Interior of Chief Klart-Reech's house, Chilkat, Alaska, Courtesy Alaska State Library    Enlarge

The Development of Ceremony and Art
Art objects play a central role in Northwest Coast spiritual practices and ceremonies. Images of animals on works of art represented social groups known as clans. A clan was composed of two or more family groups. Each clan had its own special animal and traced its right to represent the animal to an ancestor who had once made a covenant with it. An animal image not only identified the clan's heritage but also evoked spiritual protection in return for respect and proper ceremony. Animals were not worshipped as deities, but rather viewed as spiritual manifestations of nature whose protection could be sought. The most important animals were ravens, bears, beavers, wolves, whales, and eagles, but nearly every animal known to the Northwest Coast people appeared in their art.

Northwest Coast style is highly sophisticated, characterized by bold line and outlines. The complex designs often appear tightly contained within the shape of chests, spoons, pipes, baskets, blankets, rattles, and masks. Animal forms are displayed on two-dimensional surfaces as if they have been split down the back and flattened to show all sides. This produces an image that is symmetrical and carefully rearranged so that all the parts fit the space. The beautifully executed images of Northwest Coast art are abstract and sophisticated, resulting in objects of great elegance.

Contact
Russian traders were the first to come into contact with Northwest Coast peoples in the 1700s. By the end of the century, many settlers from the East had been attracted to the area by the prospect of trade. Iron-edged tools, acquired through trade, contributed to the wood carving skills of Native people, which reached a high point around the middle of the 1700s. Unfortunately, Europeans also introduced diseases that devastated the people. The U.S. and Canadian governments exerted additional pressures in an attempt to assimilate the Northwest Coast people into white culture. The continuance of tribal life was hindered when the potlatch was declared illegal by the Canadian government in 1884. The potlatch ban was repealed in 1951, but many aspects of traditional life had disappeared by that time.

Tribal Web Sites
Haida (and Tlingit) web site: http://www.tlingit-haida.org/
Kwakiutl web site: http://www.umista.org/main/
Makah web site: http://www.makah.com/