The Quileute () are a Native American people in western

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

state in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, with 808 enrolled members as of 3/14/2018. They are a

federally recognized tribe This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...

: the ''Quileute Tribe of the Quileute Reservation''. The Quileute people lost their territory after signing the

Quinault Treaty The Quinault Treaty (also known as the Quinault River Treaty and the Treaty of Olympia) was a treaty agreement between the United States and the Native American Quinault and Quileute tribes located in the western Olympic Peninsula north of Grays ...

in 1855, but regained one square mile after President Cleveland signed an executive order creating the

Quileute Indian Reservation The Quileute Indian Reservation is an Indian reservation for the Quileute people located on the northwestern Olympic Peninsula in Clallam County, Washington, United States. The reservation is at the mouth of the Quillayute River on the Pacific coas ...

(). Their reservation is located near the southwest corner of

Clallam County, Washington Clallam County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 77,155, with an estimated population of 78,209 in 2021. The county seat ...

, at the mouth of the

Quillayute River The Quillayute River (also spelled Quileute River) is a river situated on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. It empties to the Pacific Ocean at La Push, Washington. The Quillayute River is formed by the confluence of the Bogachiel River, Cal ...

on the

Pacific coast Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean. Geography Americas Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western or southwestern border, except for Panama, where the Pac ...

. They are part of the

Coast Salish The Coast Salish is a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in the Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. They speak one of the Coas ...

people (Pacific Northwest Coast) and the

Quinault people The Quinault ( or ) are a group of Native American peoples from western Washington in the United States. They are a Southwestern Coast Salish people and are enrolled in the federally recognized Quinault Tribe of the Quinault Reservation. The na ...

(Washington State). The reservation's main population center is the community of

La Push, Washington La Push is a small unincorporated community situated at the mouth of the Quillayute River in Clallam County, Washington, United States. La Push is the largest community within the Quileute Indian Reservation, which is home to the federally recogni ...

. The 2000 census reported an official resident population of 371 people on the reservation, which has a land area of 4.061 km² (1.5678 sq mi, or 1,003.4

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s). The Quileute language belongs to the

Chimakuan The Chimakuan languages are a group of extinct languages that were spoken in northwestern Washington state, United States, on the Olympic Peninsula. They were spoken by Chimakum, Quileute and Hoh tribes. They are part of the Mosan sprachbund, a ...

family of languages among Northwest Coast indigenous peoples. The Quileute language is an isolate, as the only related indigenous people to the Quileute, the

Chimakum The Chimakum, also spelled Chemakum and Chimacum are a near extinct Native American people (known to themselves as Aqokúlo and sometimes called the Port Townsend Indians), who lived in the northeastern portion of the Olympic Peninsula in Washin ...

, were destroyed by

Chief Seattle Chief Seattle ( – June 7, 1866) was a Suquamish and Duwamish chief. A leading figure among his people, he pursued a path of accommodation to white settlers, forming a personal relationship with "Doc" Maynard. The city of Seattle, in th ...

and the

Suquamish The Suquamish () are a Lushootseed-speaking Native American people, located in present-day Washington in the United States. They are a southern Coast Salish people. Today, most Suquamish people are enrolled in the federally recognized Suquami ...

people during the 1860s. The Quileute language is one of only six known languages lacking nasal sounds (i.e., ''m'' and ''n''). Like many Northwest Coast nations, in precontact times the Quileute relied on fishing from local rivers and the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

for food. They built plank houses (

longhouses A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from timber and often rep ...

) to protect themselves from the harsh, wet winters west of the

Cascade Mountains The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, ...

