Emanuel Ornelas Mr. Zontek History 214 8 January 2023 Pacific Northwest Text #1 In “The Pacific Northwest,” by Carlos Arnaldo Schwantes, we will be talking about Chapters 1 and Chapter 2. From the sense of place of the Pacific Northwest such as Washington, Oregon and Idaho and its contents such as agriculture and weather, to the tribes on how they lived and provided for their village learning how they tended to hunt and their society. The theme for Chapter 1 of “The Pacific Northwest” by Arnoldo Schwantes is Environmental Essentials. The boundaries of the Pacific Northwest consists of states such as Idaho, Washington, and Oregon ranging from mountains to rivers to canyons across the states. Across this 250,000 square mile region it is divided as Schwantes states, “Countless miles of border divide and subdivide the regions variegated landscape into counties, cities, national parks, monuments, national and state forests and even soil conservation districts.” (1989, Pg 1). Mountains stretch across north California to the Olympic peninsula. These mountains affect the weather and precipitation affecting agriculture, high mountains affecting rainfall, “Farmed for its soil, the Palouse country that surrounds Pullman and overlaps a portion of the Washington-Idaho border is one of the most productive wheat growing regions,” (1989 Pg12). Which in the region it helped with growing wheat. The environment of the Pacific Northwest consists of rivers such as the Columbia River and Snake River. The Colorado River, being its longest river extending 1270 miles (about 2043.87 km) through mountain ranges draining to the Pacific Ocean, “The Columbia River has been a vital transportation link and highway of history, a source of irrigation and hydroelectric power,” (1989 Pg 13). Many of the Pacific Northwest’s environment was essential not only to the people living in it but the animals and agriculture. The theme for chapter 2 of “The Pacific Northwest,” by Arnoldo Schwantes is Society. The Pacific Northwest consists of many tribes throughout the states from the coast to plateau to the great basin, each having subgroups and doing their daily activities differently from one another including their ceremonies, trading, and hunting. There were the Nootkas. They practiced ceremonial rituals and they main food was fish due to being on the coast as Schwantes explains, “The main substance was the sea. Fromut the Indians skimmed an abundance of fish and other marine life.” (1989, Pg26). With this they cured kelp stems making strong fishing lines. Indians of the coast were an extended family called the Tlingits having a subgroup of 14 tribes ranging from North America to Southern Alaska to northern California even Southern British Columbia to Northern Oregon. Such as the Nootkas and Makahs began whale hunting. Being from the Coast they tend to be hunters and gathers and as Schwantes says, “Land mammals were more difficult to exploit, and therefore Coast peoples practiced hunting only to a limited extent,” (1989 Pg29). Allowing them to have an abundance of food. The coast celebrated ceremonies from performances to the most studied ceremonies from anthropologists, Potlach, as Schwantes explains it, “two powerful rivals might give away and destroy valuable trade goods and money during the course of the contest.” (1989 Pg 31). Often river valleys and watersheds divided the Indians of the plateau where they lived in the Cascades to the Rockies living near water streams. These settlements were led by leaders but apart from other they are not chosen from generation to generation but from selection says Schwantes, “Each settlement was usually autonomous unit with its own leaders most of whom had gained their standing through democratic methods of selected rather than by heredity,” (1989 Pg33). Horses were introduced where the Nez Perce took from Shoshoni Indians which are Nez Perce rival, they used these horses for bison hunting which led them to trade goods, and use of clothing and tools. Most of Indians of the Great Basin were small and dispersed across Southern Idaho, Eastern Oregon, Nevada, and Utah was common they named their subgroups after foods in their settlements Schwantes explains, “It was common for Shoshonis to name their subgroups after the food most abundant in their customary dwelling grounds,” (1989 Pg 35-36). Many of the neighboring tribes referred to these as snake Indians due to them using snakes on their sticks. Throughout the Pacific Northwest and the expansion of their contents, many tribes lived in different climates whether that would be from heavy rain to low rainfall to lush forests or dy lands even coming across them living in between the mountains where provided them with rain or no rain. Many tribes used either the coast to hunt for their food and hunt since they lived nowhere near animals that they could really use to provide for themselves such as Nez Perce hunted on horseback for bison. Every tribe is different in the way they do their routines but each of them has special unique ways.
