Quinault (tribe)

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Quinault flag

Quinault female profile by Edward S. Curtis, 1913

The Quinault are a group of Native American peoples from western Washington state in the United States. The Quinault Indian Reservation is located on the Pacific coast of Washington, primarily in northwestern Grays Harbor County, with small parts extending north into southwestern Jefferson County. It has a land area of 819.294 km² (316.331 sq mi), and reported a resident population of 1,370 persons as of the 2000 census. The Quinault people settled onto reservation lands after signing a treaty with the former Washington Territory in 1856. About 60 percent of the reservation's population lives in the community of Taholah, on the Pacific coast at the mouth of the Quinault River.

There is an original Quinault language, which is a part of the Salishan family of languages. In modern times, the Quinault is a mixture of separate indigenous peoples. The mixture of members with ethnic ties to the modern Quinault tribe is made up of the Quinault, Hoh, Chehalis, Chinook, Cowlitz, Queets, and Quileute peoples. Linguistically, these groups belong to three language families: Chimakuan (Quileute, Hoh), Chinookan (Chinook groups), and Salishan (Chehalis, Cowlitz, Queets, and Quinault).

Like many Northwest Coast natives, the Quinault relied on fishing from local rivers and the Pacific Ocean for food and built plank houses (longhouses) to protect themselves from the harsh, wet winters west of the Cascade Mountains. Today, the Quinault Indian Nation operates a casino and seaside resort at Ocean Shores, Washington called Quinault Beach Resort, and a high-quality seafood packing business at Taholah.