The people of the Plateau region, relied heavily on the natural resources of the area that they inhabited. A large majority of the Plateau people were hunters and gatherers.
Hunting
Due to the geography and environment of the Plateau lands, there were many animals that lived in the region. The men of the Plateau were skillful hunters, and they hunted a wide variety of the animals for food. The two species of animals that they hunted the most were Deer and Caribou. In Plateau culture the men were expected to hunt for deer, particularly the Whitetail deer. Overtime men who acquired special abilities (physical and spiritual), became recognized as the 'professional' hunters. The professional hunters were the ones who hunted Bears and Mountain sheep.
Animals / Food
Along with hunting Caribou, Deer, Bear and Mountain sheep, the Plateau people also hunted other (smaller) animals for furs and food. Such as: Coyote, Fox, Racoon, Porcupine, Marten, Weasel, Beaver, Marmot, and Hare.
Hunting: Weapons and Techniques
When Hunting the men would be equipped / armed with double curved or a flat type bow and arrows; they also used spears, harpoons, club bolts and slings. The bow and arrow constituted the primary weapon for hunting and war, until the Europeans introduced guns. To trap the animals men used nets, deadfalls, snares, lassos, pits, and game corals. The Plateau People also drove game over cliffs, stampeded them with fire, or drove them into water to be speared from a canoe. The Plateau Peoples rode horses when hunting, because it saved energy and gave them the necessary speed to catch and attack their prey, it was also a great source of transportation.
Fishing
The Plateau People were talented and advanced Hunters, though the majority of their food came from fishing the local rivers and lakes. All the fishing was done by the men, as it was considered a 'responsibility'. The Pacific Salmon was the single most important food to the survival of the Plateau People. Large Salmon runs would occur during the late summer and early fall seasons, this happened when large volumes of Pacific Salmon would come from the ocean and enter the interior rivers to spawn. Through these rivers the Plateau People caught the majority of their Salmon / food.
Fish Catching Methods, created and utilized by the Plateau People:
Fish Catching Methods, created and utilized by the Plateau People:
- Salmon weirs (large traps) would be set up in public rivers to catch the salmon.
- Weirs would catch a large number of fish / Salmon as they attempted to swim upstream to spawn.
- In certain areas where salmon was particularly abundant, they the scooped the fish from the water using a dip net or basket.
- Men would set up wooden platforms that hung out over the river, and would use spears or dip nets to catch the fish.
Gathering
The woman of the Plateau region had the job of doing all the gathering. They would gather berries, roots, and bulbs for food and medicine. Raspberries were one of the local berries that were collected and ate. For gathering roots and other berries Special baskets were used. After the berries would be picked, they would be dried, this was a way of preserving them for the winter months, this too was the duty of the woman.
Food Preperation
Like Gathering it was the woman's job to prepare all of the food for her family. There were multiple ways to prepare the meat or fish to eat fresh, one of the ways consisted of roasting it on spits over the fire, another technique was baking it in the ashes of the fire, or boiling it in baskets with hot rocks and water. Most of the food was caught in the summer months, so to last them through the winter they would preserve the food to keep it from spoiling, until a later time to eat it. Because the Plateau People preserved so much food, smoked and dried meat and fish were more important to them than fresh meat and fish, this was because smoked food stayed preserved longer, which meant they could eat it in the tougher months. Woman would clean the salmon, cut them into fillets and hang them out in the sun to dry.
Tools
The Plateau people used tools made from bone (arrow heads), wood (nets and carvings), and stone (spears and cutting tools), and were decorated with carvings, copper, feathers, and beads. They sometimes also used feathers and coloured cloth to decorate their spears.
Works cited
Websites:
"The Plateau People ( Food / Hunting)" Canada's First Peoples.
http://firstpeoplesofcanada.com/
"Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau" Wikipedia the free encyclopedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Northwest_Plateau
"Aboriginal People: Plateau" Historica Canada. (Webcat)
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-people-plateau/
"Plateau indians" AAANativeArts.com.
http://www.aaanativearts.com/colville-tribe/plateau-indians.htm
Image source: Google (images)
Carter Thompson
Social Studies 9
(2-2)
Teacher: Ms. Sinclair
May 2016