The Quileute Tribe is a Native American nation in western Washington state. They have inhabited the area for thousands of years, surviving by hunting and fishing. They are known for their craftsmanship and language, and gained recognition through the Twilight series of novels.
The Quileute Tribe (pronounced “quill-ee-yoot”) is a Native American nation located in western Washington state in the United States. The Quileute tribe inhabits the community of La Push, located on the state’s Olympic Peninsula. They received the area’s one-square-mile acreage as part of an agreement with the United States government in 1889. The city, its port, and its Oceanside Resort are all managed by the Quileute. Always a small tribe, the Quileute tribe numbered fewer than 1,000 people as of 2010.
The tribe has inhabited the area for thousands of years, presumably up until the ice age. The historic range of the Quileute tribe extended from the Pacific coast to the Olympic mountain range. An oceanic population, the Quileute survived by hunting whales, seals and other marine mammals. They fished for salmon in the ocean and fished in rivers and streams. The Quileutes put to sea in finely crafted cedar canoes that ranged in size from two-man vessels to 180-foot-long cargo vessels.
Known for their craftsmanship, the Quileute men built large rectangular houses out of cedar wood. Each house in a village housed several related families and was headed by a chief. Like other northwestern tribes with access to abundant trees, the Quileute carved totem poles depicting ancestors and spirits for their homes and as gravestones.
They bred dogs with long, woolly hair and used the fur to weave blankets. They wove hats and cloaks from the soft cedar bark to protect them from the area’s heavy rains and were distinguished by the watertight baskets they wove. Modern generations of Quileute still learn wood carving and weaving from tribal elders.
Tribal elders also try to maintain the Quileute language, which is one of the few known languages in the world without nasal consonants. Other native Washington languages, including Lushootseed and Makah, share this distinction. The basics of the Quileute language are taught in the tribal school on the reservation, and elders have helped put together a dictionary and other information about the language. The complex language, with its extremely long words, is also distinctive because it is not known to be related to any other language.
In the early 21st century, the Quileute tribe gained some recognition in popular culture through the Twilight series of vampire novels. The novels are set in Forks, a town near La Push, and feature fictional Quileutes as shapeshifters who can transform into wolves. The ancient belief of the creation of the Quileutes is that they were transformed from wolves into people.
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