/Dwellings

The people of the Pacific Northwest lived in a mild, rainy area with thick forests.

People who lived in the Pacific Northwest lived in cedar plank longhouses. Boards were cut from cedar trees to build the large houses. Many families of the same clan lived in each house. There were no windows, one door, and a hole in the roof to let the smoke from fires out. Beautiful clan symbols were sometimes painted on the outside. Huge totem poles telling the story of the clan were placed in front.

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Library of Congress Photo, University of Washington Libraries

This picture is of a Haida village built on the coast with large ocean going canoes on the beach in front of the houses.

This Tlingit house has clan symbols painted on the front.

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This is a floor plan of the inside of a plank house. Mats woven from cedar bark were hung to make walls for the bedrooms. The fire for heat, cooking and light were in the middle of the house, and all the families used it. The leaders family had the largest area in the house.

Plants

Cedar trees were by far the most important tree in the forest for the people of the Pacific Northwest.

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Almost everything was made from wood including houses, totem poles, canoes, dishes, baskets and even clothes! Hats to keep out the winter rains were tightly woven from cedar bark.

Totem poles were carved from tree trunks. The poles tell the story of the history of the clan or the history of a person's life. Animals, birds, fish and landmarks were carved on the poles. The Pacific Northwest people were the only Native Americans who created totem poles.

Long ago, totem poles were carved using tools made from whale bones. When European people came to the northwest, they brought tools made of metal. This made it possible to carve very detailed figures. The carvings were painted using dyes made from vegetables, tree bark and berries.

Library of Congress Photos,University of Washington Libraries

Bark was stripped from cedar trees, softened and woven into baskets and clothing.4

Animals

The fish were cleaned and hung on racks to dry or smoked over a fire. Enough fish

were caught in the spring so there was food to last throughout the winter.

Salmon was a very important food for all the people in these regions. Whole villages would set up camp by rivers when the salmon were swimming up the river in the spring to lay their eggs. Fish were caught in several different ways. Large nets were made from cedar bark, traps were used and so were spears.

To show thanks for the salmon, the bones from the first fish caught were returned to the river in hopes that the fish would return the next year. 

Other fish were important to the northwest people, too. Oysters and clams were picked up on the beach.

Some of the groups went out to sea to hunt whales, but often whale meat, bones and oil were obtained from whales that had washed up on the beach and died. Whale and candlefish oil was used to light lamps.

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Large canoes like this one were carved from cedar. They were over 60 feet long and could carry many tons of fish or trade goods. The owners clan symbols were carved and painted on the canoes.

Clothing

Just like all other native people, the people of the Pacific Northwest dressed in materials found in the region where they lived. In hot weather, men wore breechcloths made of animal skins or woven grass or reeds. When it got cold and rainy in the winter they added animal skin or woven cedar shirts and leggings. Women wore skirts and capes of woven cedar strips. In the winter, clothing was made of animal skins. Even in winter, people often went barefoot.

This is what traditional cedar clothing of the northwest was like.

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Library of Congress Photos,University of Washington Libraries

This man is wearing ceremonial dress for a Potlatch.

After the Europeans came to the area with goods to trade with the native people, the clothing was made from woven cloth and was more European in style.

Men designed the pattern for the ceremonial blankets and painted them on boards. Women then wove the blankets on a loom. The threads were made of cedar bark wrapped in mountain goat hair. It took many months to weave a blanket. The threads were put in pouches to protect them when they were not being woven.

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The Great Basin got its name because it is an area between two mountain ranges and the rivers there do not flow to the ocean. There were few people living in the area. The names of tribes in this area were Shoshone, Paiute and Mono.The plateau area north and west of the Great Basin was home to tribes named the Nez Perce, the Ute, and the Umatilla.Before the Europeans came to California, there were many native people living there in many different small tribes. Californian people spoke at least eighty languages. The Hupa and the Shasta were tribes that lived in northern California. The Cumash and the Salina people lived along the coastline. The Maidu and the Miwok lived in the desertlike eastern area and the Pomo lived in the area just north of what is now San Francisco.

