Native American culture of the West

Geographic and temporal setting: the diverse West

The western part of the present-day United States extended from the top corner of Washington, through California, and into parts of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho. This was home to a very diverse array of Native American groups. They lived off of the region’s rich natural resources

The climate and resources available in the West makes it hard to generalize the cultural practices of the Native Americans living in these areas. Each group created their own microenvironments which different groups used to their advantage. In modern day California, over 100 federally-recognized tribes live there

The Great Basin (land between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas) → home to the Mono, Paiute, Bannock, Showshone, ute, and Gosiute peoples

Common food practices: hunting, gathering, and fishing

Most Native Americans in these areas fished, hunted and gathered for sustenance. Tribes that lived among the Colorado River would father a wide variety of wild food and planted some tobacco. Acorns were a pivotal part of the Californians diet. The women of these tribes would gather and process the acorns, remove the toxins from the pulp inside the nute, and made it into flour, creating a less perishable source of nourishment. In the Pacific Northwest, people foraged for pine nuts, wild plants, and more

In this area, Bison also roamed, proving an easy target for hunters. Native Americans hunted small mammals, snakes, and lizards. Fishing also sustained the Native people. Salman was plentiful along the Columbia and Colorado rivers. The fishermen of these areas would use large harpoons to catch said fish while using complex trapping systems for the ones that got away. However, natural disasters could and did completely disrupt the salmon patterns

The Native Americans of this area were the first to create the canoe to aid in the arts of fishing and secure a larger supply of fish for times of scarcity. Lots of evidence suggests that the Western American Native Americans had an extremely healthy, protein and nutrient-rich diet; way more than other groups in the Plains or Northeast who relied on farming

Societal organization: distinct, yet connected communities

Salmon didn’t only dominate in the diets, but also the trade networks. The Dalles was a central point for trade networks that extended to the Plains and to the Pacific. The Chumash people of this region, were known for their trade fairs. They exchanged marine mammals for shells from the Pacific Northwest and animal hides from the Plains. Acorns were often used as currency

Many people of the Western area, would live in compact, easy-to-build and easy-to-move wickiups made of wood, leaves, and brush. Other Native American tribes who lived in the resource-rich areas in the Pacific Northwest, lived in more permanent villages. The more plentiful the fish and acorns in the area, the more likely that indigenous people lived in homes within societies that were there to stay

Social and religious norms: resources dictated wealth

The great concentration of resources also created rigidly stratified class structures throughout the West. Villages had complex social systems where men would hunt and fish, and women would harvest crops and prepare the meat for food and trade. The Chinookan people, who fished and hunted, practiced slavery to complete the laborious tasks required to process large animals like bison

In the small populated areas, sociopolitical organizations and tribal relationships were constantly evolving. People usually identified with family-based bands called tribelets. Tribletes would include a few hundred to a thousand people that aligned culturally, but hunted and gathered in smaller units of 10-12 people. Places with a less amount of natural resources were more nomadic and less connected to others

Hunting and gathering had spiritual significance to Western Native Americans. Some tribes prayed for good hunting lick, while others developed rituals around the process. Sahaptin-speaking people would throw salmon bones back into the Columbia River as to rejuvenate the supply of fish for the following season