Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of Native Americans: An A to Z of Tribes, Culture, and History - Adele Nozedar - Страница 115

The Chinook lived on the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest, and were known for their fishing and trading skills. They used dugout canoes for their fishing trips and lived in permanent wooden houses rather than, for example, the moveable tipis of the Plains Indians. In appearance they were tall; their most defining characteristic was perhaps the shape of their skulls, which were deliberately manipulated in infancy to alter their appearance. For the Chinook, a skull modified in this way was the height of good breeding, and a “normal” skull was considered to be inferior.

The Chinook language was particularly difficult to master, not only its rudiments but its pronunciation. Because of this, other tribes—and also the European fur traders—used a sort of shorthand language with the Chinook. This was known as “Chinook Jargon,” and made life easier for anyone who had to trade with the tribe, or for whom Chinook was not their mother tongue.