The Ozette Prairies of Olympic National Park - Natural Resources ...

Prairie Animal Resources. The prairies were important to Quileute for hunting in traditional times. According
to Billy Hebaladup, quoted by Frachtenberg (1916:3,37):
The Quiliutes used to hunt along the banks of the rivers….The prairies too were full of game and they
hunted especially on Quiliute Prairie (c’hikwyaqw or sat’ayaqw), Forks Prairie (qet’Layaqw), Little
Prairie (q’wadiyaqw), Beaver and Tyee Prairies (t’axetal yaqw ), and Lower Bear Creek prairie area
(t’sixwokwotsoqw yaqw). The hunting areas belong to the whole tribe and are available to anyone.
Although there were “killing zones” or “game runs” through the woods where a few good runners, usually
with dogs, would chase elk and deer into narrow ambushes where their hunting partners waited
with their bows and clubs, the prairies were favored hunting areas for both large and small game. In the
prairies, blinds were commonly used. According to Hebaladup, “A good hunter could shoot (with a bow
and arrow) at a target 200 yards (away) and hit the mark,” skills that Quileute males learned from a variety
of childhood games, contests and constant practice. Besides bow and arrow, spear and hunting club,
a variety of traps, snares, springpoles, deadfalls, and pitfalls were traditionally used in hunting. The first
gun became available to the Quileute in the late 1850s, acquired by Wastoc’hit, b.1836, the father of David
Hudson, according to Hal George; but firearms were not commonly owned by the Quileute until the
1890s, when a trader named Sutcliffe Baxter, who took over after Dan Pullen left LaPush, started trading
45.90 caliber rifles for “a stack of fur seal pelts as high as the rifle stood” (Powell NB 1978:9). Thus, hunting
patterns started to change in the 1890s, along with so many other aspects of Quileute life associated
with the prairies. Until then, hunting was a primary subsistence activity. In 1916, Arthur Howeattle and
Billy Hebaladup told Frachtenberg:
In former days hunting was as important among us Quiliute as fishing, but with the advent of the white
people, the establishment of the reservation, and the going into effect of state game laws, the Quiliutes
gave up hunting until today they are almost exclusively fishermen, going out on the hunt only in cases
where they are short of fish. In former days the country abounded in all kinds of games, especially deer
and elk (3:37).
Ram Singh noted that hunting was not only an issue of being able to shoot straight with a bow and arrow.
This is particularly true in the prairies where, shooting from hiding, Quileute hunted alone or in small
groups; whereas, in the mountains and woods, hunting was generally a group activity with runners and
ambushers. In any case, it is clear that traditional Quileute believed that there is a spiritual component to
successful hunting.
Super-natural means of production….Elk hunters among the Quileute and Quinault were believed to
88