Government

The Quileute tribe is governed by a democratically elected tribal council, who served in staggered, three-year terms. The tribe's current administration is: * Chairman: Douglas Woodruff Jr. * Elder Vice-Chairman: Tony Foster * Secretary: Skyler Foster * Treasurer: Rio Jaime * Member at Large: James Salazar The General Manager is responsible for coordinating with the Tribal Programs, providing guidance and direction to the Business Enterprises, and direct supervision over the Administrative Staff. * General Manager: Bryan Cramer

Artwork and material culture

Historically the Quileute were talented builders and craftsmen. Like many other tribes in the region, they were boat and canoe makers. They could make canoes for whaling, which could hold tons of cargo and many men. They had cedar canoes ranging in size from small boats that could hold two people to giant vessels up to long and capable of holding up to 6,000 pounds. The modern

clipper ship A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century Merchant ship, merchant Sailing ship, sailing vessel, designed for speed. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had ...

's hull uses a design much like the canoes used by the Quileutes. The Quileutes used the resources from the land to make tools and other items. In the region, almost everything was made out of wood. Necessities like utensils, clothing, weapons, and paints were made from the available natural resources. In terms of arts and crafts, the Quileute Tribe is best known for their woven baskets and dog-hair blankets. The tribe would raise specially bred, woolly dogs for their hair, which they would spin and weave into blankets. They would also weave incredibly fine baskets that were so tightly woven that they could hold water. They could boil water in some of them. Using cedar bark, they made waterproof skirts and hats to shield their bodies against the heavy rainfall in the region.

Ethnobotany

The Quileute have extensive knowledge of the medicinal qualities of their homelands' flora. They use

velvetleaf huckleberries ''Vaccinium myrtilloides'' is a shrub with common names including common blueberry, velvetleaf huckleberry, velvetleaf blueberry, Canadian blueberry, and sourtop blueberry. It is common in much of North America, reported from all 10 Canadian provi ...

, ''Vaccinium myrtilloides'', by eating the uncooked berries, stewing the berries to make a sauce, and canning the berries and using them as food.

Religion and cosmology

The Quileute's belief system holds that every person had an individual guardian. They would pray to the guardian, along with the sun and Tsikáti (the universe). Much of their original religion was lost after the disruption of European encounter, diseases, losses and colonization. James Island, an island visible from First Beach, has played a role in all aspects of Quileute beliefs and culture. Originally called ''A-Ka-Lat'' ("Top of the Rock"), it was used as a fortress to keep opposing tribes out and served as a burial ground for chiefs. As told much in their folklore, the Quileute descended from wolves. Quileute myths proclaim that the two-sided mythical character known as ''Dokibatt'' and ''K’wa’iti'' was responsible for creating the first human of the Quileute tribe by transforming a wolf. In the beginning there were five tribal societies that represented the elk hunter, the whale hunter, the fisherman, the weather predictor, and the

medicine man A medicine man or medicine woman is a traditional healer and spiritual leader who serves a community of Indigenous people of the Americas. Individual cultures have their own names, in their respective languages, for spiritual healers and ceremo ...

. The medicine man honored the creator with the wolf dance. Quileute folklore is still very much alive in the area of the Quileute Nation near La Push.

Language

The Quileute tribe speaks a language called Quileute or Quillayute, which is part of the

family of languages. The

, who also spoke a Chimakuan language (called Chemakum, Chimakum, or Chimacum,) were the only other group of people to speak a language from this

language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...

. In 1999, the last native speaker of the Quileute language died, meaning the language is considered extinct, although three or four users in their 50s retain some knowledge of vocabulary. Up until then, it was spoken only by tribal elders at

La Push La Push is a small unincorporated area, unincorporated community situated at the mouth of the Quillayute River in Clallam County, Washington, Clallam County, Washington (state), Washington, United States. La Push is the largest community within th ...

, and some of the

Makah The Makah (; Klallam: ''màq̓áʔa'')Renker, Ann M., and Gunther, Erna (1990). "Makah". In "Northwest Coast", ed. Wayne Suttles. Vol. 7 of ''Handbook of North American Indians'', ed. William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institut ...

. Quileute is one of the 13 known languages that are recorded to have no

nasal consonant In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...

s. The tribe is now trying to prevent the loss of the language by teaching it in the Quileute Tribal School, using books written for the students by the tribal elders. The Quileute Nation Culture and Language Committee released a language and culture app in 2021 in an effort to preserve the language and culture of their people. Efforts to introduce Quileute phrases into everyday life was started in 2007 through the Quileute Revitalization Project, by providing tribe members with accessible information on basic vocabulary words and phrases. The Quileute Nation has continued this project through downloadable alphabet sheets and providing audiobooks read in Quileute.

