Title: Northwest Coast Indians  - Students | Britannica Kids | Homework Help
Headings: Northwest Coast Indians
Northwest Coast Indians
Introduction
Traditional Culture
Peoples and Languages
Food
Settlements and Housing
Clothing
Technology and Arts
Society
Religion
European Contact and Cultural Change

Content: Technology and Arts
Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum
Woodworking    was the outstanding skill of the Northwest Coast. Traditional carving tools included adzes, mauls, wedges, chisels, drills, and curved knives, all made of stone. Sharkskin was used for sanding or polishing wooden items. Boatbuilders hollowed logs with fire to make the canoes they paddled in the streams as well as big seagoing whaling canoes. Other woodworkers steamed and bent planks to make boxes, tying the edges together with spruce roots. Some of these boxes were built to hold the huge winter stores of dried food. Others were used for cooking, which was done by adding hot rocks to the food in the boxes. Other everyday items made of wood included spoons and ladles, canoe bailers, trinket boxes, chamber pots, fishhooks, and even the triggers of animal traps. Many items made by the woodworkers were artistic as well as functional. Dishes, for example, were sometimes in the form of animals or monsters.