Indians of the Northwest Coast

Abstract

specimens on exhibition more meaningful by describing the way in which they formed a part of the lives of the aboriginal people of the Northwest Coast.Only fragments are to be found today of the aboriginal civilizations described in these pages.Many of the Indians of the coast are nowadays commercial fishermen and loggers.Most of them are more at home with gasoline and Diesel engines than with the canoes of their forefathers.Membership in one or another Christian church is universal.The ancient art style has very nearly disappeared.Men no longer have time to carve and paint when they have to make a living in the competitive modern society.Here and there a few relics of ancient patterns have been preserved more or less deliberately.Some groups occasionally still give festivals and feasts in the ancient potlatch tradition; others retain certain of the ancient social forms, such as the clan organization.A few Chilkat Tlingit women weave the traditional type of robe.Among other groups the women still make basketry or cedarbark mats.But aside from these fragments and the people's pride in their identity as Indians, Northwest Coast culture must be regarded as having disappeared, engulfed by that of the modern United States and Canada.

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