Quileute (tribe)

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The Quileute is a Native American people in western Washington state in the United States, currently numbering approximately 750. The Quileute people settled onto the Quileute Indian Reservation after signing the Treaty of Quinault River of 1855, later reauthorized as the Treaty of Olympia in 1856 with the United States of America. It is located near the southwest corner of Clallam County, Washington at the mouth of the Quillayute River on the Pacific coast. The reservation's main population center is the community of La Push, Washington. The 2000 census reported an official resident population of 371 persons on the reservation, which has a land area of 4.061 km² (1.5678 sq mi, or 1,003.4 acres).They have their own government inside of the United States that consists of a Tribal council with staggered terms. The current tribal council consists of: Chair, Carol Hatch, Vice-Chair, Tony Foster, DeAnna Hobson, Secretary, and Anna Rose Counsell, Treasurer.

The Quileute tribe linguistically belongs to the Chimakuan family of languages among Northwest Coast indigenous peoples. The Quileute language is one of a kind, as the only related aboriginal people to the Quileute, the Chemakum, were wiped out by Chief Seattle and the Suquamish people during the 1860s. The Quileute language is one of only five known languages to not have any nasal sounds (m, n).

Like many Northwest Coast natives, in pre-Colonial times the Quileute 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. The Quileutes, along with the Makah people, were once great whalers.

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[edit] Culture

Many modern Americans would be surprised to find out that in the Northwest Coast they had classes that were based on possession and property, which was very different from the rest of the continent. It is commonly taught and was commonly believed among many groups of native people that you couldn’t own land and that things were shared. In the Northwest Coast region, and within the Quileute tribe, there was a huge emphasis placed on possessions. In the Quileute culture it was possible for families to own dances, songs, and a range of other intangible items . An example of the focus on wealth is the Quileute word “?á·čit.” It has three meanings, the first is chief, and the other two are ‘head of the family’ and ‘wealthy.’ It was also possible to own the rights to fishing in certain places and the rights to tell people they couldn’t fish there. In addition to owning land, rights, songs, and dances, the Quileute also owned slaves. This was common in the region, there was even a slave trade in the Pacific Northwest, but the Quileute people weren’t directly connected. The Quileutes, and many of their neighboring tribes were a part of the Potlatch culture. Potlatches were common among the tribes of the Northwest region. Potlatches were a ceremonial way for tribal leaders to essentially “one-up” each other and a means of redistributing wealth. The word “Potlatch” is a deviation of the Chinook word patshatl which means “giving. ” During the ceremony the potlatch giver will throw worldly possessions onto a fire to show how much he has. His willingness to burn the valuable objects showed how little he needs them. A common object to burn was a part of a copper (a valuable family heirloom). Another common occurrence at a potlatch was to kill or free slaves . After the burning of wealth, the potlatch giver would give presents to the attendees who he would insult while presenting them with gifts. They would be expected to pay him back double at their next Potlatch. The potlatch culture peaked in the 1700s, because of that is when the Europeans started to show up, and the old ways started to change, causing much of this fascinating history to be lost.

Daily Quileute life included time for relaxation, in which they played different games. Sometimes they had dramatic readings of legends and sometimes the gambled. They played games of strength and endurance as well as games of skill. One game that they played was called fsa’fsá’wafs which means “rolling.” In this game they would roll a hoop with grass wrapped in it down a hill and shoot at it with arrows. They object of the game was to hit the grass with an arrow but to have it keep rolling. Each hit was one point. They lived in an extended family style. Family groups would live together during the winter in permanent winter villages, which differed from many other nomadic tribes throughout the country. In the summer, some families would break up to hunt and fish. The houses were built in a special fashion. This is the explanation of the Quileute house given in Edward S. Curtis’ The North American Indian:

"The Quileute House was built over a rectangular excavation about two feet deep. The wall-boards were horizontal, and the overlapping roof-boards extended across the slope of the single-slant roof. A structure of the largest size had a frontage of fourteen fathoms (seventy feet) and a depth of eight fathoms, and sheltered about twenty people…"

The customs of the Quileute tribe were typical to the region and time, but very interesting none-the-less. They practiced the art of head flattening, a custom widely practiced by the natives in the region. Another body alteration that was widely practiced in the region was tattooing and the Quileute's may have taken part in this too. One aspect of Quileute life that isn’t surprising is their view on sex. Premarital sex was frowned upon and when a girl got pregnant she and the father had to change their diet and way of life. Their burial ritual was essentially the same as the Salish ritual. They would put the body in a canoe and send it out to sea. In the original ceremony they would bury the dead above ground in logs or canoes and they would destroy all memory of the dead person.

