There are many Pacific Northwest tribes in the US. Today, I will talk to you about the Quileute( said "quill-ee-yoot") and there Food, religions, culture, climate, entertainment, and some interesting facts about this tribe.
Since the Quileute Indians are part of the Pacific Northwest, they eat salmon, shellfish, whales, and seals from the ocean and hunt geese, deer, elks, bears, fern roots, and berries from the forest! The Pacific
Northwest Indians eat salmon-seals because they live by the pacific ocean, and they live by a forest too
so they can easily get the geese-berries.To the Pacific Northwest Indians, salmon is the most important
food. I wonder why.
The Quileute Indians believed in many things, but I chose two things they believe in. The Quileute Indians believed that the Thunderbird was large enough to carry a whale in its claws and its beating wings make thunder. Another believe is that the Raven help humankind and its a clever and generally
being, but also has many character traits that are viewed negatively in Quileute culture(greed, laziness, arrogance, deceitfulness, and rudeness.
In culture, Quileute have pot latches. A pot latch is a type of feast the Indians had. The hosts would serve huge amounts of food and gave the guest valuable gifts. At times, pot latches were competitions. The families would try to give the largest and most expensive pot latch to show their wealth.
In the Pacific Northwest, their climate is rainy. It rains a lot there. That's great because when it rains, it helps the crops grow and the Quileute can't grow their crops without rain. They need the crops to live and survive. The sun does shine though. If it's not raining, snowing, cloudy, or sleet, then the sun has to
be shining. It's warm in the Spring and in the Summer. It also snows in the Pacific Northwest region and that's bad for the crops.
The Pacific Northwest Indians dance, weave, carve, paint, and sew for their entertainment. We still do those things too. I know that occasionally they had spectacular recitations of legends and occasionally they gambled. They played games of strength and endurance in addition to games of skill. One game they played was known as fsa' fsa' wafs which stands for "rolling". In this game, they'd wheel a ring with grass twined in it down a hill and hit it with arrows. The objective of the game was to strike the grass with an arrow but to have it keep going and every hit was a full point. Also for their entertainment,
the Quileutae would paint their houses and/or their totem poles and carve into the houses too!
I have some interesting facts about the Quileutae. Did you know that they put totem poles in front of their large houses to mark the entrances? You do now. Also, their houses were heated by the central
open fireplaces. The Quileutae carved out canoes they called dugouts. The dugouts were used to carry goods on trading trips along the seacoast and rivers. Some groups paddled out to sea in dugouts to hunt for whales!
That's all for now. My sources were: www.quileutelegend.com and my social studies book!
