Chinook people Native North American group, the most important tribe of the Chinookian linguistic family, formerly living along the Columbia River on the Pacific coast. Nearly extinct today, the Chinook numbered about 16,000 in the early 1800s. They were noted as traders, salmon fishers, and hunters. Other tribes from as far away as the Great Plains traded their articles for the Chinooks' dried salmon, seashells, and slaves. A simple Chinook language-called Chinook jargon-was known to traders from Alaska to California. The American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark first described the Chinook, who lived in villages apparently made up of groups of close relatives. In the early 19th century, explorers and traders brought with them diseases new to the Chinook, decimating the tribe and ending Chinook dominance of regional trade. Today, small numbers of their descendants live on reservations in Washington and Oregon. "Chinook (people)," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Chinook On the 'Languages of Oregon' website, you can find lots of info.

Wisham and Chinook Tribes "This page is a gateway to information concerning approximately 80 western Native American tribes, visited and photographed by Edward S. Curtis from 1890 to 1930, taken from The North American Indian, Curtis' massive lifework. The North American Indian consists of 20 volumes of text, describing in detail all aspects of each Native American tribe's life and customs." http://www.curtis-collection.com/tribalindex.html

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