[edit] Craftsmanship

The Quileutes were very talented builders and craftsmen. Like many other tribes in the region, they were excellent boat makers. They could make canoes for whaling, which could hold tons of cargo and many men. They had cedar canoes ranging in size from small boats that could hold two people to giant vessels up to 58 meters long and capable of holding up to 6,000 pounds. The modern Clipper Ship’s hull uses a design very much like the canoes used by the Quileute’s. The Quileutes used the resources from the land to make tools and other items. In the region, almost everything was made out of wood. Necessities like utensils, clothing, weapons, and even paints were made from the natural resources available to them. The Quileute Tribe is best known, as artists and craftsmen at least, for their woven baskets and dog hair blankets. The tribe would raise specially bred, woolly dogs for their hair, which they would spin and weave into blankets. They would also weave incredibly fine baskets that were so tightly woven that they could hold water. They could even boil water in some of them. Another example of their craftsmanship was the waterproof skirts and hats that they would make, using cedar, to shield against the heavy rainfall in the region.

[edit] Resources

The Quileute and other Northwest Tribes were dependent on the sea. The Quileutes, however were one of the only tribes that hunted whales. The only tribe that could out-do them was the Makah. In one first hand account from a Quileute whaler from The North American Indian, vol. 9 by Edward Curtis, the whaler describes the rituals that took place before the whaling could begin. He would have to bathe everyday from the beginning of winter until June. The time of day in which he did this would depend on the cycle of the moon. During these baths they would pray to Tsikáti, the universe, who was one of the supernatural beings in the Quileute world. The Quileute were also expert seal hunters. Until around 1907, they used harpoons and other, more primitive (but still effective) tools for their seal hunting. After that year they switched to guns, which helped them to kill the seals, but not necessarily to bring in more. The guns were messy, and caused them to lose more seals in the process. Apart from whales and seals, the Quileutes also fished for salmon, cod, halibut, and other kinds of fish that are native to the region. Like many of the tribes in the Northwest Coast, the Quileutes depended mostly on the water for their food and resources. Though the sea was full of resources for the Quileute Tribe, they also hunted land mammals. They would hunt animals such as deer and elk. In the Northwest coast naturally growing resources were abundant, and the Quileute Tribe lived off the land well. They were not an agricultural society; they lived off of what they could find. For instance the Saskatoon berry which is native to the area and has three times the amount of iron of prunes or raisins could be harvested to eat. They would also eat seagull eggs, camas, small animals (game), and other food that they could find. Another way that the Quileute obtained food was to trade with other tribes in the area such as the Makah, the Quinault, and the Nootkan.


[edit] Beliefs

The beliefs of the Quileute People changed over time. The originally were a very spiritual people. The boys would go on quests to find their supernatural power once they reached puberty, if they wanted to. They would perform the first salmon ceremony to ensure a good season. They had shamans and healers and many legends and monsters that they believed in. One example of a legend is their creation story. It says that a traveling shape shifter came upon a wolf and transformed him into a man, creating the first Quileute. They believed that each person had their own guardian and they would pray to it, along with the sun and Tsikáti (the universe). Much of their original religion was lost and forgotten after the Americans came. They developed the Indian “Shaker Religion” which was like Christianity. They believed in Jesus and the “Spirit of God.” James Island, an island that you can see from First beach has played a role in all aspects of Quileute beliefs and culture. Besides being used as a fortress to keep opposing tribes out, it was an integral part of the beliefs of the tribe. It was used as a burial ground for chiefs, and once held a lot of spiritual power within the tribe.


[edit] Language/Phonology

The Quileute tribe is probably most well known for their unique language. They speak a dialect, called Quileute or Quillayute, which is part of the Chimakuan family of languages. The Chimakum, who also spoke a dialect of Chimakuan, called Chemakum, Chimakum, or Chimacum were the only other group of people to speak a dialect from this family of language. The Chimakum were almost wiped out in an encounter with Chief Sea’th’l (Seattle) and the Suquamish tribe in 1850, leaving them with only about 90 people in 1855, and they were wiped out completely in 1860 in another encounter with Chief Sea’th’l and his tribe. Since the 1940s, the Chemakum language has died out completely. But the Quileute dialect is still in use today, though it is in danger of dying out. It is spoken by only tribal elders at La Push, and some of the Makah people. The Quileute language is different from any other spoken in the world. This is because it uses no nasal sounds. The language has no “m” or “n” use. The words in Quileute were very long and could sometimes express ideas rather than only words. The Quileute used one word for “those are the people who think that I am the one who is going to Forks,” but, the word, kitlayakwokwilkwolasstaxasalas, is hardly shorter than the sentence. The tribe is now trying to prevent the loss of the language by teaching it in the Quileute Tribal School using books written for the students by the tribal elders.

