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: Settlements and Housing
Most groups built villages near waterways or the coast. Usually home sites and settlements were limited to narrow beaches or terraces because the land fell so steeply to the shore or riverbank. Like other hunting and gathering peoples, Northwest Coast Indians had seasonal settlements. Summer was the time for catching and gathering food and processing it for winter storage. In this season a house usually had several bases of operation. The members divided themselves into small groups that moved between good fishing and berry-picking sites. In the winter most people lived in their kin group’s main building, which was usually in a village on the coast. Most villages had several such buildings, each one the home base of a large extended family group. There was also at least one very large structure in which the highest-ranking group lived and where the village could hold a large potlatch, or celebration. Northwest Coast Indians made their houses with wood from the forests, usually red cedar.