Northwest Coast

1. Northwest Coast Nootka

2. Political Organization. • The Nootka did not constitute a single political entity; however, their cultural patterns as well as the intensity of social interactions between local groups made them a definable social unit. Tribes that united to share a common summer Village site at which to hunt and fish formed a confederacy, which took the name of one of its tribes. Sometimes confederacies were formed as the result of tribes coming together for warfare. Confederacies correspond to the Nootka's major geographic divisions.

3. Location • Aboriginally the Nootka was already in Vancouver Island, B.C. from Cape Cook in the north to Sheringham Point in the south and across the Strait of Juan de Fuca at Cape Flattery on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Today, some Nootka people still live on West coast reserves for native people, but many Nootka people have moved to Vancouver Island's urban areas to find employment. For many years, scholars at the Provincial Museum in Victoria, British Columbia, have been assisting local Nootkan groups in their effort to preserve native cultural and language traditions.

4. Identification • The nootka people are mainly located on the Vancouver Island and they are an American Indian group. The nootka people are divided into three groups, Northern, Central, and southern nootka tribes. Today, the nootka people are referred to as the west coast people.

5. Food • The Nootka fishers usually caught salmons and whales. Salmon was the most stable food source and was obtained in large numbers in the fall and stored for the winter months; herring and salmon roe, cod, halibut, sardines, and herring complemented salmon supplies. Wooden fishing weirs were placed in rivers, and tidal fish traps were used in the sea; nets, hooks, lines, herring rakes, gigs, fishing spears, and harpoons, as well as dip nets for smaller fish, such as smelt, were also used. Seals, sea lions, whales, and porpoises were also important food sources; whales were valued for their ceremonial use as well. Land animals, such as deer, bear, and elk, were hunted or occasionally trapped. Wild plants and roots added to the Nootkan diet.

6. Shelter • Many Nootkans lived in longhouses, which were as large as forty by one hundred feet. Nootkans moved between winter and summer settlements, with each local group having at least one longhouse for use in the summer at one site and another longhouse for winter use at another site. Up to thirty-five related people (a house-group) lived in a longhouse. In the long houses, each family was responsible for its own cooking and living areas. In the winter several groups came together to form a large winter village

7. Religious Practitioners • Shamans, the most powerful Supernatural practitioners, acquired their special powers to cure illnesses during a vision quest.

8. Physical region • the nootka people live in the western cordillera region. So they are neat the sea and that is why they fish for salmon. The western cordillera is has a climate (this means that it is largely effected by the large body of water that it is near to).

9. Clothing • the nootka men and women wore cedar bark during the cool time. This was a good way to use the recourses that they had (cedar bark). The women wore bark apron that cover from the waist to the knees. Nootka men wore ornaments and bark robes. The men also wore cone-shaped hats. Women were aprons of shredded cedar bark, earrings, necklaces, ornaments, and animal heads.

10. Thank you • The end