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: 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. The buildings were rectangular and up to 100 feet (30.5 meters) long. The Indians built a framework of cedar posts and attached planks to form the walls and roof. The planks could be taken down, loaded onto canoes, and moved from one site to another. Most homes had a central fire pit. In northwestern California, at the southernmost limit of the culture area, people built smaller houses for single-family use.