Santa Barbara were at least variants, living upon sea food, having some wood work, making plank canoes, and excellent workers of stone, bone, and shell. In northern California are again the Karok, Yurok, Wishosk, Shasta, and Hupa and other Athapascan tribes; here sea food on the coast and salmon in the interior rival acorns and other foods; dug-out canoes; rectangular gabled houses of planks with circular doors; basketry almost exclusively twined; elkhorn and wooden trinket boxes; elkhorn spoons; stone work superior to that of central California; the occasional use of rod, slat, and elkskin armor and also basket hats of the northern type. These all suggest the culture farther north (Area 4), as do the appearance of carving and the more elaborate decorative art. Also, social organization becomes more definite, with clear-cut property distinctions, mourning ceremonies, and the secret initiations are wanting; and the use of stuffed albino deerskins in certain ceremonies is distinctive. Even the mythology is said to have leanings toward that of the North and East.
4. North Pacific Coast Area. Ranging northward from California to the Alaskan peninsula we have an ethnic coast belt, known as the North Pacific Coast area.[1] This culture is rather complex and presents highly individualized tribal variations; but can be consistently treated under three subdivisions: (a) the northern group, Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian; (b) the central group, the Kwakiutl tribes and the Bellacoola; and (c) the southern group, the Coast Salish, the Nootka, the Chinook, Kalapooian, Waiilatpuan, Chimakuan, and some Athapascan tribes. The first of these seem to be the type and are characterized by: the great dependence upon sea food, some hunting upon the mainland, large use of berries; dried fish, clams, and berries are the staple food; cooking with hot stones in boxes and baskets; large rectangular gabled houses of upright cedar planks with carved posts and totem poles; travel chiefly by water in large, sea-going dug-out canoes, some of which had sails; no pottery nor stone vessels, except mortars; baskets in checker, those in twine reaching a high state of excellence among the Tlingit; coil basketry not made; mats of cedar bark and soft bags in
- ↑ Boas, 1906. I; Krause, 1885. I.