Homes/Dwellings

The Paiute people lived in the Great Basin region where it was very dry and food was scarce. They had to move in a wide area searching for food, so their shelters were quickly built of branches, grass and sagebrush.

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The people of the Plateau built structures that were like the teepees of the Plains people, but instead of animal skins, the pole framework was covered with woven mats of plants and reeds.

Library of Congress Photo The Nez Perce people of the Plateau built teepee shaped longhouses where several families could live. The structures were covered with grass mats or animal skins. Because the plateau and the plains people both had horses, they could travel wide areas. Customs from both regions were shared by both groups of people.

Some of the California people built structures like this one on the bottom. Planks of redwood were made into a pyramid shape. These structures were called roundhouses.

People living in the warm regions of Southern California covered their wickiup structures with palm branches.

Plants

The people of the plateau region gathered roots, nuts and berries. They ate plants such as wild onions, carrots, potatoes and huckleberries. Pine, reeds and grasses were used to build

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their homes.

Chokeberries

In the dry and desertlike Great Basin, food was more difficult to find. Plants provided most of the food for the people. Piñon nuts, agave paste, berries, wild onion and carrots were often eaten. Baskets were made from brush and grasses, because the people carried their things with them when they traveled looking for food.

Piñon Tree Agave Plant

 

People of the Great Basin used cone shaped baskets like this one to gather roots, nuts and berries. The basket was carried by placing the strap across the forehead.

Acorns from oak trees were one of the primary foods for the California and Plateau people. The nuts were gathered in baskets. Acorns are bitter raw, so they had to be crushed and washed in warm water. The acorn meal was then cooked into mush or baked into bread.

Redwood trees found in northern California were important in building the roundhouses made of planks.

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Animals

Hupa (northern California) Man Spearing SalmonLibrary of Congress Photo

Salmon and trout were very important foods for all the people in these regions. They caught fish in several different ways. One way was spearing them, like the Hupa man is doing in the picture. Another way was to make nets to catch them. The fish were cleaned and hung on racks to dry or smoked over a fire.

Clothing

Just like all other native people, the plateau, Great Basin and California tribes dressed in materials found in the region where they lived. In hot weather, men wore breechcloths made of animal skins or woven grass or reeds. When it got colder, especially in the northern part of the region, they added deerskin shirts, leggings, and moccasins. Women wore dresses of skins, and later of cotton. Decoration was of porcupine quills, elk teeth or beads.

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There were two groups of Native Americans in the southwest region. The Pueblo, Hopi and Zuni were descended from the Anasazi culture of 1,700 years ago. The Navajo and Apache came down from the north later.

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The Anasazi have been called "the cliff dwellers". They built their homes high on the side of cliffs to protect themselves from the enemy. Long ladders reached the homes, and when they saw someone coming, they would pull them up or kick them down. The later pueblos were like the cliff houses. The Navajo and the Apache came into the area later. They were used to moving around to find food, but food in the desert is hard to find. They learned how to be farmers from the Pueblo people. The Navajo call themselves the Diné. It means "people" in the Navajo language. The Navajo are now the southwest's largest tribe.

Homes/Dwellings

Some people who lived in the desert southwest lived in hogans. The Navajo tribe in New Mexico and Arizona built hogans. Hogans have six sides built from wood poles and adobe (mud). There was one room in the hogan and the doorway faced to the east. Beautiful Navajo rugs covered the doorway. There was a hole in the roof so smoke from the fires could escape.

National Archive Photo, 1933, Southern Navajo Agency

The photo above shows the way hogans have changed throughout the years. Long ago people built hogans as an earth shelter. Now the Navajo live in homes with doors and windows.

