Chinook Native Americans: Clothing

What makes the Chinook people really different from the other tribes is that they do not usually wear any Chinook Native Americans Clothing at all, especially the men. This is very ironic because despite the cold climate that the northwest has, still, they seem to not mind it at all. However, this is not the case for all men, as there are still those that were a minimal amount of clothing in the likes of a breechcloth. For them, too much Chinook Native Americans Clothing distracts their body which is considered to be sacred.

The women usually wore short skirts that are made from the bark of cedar trees and even grass. They Chinooks are very different in terms of the lifestyle and sexuality of the white settlers and the Europeans. This makes them be treated as a very different tribe from the other tribes, as recorded by European explorers.

Chinook Native Americans Clothing

During the rainy season, the Chinooks wore with them tulles rush capes as this absorbed the rainwater. In cold weather, especially during the winter months, they wore fur robes as well as moccasins on their feet.  These are from the animal skin that they hunted.

After the initial influence of the Europeans, the Makah people then started to wear blanket robes. This is where the famous depiction of a Native American comes from.

Chinook Native Americans Clothing

What did the Chinook Tribe Wear

What sets apart the Chinooks from the Sioux is that they do not wear long dresses and clothes that cover most of their bodies. For them, it was only a distraction and it limited their movements, believing that their productivity lowers down if they were to wear long dresses.

Chinook Men and Women Wear

What they did instead is letting the men and women wear a basket hat that is made from a fine woven spruce root. With this, one can say that every natural resource that the Chinook people have been used. They do not put things to waste because everything is interconnected with them in the circle of life.

Painting their faces was also a custom for the Chinooks as this showed their status and power in the society. The paint varies from one another. Sometimes it depicts warfare, sometimes it speaks of religious ceremonies, and sometimes when somebody dies, the immediate family paints their faces to show their grief and mourning. Tattoos are not only limited to the men because the women also have tribal tattoos that are in the form of geometric designs.

Most of them have long hair and they do not care about tying it down. They wanted it to lose. This is why most Europeans call them as one of the most primitive tribes in a perspective that they do not have braids or any form of hair tying tool. Through the passing of years, the women were influenced by other native tribes, thus learning how to braid their hair.

Today, the Chinook people are now wearing modern clothes, although some of them still wear basket hats and breech clothes for ceremonial and traditional purposes.

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