Native American Indian Unit: Kwakiutl

This is just about exactly where the tribe is located. Say it, the sun's doing like funny stuff. It's coming down over here and it's hitting me in the face, and I keep dodging it, but it just doesn't seem to want to play nicely with me. So I apologize. Get out your map right now, or hit pause and swipe over to the PDF file on your Shelby. App. And if you would, please put a nice ring around this region right here and write down in that ring, guac, go ahead, hit pause, I'll wait. Are you done? Good. And that pause thing, wonderful. All right. Moving on, what do the quacky eat? Well, they had a rather diverse diet. That they ate a lot of fish. They lived on the ocean, they lived by the ocean. If they didn't catch any fish, they went hungry. The oodles men were the fishermen. And they caught fish and sea mammals from their canoes, and they also hunted deer and birds in small games, small game being beavers, rabbit, squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, whatever they can really get, whatever they could get ahold of. What was Crockett little food like in the days before a supermarket? Well, you see, they didn't have any word to go. There was no Kroger. There were no publics, and they just couldn't walk down to the corner store and grab what they needed. 

So while the men were out fishing, the women were out gathering. And they were gathering clams and shellfish from the shallows. They were also gathering seaweed. Berries, roots, anything that they could find as they went out wandering in looking for food. Now for those of you going to see weed. You ever had sushi? You know that little green band that they put around the rice to hold it all together? Yeah. Seaweed. And seaweed chips. Tasty. And rumor has it, at least once upon a time, McDonald's. Used to put seaweed in their milkshakes to make them thicker. True story, look it up. Clothing, what did they wear? Well, not much apparently. The guac of little men usually didn't wear clothing at all. And this is in public school. I know, I know, all right, you done screaming yet good. Though some might have worn what was called a breech clout or a breech cloth, it depends on who you talk to. And this essentially was just a long, more or less a dish towel, that you would kind of wear up under your legs there. And you would use a small belt to tie it together. So it wouldn't fall down. Awkward. 

On the breech clout, they would also tie on legs if it got chilly. Yep, it legs did not come with it. They actually tie these onto that little skinny ring right here. And leggings would get tight on right there at the waist. They also wore the women rather wore short skirts made of Cedar bark. And in cold weather, both genders would wear knee length tunics long cloaks of shredded Cedar bark and moccasins for their feet. Now I know what you're thinking. Really? Well, what they would do is they get the big chunk of bark off of the tree, and they would peel it off layer after layer after layer after layer. And these layers were thin, more or less kind of like paper or paper towel. And they sit and they roll it and they grind it up and they make it softer and then they would just layer it on layer after layer after layer and tie it off with, again, with another rope or another piece of twine or something. And this was actually a quite warm V kept The Rain off of them and see, it wasn't terribly uncomfortable. Yes, these gentlemen here to the left is an actual quacky little Indian. This was a picture taken in the late 1800s in very traditional garb. He looks absolutely thrilled to be sitting for this picture. 

I must say. This picture on the right is a color picture, a modern picture at a local festival taken some years ago, but this again is the Cedar bark type gowns that they would wear. They look rather warm. Albeit not terribly comfortable sun get out of my face. Quacky oodle for formal occasions would wear more elaborate outfits with tunics and leggings and cloaks painted when tribal designs also using bright colors died with local berries and colors and stuff that would be used to make the paint as well. They are known for their theatrical productions and they're very elaborate dances. And celebrations. Again, this is an original picture taken back in the 1800s of a kaki ugu tribe in one of their longhouses, spoiler. And again, notice these mass, I mean, this is I'm not sure what kind of bird this is, a sea gallery or what, but I mean, that's got to be four or 5, 6, 8 feet long. It's huge. And this guy scary. The quacky oodles didn't wear long headdresses, like the Sioux. Instead, both men and women sometimes wore basket hats. Yes, hats made of baskets. Right? They served two functions, a, they were a hat, and they were used to keep the sun off of their head, keep them warm, but B, they were used for baskets, as the wandering along the trails, and all the berries. 

They'd take their hat off and fill the hat up with berries and now they had something to carry all those berries back to the longhouse with for everyone to share any. The designs of the patterns of these hats often displayed a person's status in the community and the family connections. This woman, as I'm told, was the Indian chiefs wife and isn't she a vision of loveliness. Gorgeous? Gorgeous. I love what the nose ring does that just really brings out your cheekbones. Shelter. Where did we live? Well, this is the cool part. We lived in really big houses called longhouses. They lived in coastal villages right on the ocean. And they lived in rather big rectangular Cedar plank houses made from bark roofs, usually these houses were large, upwards of a hundred feet long, or about a third of a football field. Each of the one houses served several people several families from the same clan, and as many as 50 people were living in one house. But here's the kind of part that makes it a little awkward. Oh wait, I'll wait for awkward. This is what an outside of the house would look like. They would be painted and decorated with clan symbols that would reflect the family inside, and it was often a totem pole outside. 

Now all these faces and carvings in totem poles were used to frighten away evil spirits. Oh, because they thought, which I didn't mean to push that because they thought that the spirits were walking around the Woods, these bad evil spirits and, you know, sickness and disease and all of these things were caused by evil spirits. And what was thought was that they put these big scary guys up in these big scary houses and these big scary totem poles that the spirit would just kind of walk up and do. I'm a big evil spirit at all. Oh no, big smiley face on the door. And they turn around and run away. At least that's what they thought. Now, here's the awkward part I mentioned before. This is what the inside of a quacking uzo long house might look like. Are you noticing anything? Say perhaps the lack of rooms, the lack of walls, the lack of any kind of privacy whatsoever, 50 people all living in one great big room. Imagine your entire classroom and another fourth grade classroom, all living together in the gym. Good times, right? Inside the plank house, there was a pit for a fire in the middle in which would be right here and right over the pit was conveniently enough a hole in the roof that would let the smoke go straight up and out. 

It was used for both light for warmth and also for cooking. Also the floor was slightly raised around with the outside of the pit for like a second level for seating and for sleeping and there was a third level up, which was a bedroom area around the perimeter of the longhouse, and this is where everybody would sleep. And this back here is this third area that everybody would just kind of curl up around the whole house and everybody would lay down and what happens if grandpa nors? Nobody gets any rest tonight. Totems. This is something unique to this region and in particular to the quacky noodles. They're totems were one solid tree truck. And they would cut it off at the top up here. And then they would carve out of it many different figures, in order of importance, the most important being on top, and then the second, the third and the fourth, and the 5th, and so on and so forth. These wings here were actually carved out of grooves. They would carve these out of separate pieces of wood, and then card grooves into the side of the tree. And then you just push them right in there. This is another example of a totem, pretty cool I think. Dragons coming up out of the ground, shoot with fire. This is a colorized photo, but it just really helps to bring out some of the details that were put into the totem. And the carving and they're absolutely gorgeous pieces of artwork. And I believe that's all we got. Thank you all for watching. This was a number three. Y'all have a great night. You see you later.