The peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America live along a narrow strip of land that extends from the mouth of the Columbia River north to Yakutat Bay in Alaska. Cut off, for the most part, from the tribes around them by the rugged, impenetrably forested mountains that rise from the sea, and relatively isolated from one another by the scarcity of habitable beach sites, they developed a variety of distinct but intertwined local traditions.

For the sake of convenience, the Northwest Coast culture area has been divided into three subareas: the northern area is inhabited by the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples; the central by the Bella Coola, Nootka, and Kwakiutl groups; and the southern by the Coast Salish and Chinookan tribes of the Washington and Oregon coasts. While the cultures within each...