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For details of the language group, see Coast Salish languages. Coast Salish refers to a cultural or ethnographic designation of a subgroup of the First Nations or Native American cultures in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon who speak one of the Coast Salish languages. Although the Nuxalk (Bella Coola) are included ethnographically, their language is not classified linguistically as a Coast Salish language. Coast Salish languages are part of the Salishan language family but there is no one language or people named "Coast Salish".
[edit] The PeoplesBelow is a list of the tribes and nations located in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon.
[edit] HistoryThe following is a provisional list of historical events, primarily from an American perspective. Coast Salish peoples in British Columbia have had similar economic experience, although their political and treaty experience has been different—occasionally dramatically so:
[edit] PopulationAmong losses due to diseases, a smallpox epidemic broke out among the Northwest tribes in 1862, killing roughly half the affected native populations. Documentation in archives and historical epidemiology demonstrates that governmental policies furthered the progress of this epidemic among the natives, and did little or nothing about the waves of other introduced epidemics. Mean population decline 1774–1874 was about 66%.[8]
[edit] Culture[edit] Social organization[edit] ExternalNeighboring groups, whether villages or adjacent tribes, were related by marriage, feasting, ceremonies, and common or shared territory. Ties were especially strong within the same waterway or watershed. There existed no breaks throughout the south Coast Salish culture area and beyond. There existed no formal political institutions.[9] External relations were extensive throughout most of the Puget Sound-Georgia Basin and east to the Sahaptin-speaking lands of Chelan, Kittitas and Yakama in what is now Eastern Washington. There was little political organization.[10] No formal political office existed. Warfare for the southern Coast Salish was primarily defensive, with occasional raiding into territory where there were no relatives. No institutions existed for mobilizing or maintaining a standing force. The real enemies of all the Coast Salish for most of the first half of the 19th century were the Lekwiltok Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw). With earlier access to guns with the fur trade, they raided for slaves and loot. Organized retaliatory raids from several tribes were raised several times.[11] [edit] InternalThe highest-ranking male assumed the role of ceremonial leader but rank could vary and was determined by different standards.[10] Villages were linked to others through intermarriage; the wife usually went to live at the husband's village. Society was divided into upper class, lower class and slaves, all largely hereditary.[10] Nobility was based on genealogy, intertribal kinship, wise use of resources, and possession of esoteric knowledge about the workings of spirits and the world — making an effective marriage of class, secular, religious, and economic power. Many Coast Salish mothers altered the appearance of their free-born by carefully shaping the heads of their babies, binding them with cradle boards just long enough to produce a steep sloping forehead.[12] Unlike hunter-gatherer societies widespread in North America, but similar to other Pacific Northwest coastal cultures, Coast Salish society was complex, hierarchical and oriented toward property and status. Slavery was widespread.[13] The Coast Salish held slaves as simple property and not as members of the tribe. The children of slaves themselves became slaves.[citation needed] The staple of their diet was typically salmon, supplemented with a rich variety of other seafoods and forage, particularly for the southern Coast Salish where the climate was even more temperate.[14] The art of the Coast Salish has become a popular idiom for modern art in British Columbia and the Puget Sound area.[citation needed] [edit] RecreationGames often involved gambling on a sleight-of-hand game known as slahal, as well as athletic contests. Games that are similar to modern day lacrosse, rugby and forms of martial arts also existed.[15] [edit] BeliefsBelief in guardian spirits and transmutation between human and animal were widely shared in myriad forms. The relations of soul or souls, the lands of the living and the dead, were complex and mutable. Vision quest journeys involving other states of consciousness were varied and widely practiced. The Duwamish had a soul recovery and journey ceremony[11] and legends. They also had many ceremonies and celebrations. [edit] ArchitectureVillages of the Coast Salish typically consisted of Western Red Cedar split plank and earthen floor longhouses providing habitation for forty or more people, usually a related extended family. Also used by many groups were pit-houses, known in the Chinook Jargon as kekuli (see Quiggly holes). The villages were typically located near navigable water for easy transportation by dugout canoe. Houses that were part of the same village sometimes stretched for several miles along a river or watercourse. The interior walls of longhouses were typically lined with sleeping platforms. Storage shelves above the platforms held baskets, tools, clothing, and other items. Firewood was stored below the platforms. Mattresses and cushions were constructed woven reed mats and animals skins. Food was hung to dry from the ceiling. The larger houses included partitions to separate families, as well as interior fires with roof slats that functioned as chimneys.[citation needed] The wealthy built extraordinarily large longhouses. The Suquamish Oleman House (Old Man House) at what became the Port Madison Reservation was 152 x 12–18 m (500 x 40–60 ft), c. 1850. The gambrel roof was unique to Puget Sound Coast Salish.[16] The Salish later took to constructing rock walls at strategic points along the Frasier River, as investigated by Kisha Supernant (2008). These have been hypothesised to be primarily defensive, but also for fishing and terracing purposes. [edit] DietProvisionally, this is primarily southern Coast Salish, though much is in common with Coast Salish overall. Anthropogenic grasslands were maintained. The south Coast Salish may have had more vegetables and land game than people farther north or among other peoples on the outer coast. Fish and salmon were staples. There was kakanee, a freshwater fish in the Lake Washington and Lake Sammamish watersheds. Shellfish were abundant. Butter clams, horse clams, and cockles were dried for trade. Hunting was specialized; professions were probably sea hunters, land hunters, fowlers. Water fowl were captured on moonless nights using strategic flares. The managed grasslands not only provided game habitat, but vegetable sprouts, roots, bulbs, berries, and nuts were foraged from them as well as found wild. The most important were probably bracken and camas; wapato especially for the Duwamish. Many, many varieties of berries were foraged; some were harvested with comblike devices not reportedly used elsewhere. Acorns were relished but were not widely available. Regional tribes went in autumn to the Nisqually Flats (Nisqually plains) to harvest them.[14] [edit] See also[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Footnotes
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