chinook

Warm dry wind that blows downhill on the east side of the Rocky Mountains of North America. It often occurs in winter and spring when it produces a rapid thaw, and so is important to the agriculture of the area.

Chinook

Member of a group of American Indian people who inhabited the Pacific northwest coast and Columbia River regions of Oregon and Washington. Their language belonged to the Penutian family. The Chinook were great traders, bartering fish products, furs, cedar, carvings, and slaves. They evolved a special trading language, known as Chinook Jargon, that was used from California to Alaska, and was a mixture of English, French, Penutian-Chinook, Nootka, and other American Indian terms. Like other Pacific coast peoples they practised the potlatch ceremony, competitive gift-giving to enhance prestige. Although brought to near extinction by European diseases, today the Chinook live on reservations in Washington and Oregon.

The Chinook's subgroups were the Clatsop and Kathlamet of northern Oregon, and the Wahkiakum of southern Washington. Their rectangular homes, made of cedar planks, were dug halfway into the ground. Salmon, which was abundant in the region, was a staple in the Chinook diet. Their crafts included horn carvings, and they also produced dried fish and fish oils for barter. They sometimes charged other peoples a fee to travel on the Columbia River. Potlatch ceremonies sometimes lasted for days, accompanied by feasting, singing, and dancing. The Chinook also celebrated the first salmon run, and adolescent males and females had to undertake a spirit quest by which they believed they would acquire skills in hunting and curing.

The first recorded contact between Europeans and the Chinook was in 1788 when the explorer John Meares sailed into Willapa Bay. In 1805 the US explorers Lewis and Clark encountered the Chinook. Many died from disease after contact with European explorers and settlers, an epidemic of 1829 destroying over half the Chinook. Some of the survivors joined the nearby Chehalis people of Washington and adopted their Salishan language.