Tribe: The Makah, also spelled "Mukkaw." They call themselves the "Kwih-dich-chuh-ahtx."
Meaning of Name: "Kwih-dich-chuh-ahtx" means "People who live by the rocks and seagulls." The name "Makah" is a mispronunciation of a Salish word meaning, "generous with food." Nonetheless, the Salish were not wrong. The Makah were and probably still are very generous with food.
Location: They own their own reservation on Neah Bay in coastal Washington State. They have been at that location for at least 3,800 years and possibly as long as 9,600 years. There is some indication that they may be related to the Jomon and Ainu people of Japan, the early Polynesians, and therefore to the Valdivians of Ecuador and the Chumash and Kumeyaay of Southern California.
Original Language: Makah, a Nootkan dialect of the Wakashan language family. It is now extinct as a first language, but survives as a second language.
Tribal Affiliations: The Klallam (or Clallam) and the Quileute who live on the same peninsula.
Traditional Enemies: Malak families sometimes fought against other Malak families, especially when it came to fishing rights and family quarrels, but they got along well with their neighbors.
Traditional Style of Housing: The Makah lived during the winter months in villages on the islands of Waadah, Tatoosh, Ozette, Cannon Ball, Bodeltas, and on the island on Lake Ozette. These villages were comprised of multi-generational gabled longhouses that were made of cedar planks which could be removed to let in more light. These longhouses were divided into living quarters for each family, rather like duplexes, triplexes and four-plexes, with mats that hung from the ceiling to set apart the sections. The longhouses could be up to one hundred feet long and often had a totem pole out front in order to advertise the family's importance and history. During the warmer months, the Makah lived in camps in Achawat, Kiddekub and Tatoosh, so that they could be close to the Spring halibut and the Summer salmon, not to mention all of the berries, nuts, seeds and greens that could be gathered during the growing season. (See Traditional Foods.) The Makah also had sweat houses, but I don't know if they were sweat-lodges, per se. They probably also had longhouses that served as town halls, and smokehouses for smoking meats and fish, and menstrual lodges.
Tradition Attire: Because the weather in coastal Washington State was very mild due to the Japanese current, the Malak were not burdened with clothing through most of the year. The women wore skirts made of pounded and softened fibrous cedar bark lined with otter fur, or skirts made out of tule, went barefoot, and wore tunics, fur capes or cloaks, moccasins when it got cold. They wore their hair in one or two long braids, and wore basket-style woven hats. The men either went naked or wore breechcloths. During cold weather, they wore fur-lined cedar-bark tunics, moccasins and their hair coiled into a bun. Some of them wore beards and mustaches (which is unusual for Native Americans) and some of them wore headbands across their foreheads or basket-style woven hats.
Traditional Foods: The men hunted seals, grey whales, right whales, blue whales, fin whales, sperm whales, humpback whales, porpoises, sea otters, beavers and river otters. Seal blubber was used as a condiment, like mayonnaise, ketchup or butter. The Makah men also fished, speared or netted salmon, halibut, lingcod, rockfish, greenling, sea bass, Pacific whiting, anchovies, eels, flounders, herring, Pollock, ray, sand dabs, sea perch, smelt, shark, sculpin, cod, rockfish, steelhead, turtles, candlefish (so called because once dried and wick-ed, it could be used as a candle), whitefish, sole, and octopus. They ate sea snails, the meat from barnacles, King crab, Dungeness crab, other kinds of crab, mussels, scallops, shrimp, geoduck clams, razor clams, other kinds of clams, and oysters. They hunted quail, pheasant, turkeys, geese, bears, deer, elk, moose if necessary, ducks, loons, grebes, pelicans, puffins, swans, hares, rabbits, and other small game when times were lean.
The women, on the other hand, prepared and cooked the meat, fish, sea mammals or shellfish or preserved it by smoking or drying it. Because the land was not conducive to farming and there was so much food around anyway, the women didn't have to rely on gardens to feed their families. Instead, they gathered chokecherries, currants, elderberries, huckleberries, salal berries, gooseberries, wild grapes, Indian plums, raspberries, strawberries, salmonberries, wild blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, camas root, wild carrots, wild onions, dandelion greens, ferns, goosefoot for quinoa, hazelnuts, acorns, miner's lettuce, seaweed, watercress and nettle leaves. The Makah people didn't take more from the land or the sea than they could use or easily trade, and they ate only two big meals a day.