Quileute has three vowels, i~e, a~ə, o~u, long and short, as well as æː which only occurs long. Stress is historically penultimate, though this has become somewhat obscured and is no longer predictable. It has the following consonants (t͡ɬ and ɡ are rare):

  Bilabial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
  central lateral   plain labialized plain labialized  
Plosive voiceless p t     k kʷ q qʷ ʔ
voiced b d     (g)        
ejective pʼ tʼ     kʼ kʼʷ qʼ qʼʷ  
Affricate voiceless   ʦ (tɬ) ʧ          
ejective   ʦʼ tɬʼ ʧ’          
Fricative     s ɬ ʃ x xʷ χ χʷ h
Sonorant       l j   w      


[edit] Intertribal Relations

The intertribal relations between the Quileute and neighboring tribes are an eventful, yet largely unrecorded history. The Quileute are said to have fought with close to all the tribes between the Columbia River and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, yet most of the details of these encounters are not available to study. The one that is explained is the war with the Makah Tribe in 1850. The account of the battle, from Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian, reads more like a myth than a history:

"They removed his [Kihlabuhlup] blanket to find out why they had been unable to kill him, and they found marks on his body where the bullets had flattened themselves against his flesh, as if they had been shot against a stone. Then they cut him open and found that his heart was covered in hair, and his intestines, which were very short, were striped."

As you can see, this doesn't seem to be an accurate historical account of the war, but it does give us some insight into their culture. Peaceful relations between tribes did exist too. There was intermarriage and trading which was practiced mostly with the Makah.


[edit] Relationship with the white settlers

The Quileute relationship with the white European and American settlers was similar to many other tribes’ experiences. The first contact occurred in 1775 when a Spanish ship missed its landing and the Quileutes took them as slaves. Therefore, right from the start, the Quileutes were looked upon by Europeans as vicious. This happened again in 1787 with a British ship and in 1808 with a Russian ship. The first official negotiations with Americans occurred in 1855 when Isaac I. Stevens and the Quileute signed the Treaty of Olympia. It said that the Quileute people needed to relocate to the Quinault reservation.

"ARTICLE 1. The said tribes and bands hereby cede, relinquish, and convey to the United States all their right, title, and interest in and to the lands and country occupied bye them…"

Article 11 of the Treaty of Olympia was 1 sentence, short and sweet:

“ARTICLE 11. The said tribes and bands agree to free all slaves now held by them, and not to purchase or acquire others hereafter.”

This article took away an integral part of the culture of the Northwest Coastal tribes, the rights to possessions and slaves. Their culture had been focused on possessions and they had always owned slaves, but upon entering the U.S. they were forced to give up a key part of their unique history and culture. Later, in 1882, A.W. Smith came to La Push to teach the native children. He made a school there and started change the names of the people from tribal names to ones from the bible. In 1889, after years of this not being enforced, President Cleveland gave the Quileute tribe the La Push reservation. 252 residents moved there and in 1894, 71 people from the Hoh River got their own reservation. Unfortunately, in 1889 a settler who wanted the land at La Push started a fire that burned down all the houses on the reservation, along with destroying all the artifacts from the days before the Europeans came.


[edit] The Quileute tribe in fiction

The tribe features prominently in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. In the books, the Quileute tribe produces werewolves, the only enemy of vampires. Characters in the series who are Quileute in origin include Jacob Black, Billy Black, Harry Clearwater, Leah Clearwater, Seth Clearwater, Quil Ateara, Embry Call, Sam Uley, Jared, Paul, Brady, and Collin.

Spirit Quest by Susan Sharpe, written 1991
Eleven-year-old Aaron Singer spends part of his summer vacation on the Quileute Indian Reservation in Washington, where he becomes friends with Robert, a Quileutte boy. At the encouragement of his family, who no longer incorporate many of their traditions into daily life, Robert attends tribal school to learn Quileute language and culture. At Aaron's urging, the boys go together on their version of a "spirit quest," where Aaron finds and saves a trapped eagle. Though he admires and respects Robert's culture, Aaron wistfully realizes that he can never be a part of it the way Robert is. Aaron's initially romantic view is replaced by deeper understanding.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Quileute Reservation, Washington United States Census Bureau
  • History,” Quileute Nation, April 23, 2008 [1]
  • Joahnsen, Bruce Elliot. Native Peoples of North America, Vol. 2
  • Powell, James V. “Quileute”, Smithsonian Encyclopedia, Vol. 7: Northwest Indians
  • Silverberg, Robert. The Home of the Red Man: Indian America Before Columbus. pg. 214. New York Graphic Society: 1963
  • Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian, 1907 – 1930, vol. 9, pg. 148 [2]
  • Quileute Indian Tribe,” U-S-History.com, [3]
  • “Chimakuan Languages,” Wikipedia, April 23, 2008, [4]
  • “Quileute Tribe,” Wikipedia, April 23, 2008, [5]
  • “Tribal Coucil/Departments,” Quileute Nation, [6]
  • "North American Indian Bibliography: Northwest Coast" [1]

[edit] External links