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These are pueblo homes. Each home has a flat roof and is built next to or on top of it's neighbor. They are made of adobe, a mixture of clay and sand that is found in the southwest. Families slept on rugs or animal skins. The word "pueblo" is not a native word. It means town in spanish. "Pueblo" is used for both the houses and the people who live in them. Other Native Americans that live in pueblos are the Hopi and the Zuni.

Plants

The plants you just saw grow naturally in the desert, but the most important foods for the southwest people were corn, beans, pumpkins and squash. The native Americans of the southwest, especially the Pueblo people, were farmers.

Corn Beans Squash and Pumpkin

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Corn was the most important crop for the southwest people. They ground it into corn meal and baked it in ovens like this one in a pueblo. Corn was dried and stored for times of drought when there was no rain. The pueblo people made pottery to store the dried food in.

Clothing

The Southwest people dressed in clothes made from the hide of sheep or spun from the wool. In hot weather, men wore loincloths. When it got colder, especially in the northern part of the region, they added wool shirts, leggings, and moccasins. The women learn to balance the pottery on their heads so their hands are free for climbing the ladders. She wears a dress, apron and leggings woven of wool. Both men and women wore jewelry of beads, feathers and silver.

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The land of the Plains Native Americans stretched from the the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, and from Canada to Texas.

Groups like the Lakota and Dakota (Sioux), Pawnee and Arapaho lived in the northern and central part of the region. Tribes like the Kiowa, Apache and Comanche lived in the southern area.

The people of the Plains came from other areas after being pushed out by other tribes. In their old lands, they had been farmers. In the plains they became buffalo hunters.

Homes/Dwellings

People who lived in the plains lived in teepees or tipis. The frame was made of wooden poles and buffalo hides were stretched around them. There were flaps at the top to let smoke from a small fire out. Since the plains people often moved around to follow the buffalo, teepees were easy to take down and put up. Some tribes painted patterns on the teepees that told what family they were from, or pictures of the hunts and battles they had been in.

Some of the tribes, like the Pawnee, lived in earth lodges in the eastern part of the plains. In the east, there was more rainfall, so the people could stay in one place and grow their food.

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Plants

People gathered nuts and berries. They used grasses to cover their wickiups or to make mats for sleeping.

Trees, usually lodgepole pines, were cut down and stripped of their bark to make the frames for the teepees. Wildflowers were used to make medicine to cure stomach aches and headaches. Pemmican was a nutritious food made by the Plains people. It lasts for many months. Although most pemmican was made from buffalo, sometimes moose and caribou were used. After the meat was dried, it was pounded into a fine powder. Then it was mixed with animal fat and dried berries like blueberries or currants.

Animals

Buffalo were especially important to southeast Native Americans. Plains tribes used every part of the buffalo.

The hide was used for teepees, clothing, and drums. Tools used for hunting, building and eating were made from bones. The meat from the animal provided food. Even the dung was used for fuel.

 

Clothing

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The plains people dressed in clothes made from the hide of animals. Buffalo was most commonly used. In hot weather, men wore breechcloths. When it got colder, especially in the northern part of the region, they added deerskin shirts, leggings, and moccasins.

The chief below is wearing a war bonnet made of eagle feathers.

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There were two main language groups of Native Americans in the northeast region: Iroquois and Algonquin. Within those language groups were many individual tribes or nations.

The Algonquin lived in two areas: around the Great Lakes, and near the Atlantic Ocean. The Wampanoag nation were the first tribe that Europeans met when they came to America. Both the Illini and Potawatomi, tribes that lived in Illinois long ago, were part of the Algonquin language group.

The League of the Iroquois was formed from five tribes: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. There is not a consensus among scholars of the exact date. Some say the League was formed in 1451; some say 1570. Others believe the league was formed at least 300 years earlier - around 1090. The Tuscarora tribe joined in 1772, and it became the Six Nations. This group of people lived in what is now New York state. The Iroquois call themselves the Hodenosaunee, which means "People of the Longhouse".

Homes/Dwellings

Woodland people lived in longhouses. The frame was built from small trees called saplings and covered with bark. Sometimes they were covered with mats that had been woven from cattails. 

