Where did this tribe live?

The Kwakiutl people are indigenous (native) North Americans who live
mostly along the coasts of British Columbia, which is in the northwest
corner of Canada. Today, there are about 5,500 Kwakiutls living here on
the tribe's own reserve, which is land specially designated for Native
American tribes.

What type of clothing did the tribe members wear? Describe it.
Women made short skirts for themselves out of cedar bark, while
Kwakiutl men usually wore nothing at all, but some would wear
loincloths. In colder weather, both genders wore knee-length tunics,
long cloaks of shredded cedar bark and moccasins on their feet. They
also made rain capes and coats from animal skins.
 What materials from their environment did they use to make what
they needed?
They used their hide, blubber, meat and bones. How did the Kwakiutl
adapt to the environment of the Northwest coast? They used wood
from forest for housing, Clothing and equipment they needed to
survive.

What are some of the things they made?

They lived in large rectangular houses made from cedar wood. They
made dugout canoes from the trunks of cedar trees. The Kwakiutl got
most of their food by fishing and hunting deer and moose.

What kind of food did they eat?

The Kwakiutl's location along the coastline allowed them to utilize the
ocean as a constant food source. They commonly trapped fish such as
salmon and herring. Salmon was able to be caught in abundance during
the spawning season due to exhaustion caused by swimming upstream.
Other sea life such as seals and whales were caught and used as food,
as was shellfish. The Kwakiutl used harpoons when hunting large
marine mammals and a wide variety of devices to trap land and sea
animals.
They ate beaver, deer, rabbit too. Caribou was a major source of food.
They also used the skins, antlers and bones.

What kind of games did they play?

What did the Kwakiutl tribe do for fun? They do the same things any
children do–play with each other, go to school and help around the
house. Many Kwakiutl children like to go hunting and fishing with their
fathers. They also had dolls and toys. In the past, Indian kids had more
chores and less time to play, just like early colonial children.

What kind of house did they live in? How did they build them?
The Kwakiutl lived in long, narrow houses called long houses or plank
houses. Up to 50 people from the same clan would live in one house.
Totem poles are ceremonial statues that were carved by many of the
tribes in the Pacific Northwest.

INTERESTING FACTS

1. Their name for themselves means “those who speak Kwakwala.”

Although the name Kwakiutl is often applied to all the peoples of
that group, it is the name of only one band of Kwakwaka’wakw.
They speak a Wakashan language that includes three major
dialects: Haisla, spoken on the Gardner Canal and Douglas
Channel; Heiltsuk, spoken from Gardner Canal to Rivers Inlet; and
southern Kwakiutl, spoken from Rivers Inlet to Cape Mudge on
the mainland and on the northern end of Vancouver Island.

2. The Kwakiutl contributed extensively to the early development

of anthropology as the subjects of ethnographic studies by
pioneering scholar Franz Boas. In more than 5,000 pages written
 over almost half a century, Boas described and analyzed nearly
every aspect of Kwakiutl culture and its relationships to
other Northwest Coast Indians with whom the tribe shared
general features of technology, economy, art, myths, and religion.

3. Traditionally, the Kwakiutl subsisted mainly by fishing and had a

technology based on woodworking. Their society was stratified by
rank, which was determined primarily by the inheritance of names
and privileges; the latter could include the right to sing certain
songs, use certain crests, and wear particular ceremonial masks.