Chinook are an Indigenous (native) people of the Pacific Northwest. About 1,500 Chinook live in the United States. Most live in Washington and Oregon. They once lived in fishing villages at the mouth of the Columbia River in what is now Washington. The Chinook belong to a larger group of Native Americans that anthropologists call Chinookans. The Chinookans include other peoples who lived along the Columbia and Willamette rivers and spoke languages similar to the Chinook language. The Chinookans have intermarried with members of other Indigenous groups or with non-Indigenous peoples. They now make a living by fishing, ranching, and other activities.
In traditional Chinook society, people were divided into three groups. The chiefs and their families belonged to the wealthy, dominant class. The common people had fewer possessions of their own. Slaves, captured in raids or acquired by trading with other Native American groups, formed the lowest group and were considered as property. The Chinooks made their living by trading, by fishing, and by gathering berries, nuts, and roots. Like other northwest coast tribes, the Chinook practiced the potlatch, a ceremony in which a host would gain social status by giving away possessions.
Europeans encountered Chinooks in 1792 when explorers sailed into the mouth of the Columbia River. The Lewis and Clark expedition also encountered the Chinook in 1805. During the 1800’s, white people and other Indigenous people in the region learned a simplified form of the Chinook language in order to make trading easier. The Chinooks became known for their skill in dealing with explorers and settlers. However, a series of epidemics in the 1800’s destroyed most Chinookan societies. During the early 1900’s, the remaining Chinookans moved to reservations and small towns in Oregon and Washington.
