Title: Northwest Coast Indian - Technology and the visual arts | Britannica
Headings: Technology and the visual arts
Technology and the visual arts
Discover wood-carving traditions handed down from past generations of the Northwest Coast Indian peoples
Kinship and family life
Religion and the performing arts

Content: On Puget Sound there was little representative art; the abstract painted designs on the canoe boards were unlike anything else in the region. Most traditional Chinook art is represented by just a few angular figures incised on mountain sheephorn bowls. In the southernmost part of the culture area, in northwestern California, art generally focused on geometric patterns incised on elkhorn objects and shells. ( See also arts, Native American .) totem poles
Memorial (totem) poles from different tribes stand in Stanley Park, Vancouver. © Alan Kearney/FPG International
Weaving was also highly developed. The inner bark of red cedar was stripped, and the long ribbonlike strands were woven into mats and baskets, using a checkerwork technique. The same material could be shredded into finely divided flexible hanks, which were twined together to make a slip-on rain cape shaped like a truncated cone. The softer inner bark of yellow cedar was made into robes.