Colonization

The Quileute relationship with

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

ans and

Euro-American European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent Eu ...

s began with encounters between the Quileute and the crews of European ships. Quileute tradition suggests that the earliest encounter was with Spanish sailors who shipwrecked somewhere north of La Push. Another potential early encounter was with the crew of the Spanish

schooner A schooner () is a type of sailing vessel defined by its rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than the mainmast. A common variant, the topsail schoon ...

''Sonora'', captained by

Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra (22 May 1743 – 26 March 1794) was a Spanish Criollo naval officer operating in the Americas. Assigned to the Pacific coast Spanish Naval Department base at San Blas, in Viceroyalty of New Spain (present ...

in 1775. The ''Sonora'' encountered several Indians in the waters near the mouth of the

Quinault River Quinault may refer to: * Quinault people, an Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast **Quinault Indian Nation, a federally recognized tribe **Quinault language, their language People * Quinault family of actors, including * Jean-Baptis ...

. After some trading, the encounter culminated in bloodshed with several Indians killed, and six Spaniards killed or enslaved. While the encounter is generally considered to have been between the

and the Spanish, some authors believe the encounter may have involved the Quileute. In 1787, a small boat crew from the ''

Imperial Eagle The eagle is used in heraldry as a charge, as a supporter, and as a crest. Heraldic eagles can be found throughout world history like in the Achaemenid Empire or in the present Republic of Indonesia. The European post-classical symbolism of the ...

'' was killed by Indians near

Destruction Island Destruction Island (also known historically as Green Island) is a island located approximately off the Washington coast. Home to seabirds, shorebirds, and marine mammals, it is part of the Quillayute Needles National Wildlife Refuge. The Hoh ...

. The '' Columbia'' traded for furs with the village of La Push in 1792. The Russian schooner '' Nikolai'' ran aground on a beach north of the

in 1808. The crew was killed or enslaved. Quileute tradition has many accounts of un-dated shipwrecks. One is of a French side-wheeled

paddle steamer A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses wer ...

. The shipwrecked crew lived at La Push for many years, and called the mouth of the river "La Bouche." Possibly, this is the source of the village's current name: La Push. The first official negotiations with the United States government occurred in 1855 when

Isaac Stevens Isaac Ingalls Stevens (March 25, 1818 – September 1, 1862) was an American military officer and politician who served as governor of the Territory of Washington from 1853 to 1857, and later as its delegate to the United States House of Represen ...

and the Quileute signed the

Treaty of Olympia The Quinault Treaty (also known as the Quinault River Treaty and the Treaty of Olympia) was a treaty agreement between the United States and the Native American Quinault and Quileute tribes located in the western Olympic Peninsula north of Grays ...

. They ceded great amounts of land and agreed to resettle on the Quinault Reservation.

ARTICLE 1. The said tribes and bands hereby cede, relinquish, and convey to the United States all their right, title, and interest in and to the lands and country occupied by them…

Article 11 of the Treaty of Olympia was a single sentence:

ARTICLE 11. The said tribes and bands agree to free all slaves now held by them, and not to purchase or acquire others hereafter.

This article took away an integral part of the culture of the Northwest Coastal tribes, the rights to possess slaves. Their culture had been focused on possessions and they had always owned slaves. Later, in 1882, A.W. Smith came to La Push to teach the native children. He made a school and started to change the names of the people from tribal names to ones from the Bible. In 1889, after years of this not being enforced, President Cleveland gave the Quileute tribe the La Push reservation. 252 residents moved there and in 1894, 71 people from the

Hoh River The Hoh River is a river of the Pacific Northwest, located on the Olympic Peninsula in the U.S. state of Washington. About long, the Hoh River originates at the Hoh Glacier on Mount Olympus and flows west through the Olympic Mountains of Olymp ...

got their own reservation. In 1889, a non-native individual who wanted the land at La Push started a fire that burned down all the houses on the reservation, along with many artifacts from the days before the Europeans came.

