Indians

5 Pages 1189 Words

All of the west coast tribes were considered rich by the other Indian nations. Of all the coastal Indians, the Tulalip, Swinomish, Lummi and Skagit tribes were considered the wealthy. These were the Indian tribes who lived in the Puget Sound area of Washington State.
There wealth came from the abundance food. There were all kinds of fish and seafood. The woods were full of elk and deer and other animals. There were blackberries and raspberries and salmonberries and nuts. Cedar trees were everywhere. The Indians used cedar to build their homes and to carve everything from canoes to eating utensils. Softened cedar bark was used to make shoes, clothing, blankets, toweling. They created a way to dry food so that it could be stored safely. Once they could store food, they could relax a bit during the winter months. That gave them time to develop a gracious lifestyle.
Each morning, started with a bath in the river. After their morning bath, they went to work. Their first meal would not be until several hours later. The women did chores on land, near the longhouse. They wove blankets and baskets and mats. They dug for clams. They collected berries. They pounded cedar bark, to soften it, and to ready it to make clothing. They cleaned the family's quarters in the longhouse. They scrubbed what they could and replaced anything soiled that could not be scrubbed. They put the morning meal on to cook and started to prepare food for the evening meal. The men went fishing and hunting. They used traps and clubs and arrows to catch game and setout baskets to catch crabs and fish.
The coastal Indians did not live in tepees, as did the Yakima Indians of Eastern Washington. Instead, they lived in longhouses built of thick cedar planks. These early people chopped down and split massive cedar trees using beaver teeth and stone axes. The longhouses were huge. Some were about 100 feet long and 25 feet wide, with low roofs for easy heating. The only op...