CHINOOK INDIANS

The Trading Habits of Chinook Indians

The Trading Habits of Chinook Indians

Introduction

The culture and history of the Chinook Indians of the Columbia Plateau have been influenced by migration and immigration since the beginning of known time. Trade & Commerce is a part of Chinook creation stories, still shared by the people, and the traditional cultural life of Chinook people included a great deal of trade from one area to the next (Boyd, 1996). Chinook Indians migrated in seasonal rounds to hunt, gather, and fish in various places in the broader Northwest, and enemy Indians sometimes migrated to the Chinook country to raid and fight, thus influencing Chinook people. However, the immigration of non-Natives to the Pacific Northwest in the 19th century significantly influenced the course of Chinook history, particularly after the United States forced treaties on the people, established reservations, forced Indian removal, and fought two wars against them. Chinook history has been greatly influenced by the migration of non-Indians and their resettlement of the Columbia Plateau, forcing free Chinook people to migrate to one of several northwestern reservations where they live today.

Trading Patterns and Economic Life

Industrial production in the Pacific Northwest received a powerful impetus with the opening of theBonneville Dam in 1943. Power generation from this structure allowed for the expansion of existing industries and development of new ones. Trade and habits is central to the creation stories of Chinook Indians. They believe that their history began with the first creation, a time when animate and inanimate beings interacted with each other, conversing, trading, and creating offspring. The first creation took place before the arrival of humans, but the “plant and animal” people of the era made the earth ready for human habitation. The laws of the people emerged from experiences related in song and story, knowledge and ways of life that the first people passed on to the Chinook and other Indians of the Columbia Plateau. At this time of Chinook history, the creative powers set the world into motion, making the birds and animals migrate from place to place. Creative powers made the earth move and set the stars into the sky. These same powers told the ducks and geese to migrate north and south, and they taught the salmon to move from the Pacific Ocean into the rivers where the salmon people gave their lives so that their young could be born. The creative powers instructed the tiny smolts to return to the ocean, traveling backward with their heads pointing upstream so that they could one day return to complete their life cycle and create the next generation of salmon. Chinook stories emphasized the migration of species, the cyclical movement of the heavenly bodies, and the changing of the seasons. According to traditional Chinook law, migration and movement had to occur and be a part of life on earth.

At the beginning of time, Coyote acted as an agent of creation. He was and is a migrating person, known for his travels within the Chinook world and ...