The Northwest Pacific Coastal Indians did not live in tepees as did the Yakima Indians of Eastern Washington. Instead, they lived in longhouses built of thick cedar planks. These homes were also called plank houses. These early people chopped down and split massive cedar trees using beaver teeth and stone axes.o avoid the possibility of this, the family had to move and live elsewhere. Whether space in the plank house was assigned by the father of a family, or by the chief of a tribe, daily life in each plank house was the same. The only thing that varied was the size of the house.