All about the ancient tribes
The Hupa are a tribe located in the northwestern part of California. Other names for the Hupa include: Nabiltse, Natano, and Trinity Indians. The Hoopa Tribe were named after the six-mile long Hoopa Valley located on their land.
The Hupas lived in rectangular cedar-plank houses with pitched roofs and chimneys. Usually these buildings were large and an extended family lived in each one. Here are some pictures of Native American homes like the ones Hupa Indians used. Today, most Hupas live in modern houses and apartment buildings, just like you.
Hupa descendants have since been incorporated into mainly into the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation and another tribes: Hoopa Valley Tribe (Hoopa, Humboldt County, Population 2013: 3,139) ( Hupa, Tsnungwe, Chimalakwe, Chilula, Whilkut)
Hupa (native name: Na꞉tinixwe Mixine꞉wheʼ, lit. “language of the Hoopa Valley people”) is an Athabaskan language (of Na-Dené stock) spoken along the lower course of the Trinity River in Northwestern California by the Hupa (Na꞉tinixwe) and, before European contact, by the Chilula and Whilkut peoples, to the west.
The Miwok people were decimated by the diseases brought by the invaders and subjected to atrocities. Following the short-lived Mariposa Indian War (1850) those who survived were forced on to various reservations.
From the Yurok tribe they got canoes, dried seaweed, salt, and salt water fish. To get those they traded acorns, obsidian, and some inland foods, to trade with their coastal neighbor. Some things were purchased with dentalium shells which served as money of the northern California people.
The recitation of magical formulas was an important part of traditional Hupa religion. Shamanism was also common; shamans’ fees were paid in dentalium shells or deerskin blankets. Three major dances were held annually for the benefit of the community, as were spring and fall ceremonial feasts.
Their traditional houses were made of redwood or cedar. Clothing: The men wore a breechclout of deerskin or of skins of small animals joined together, and leggings to their knees of painted deerskin. Their moccasins were made of deerskin with soles of elk hide.
Freebase. Hupa. Hupa, also spelled Hoopa, is a Native American tribe in northwestern California. Their autonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinookwa, meaning “People of the Place Where the Trails Return.”
They ate plants, seeds, berries, fish and animal meats. They usually crushed acorns. They made acorn bread, acorn soup, and acorn flour. They used acorn flour to make bread and sometimes, they just ate acorn flour.
Their food included staple diet of acorns which they ground into acorn meal to make soup, cakes and bread. These great fishers used nets and harpoons to capture sharks and even whales. Smaller fish such as sea bass, trout, shellfish and halibut were primary food sources.
The Chumash wanted nothing to do with this, as they felt they would be disrespecting their ancestors and tribal tradition. They started to move their villages away, from the Spanish and found missions that were being built on the coast of California in 1772 and decided to settle there.
For tools the Chumash used needles, fishhooks, sandpaper, spear, atl-atl, fishnets, tomols-plank canoes, and bow and arrow. The Chumash tribe was famous for its art, rock paintings.