Position of Women: The Chief, or "Head Man" was always a rich man, but the family leaders could be either male or female. Descent was reckoned through the mother's line. The women did the food gathering, the cooking, the meat-smoking, the food-preserving which included making dried cakes out of pulverized berries, the pottery-making, the basket-weaving, pounded the cedar bark into soft fibers and made the clothing, netting and ropes, did the housework, did the childcare, took care of the old people, did the decorating, probably made the wooden platters, and did not seem to have participated much in tribal politics.
Makah Courtship: I could not find anything specific to the Makah people in terms of traditional forms of courtship, other than their preference for musically-complex courtship songs, and the enjoyment of the boy-and-girl Swan Dance and the all-girl Snipe Dance. It is, however, probable that young Makah men had to pay a substantial bride-price demanded by the potential bride's father before he would give up his daughter and her services to the family. It is also very unlikely that Makah girls fell for moonstruck werewolves or glimmering vampires. (The Makah were featured prominently in the "Twilight" books and movies.)
Interesting Tidbits:
The Makah are permitted to kill one baleen whale per year under very specific conditions. They are the only tribe with whaling rights in the United States. The harpoonist gets the saddle-cut, which is the choicest part, and the tribe divides the rest of the carcass according to designated areas, each family getting the same section every year. Every bit of the whale is utilized, prayers are offered for its spirit, and afterwards, there is a huge tribal party and potlatch. Even dead whales that wash up on shore are prayed for and processed for whale oil and bones, since the meat has usually already gone bad....
They used different sizes and types of painted cedar-wood dugout canoes, some with sails, for fishing, whaling, sealing, cargo and war. The larger canoes could hold up to sixty people, and could go twenty miles out to sea where the big whales were. Inflated seal carcasses were hooked up to the dead whale so that it would stay afloat while it was being towed to shore....
Sea otter fur was a valuable trading commodity, and was used to line their clothes. Whale oil was also a valuable trading commodity, and the bones of whales could be used to make a variety of items that were used on a daily basis....
Potlatches were big parties to celebrate different occasions, to boast about accomplishments, to relate oral history, to tell stories, to dance, to sing, to eat a lot of food, to redistribute wealth, and to acquire social status, because the host's social currency went up the more stuff he gave away or destroyed....
White people tried to get the Makah to assimilate by outlawing the Makah language, dances, ceremonies and potlatches and forcing them to move out of their multi-generational longhouses and into single-family dwellings, which did much to destroy the social fabric of the tribe....
The ancient Makah used to play Ping-Pong or table tennis with large paddles, and they took or take daily baths, which, again, made them different than the white people who rarely bathed at all....
While the Makah did not seem to have clans, the crow, the heron, the eagle, the kingfisher, the mink, the raven and the seal seemed to have a special place in their religious story-telling. They are often used in their wooden tribal masks and colorful totem poles....
The entire village of Biheda had to be abandoned because too many people died of smallpox and measles, diseases that did much to wipe out the Makah....
Traditional Religion: The Makah believed in guardian spirits, animals or people who had given special abilities to the living. On the other hand, when a homeowner died, his or her longhouse was either burned to the ground or sold to another family, for fear that his or her ghost would linger on the premises.
Slavery and the Makah: Those who had lost their fortune through bad habits or bad luck, or those who had been captured in war, were sometimes used as slaves to serve in the richer households where they could be made to do the smellier, more disgusting or more tedious jobs.
Current Population: There are over 1200 registered members of the Makah tribe, most of whom live on the reservation.
Current Sources of Tribal Revenue: Fishing, tourism, small businesses, a museum, native arts and crafts, a fish hatchery, several resorts, a marina and sports-fishing, but the poverty-rate of the Makah is still at 51%.
Famous Makah: None.
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