Quileute Tribal School

The Quileute Tribal School serves K-12 tribal and non-tribal students from La Push, Forks, and the Hoh Reservation. The school has an elected five member school board and a hired superintendent. In 2020-2021 131 students from 14 different tribal heritages were enrolled. The school is currently the focus of the organization 'Move to Higher Ground' which hopes to relocate the school outside of the current tsunami zone. Ground was broken on July 1, 2020, for a new campus. Classes began in the new campus in fall of 2022.

Quileute tribe in fiction

In Susan Sharpe's 1991 novel ''Spirit Quest'', eleven-year-old Aaron Singer spends part of his summer vacation on the Quileute Indian Reservation in Washington. There he becomes friends with Robert, a Quileute boy. At the encouragement of his family, who no longer incorporate many of their traditions into daily life, Robert attends tribal school to learn the Quileute language and culture. At Aaron's urging, the boys go together on their version of a "spirit quest", where Aaron finds and saves a trapped eagle. Though he admires and respects Robert's culture, Aaron realizes that he can never be a part of it the way Robert is. Aaron's initially romantic view is replaced by deeper understanding. Stephenie Meyer's ''

Twilight Twilight is light produced by sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere, when the Sun is below the horizon, which illuminates the lower atmosphere and the Earth's surface. The word twilight can also refer to the periods of time when this il ...

'' series features

Jacob Black Jacob Black is a character in the ''Twilight'' book series by Stephenie Meyer. He is described as an attractive Native American of the Quileute tribe in La Push, near Forks, Washington. In the second book of the series, '' New Moon'', he disco ...

and other werewolf characters, all fictional members of the Quileute tribe and residents of La Push. It has been heavily criticized for its negative depiction of native people and culture and the incorrect telling of the Quileute stories. The Quileute tribe received no compensation from ''Twilight'', despite their name and culture being appropriated. The

Burke Museum The Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture (Burke Museum) is a natural history museum in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. Established in 1899 as the Washington State Museum, it traces its origins to a high school naturalist club fo ...

created a website to combat all the misconceptions and educate fans about the truth of the Quileute tribe. Historian

Daniel Immerwahr Daniel Immerwahr is an American historian, professor, and associate department chair of History at Northwestern University. His book, ''Thinking Small'', won the Merle Curti Award. His book, ''How to Hide an Empire'', was a national bestseller, on ...

posits that the Fremen in

Frank Herbert Franklin Patrick Herbert Jr. (October 8, 1920February 11, 1986) was an American science fiction author best known for the 1965 novel '' Dune'' and its five sequels. Though he became famous for his novels, he also wrote short stories and worked a ...

's ''

Dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...

'' are based on Herbert's interactions with Henry Martin, or Han-daa-sho, a fisherman who lived on the Quileute reservation in La Push, Washington. Anna, Like Thunder is a historical fictional novel about Anna Petrovna Bulygina who was taken captive by the Quileute tribe in 1808. https://www.touchwoodeditions.com/book/anna-like-thunder/

References

Sources

Quileute Reservation, Washington
United States Census Bureau.
"History,"
Quileute Nation, April 23, 2008 * Joahnsen, Bruce Elliot. Native Peoples of North America, Vol. 2 * Powell, James V. "Quileute", Smithsonian Encyclopedia, Vol. 7: Northwest Indians * Silverberg, Robert. The Home of the Red Man: Indian America Before Columbus. p. 214. New York Graphic Society: 1963 *

U-S-History.com

Quileute Nation

* Leggatt, Judith and Kristin Burnett. "Biting Bella: Treaty Negotiation, Quileute History, and Why 'Team Jacob' Is Doomed to Lose" in Nancy Reagin (ed.) Twilight and History. New York: Wiley & Sons, 2010

External links

Quileute Nation Official Website

Quileute Oceanside Resort Website
{{authority control Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast Native American tribes in Washington (state)