Northwest Coast Peoples Vocabulary

Growing crops, raising livestock, and farming.

• textile

• agriculture

• immunity

• clan

A fence or dam put in a stream to catch fish.

• textile

• boat

• weir

• extinction

A group of people with a common ancestry.

• textile

• adobe

• Anasazi

• clan

An important event, such as a wedding, the naming of a child, or a coming-of-age ceremony, was marked with a big feast called a ___________________.

• potlatch

• immunity

• cradleboard

• raw material

An outbreak of disease that spreads quickly.

• epidemic

• cradleboard

• immunity

• weir

Babies spent the first year of life in a _______________, which a mother could strap to her back or lean against a tree while she worked.

• crib

• cradleboard

• raw material

• totem

A condition when all members of a group or species die out.

• textile

• shaman

• extinction

• reservation

When very young, some boys and girls were chosen to become medicine people, or ______________.

• Anasazi

• Hopis

• weirs

• shamans

Both governments set up _____________ (called reserves in Canada).

• adobes

• lands

• reservations

• spirit quest

A rite of passage in which young people discover their life’s purpose.

• spirit quest

• hunt

• spirit weir

• textiles