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Wisconsin Historical Collection Image

Many families lived in a longhouse. The families were part of the same clan. People sat and slept on mats along the edges. Fires to heat the house and to cook were built in the middle of the house. Small holes in the top of the longhouse let the smoke out.

Some woodland people, especially of the Algonquin family, lived in wigwams. Wigwams were built like longhouses with saplings bent in a dome shape for a frame covered with bark or grasses, but they were much smaller. Only one family lived in a wigwam. The tribes who used wigwams tended to move around often to good hunting grounds. These kind of people were called hunters and gatherers.

PlantsThe most important foods for the woodland people were corn, beans, pumpkins and squash. They called them the "Three Sisters". The native Americans of the woodlands, especially the Iroquois, were farmers.

Corn Beans Squash and PumpkinAnother important food for the woodland people was wild rice. The women would paddle their birch bark canoes in the shallow water on the edges of the lakes. They bent the wild rice plants over the canoe and hit the plants so the rice fell into the boat.

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Animals

Deer were especially important to woodland Native Americans. They provided many things for them.

Clothing was made from skins of animals. Tools used for hunting, building and eating were made from antlers and bones. The meat from the animal provided food.

ClothingThe woodland people dressed in clothes made from the skin of animals. Deerskin was most commonly used. In hot weather, men wore breechcloths. When it got colder, they added deerskin shirts, leggings, moccasins and sometimes fur robes.

Women wore wrap skirts, shirts, leggings and moccasins. Sometimes the clothes were beaded in beautiful colors.

Wampum was the word that the eastern woodland people used for beads made from shells. Wampum was woven into belts and clothing. When the European settlers came, wampum was used for trading and for symbols of peace when signing treaties

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The land of the southeast woodland Native Americans stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Ohio River. What are now the states of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida are in the southeastern region.

Large groups like the Cherokee, the Chickasaw and the Creek lived in the northern part of the region. Tribes like the Natchez, Biloxi and Seminole lived in the southern area.

The ancestors of these people were called Mound Builders. They lived there from about 1000 B.C. to A.D. 700, a very long time ago. They built huge mounds that were as high as a ten story building. The mounds were used for temples and as burial sites.

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Homes/Dwellings

People who lived in the warm southeast lived in chickees. The Seminole tribe in Florida built chickees. The frame was made of logs and the roof was covered in palmetto leaves or grasses. It is called a thatch roof. There were no walls in chickees because they weren't needed in the warm southern areas and breezes could blow through. The floor was built up off the ground in case it was wet and soggy and to protect from snakes.

Tribes such as the Cherokee and the Creek lived farther north in the region where it was colder in the winter. They needed warmer shelter in the winter. Each village had a circular-shaped council house where ceremonies and tribal meetings were held. It was built with clay walls and a cone-shaped bark roof. Rectangular houses grouped in clusters of four around the council house. The packed mud walls kept the people warm.

PlantsThe most important crops for the southeast farmers were corn, tobacco and gourds. They made corn mush and corn bread. They dried corn so they would have something to eat in the winter. Tobacco was used in ceremonies and for trade with the settlers. Gourds were dried and used as drinking cups and bowls. People also gathered nuts and berries in the forest.

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Corn Tobacco GourdThe cypress tree is a common tree in swamps. The roots of the tree grow out of the water and look like knees! Seminole people used cypress to build their chickees.

Animals

Deer were especially important to southeast Native Americans. They provided many things for them.

Clothing was made from skins of animals. Tools used for hunting, building and eating were made from antlers and bones. The meat from the animal provided food.

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Clothing

In hot weather, men wore breechcloths. When it got colder, especially in the northern part of the region, they added deerskin shirts, leggings, and moccasins.

Women wore dresses, leggings and moccasins. Sometimes the clothes were beaded in beautiful colors.

This boy and girl are from the Cherokee tribe.

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