Coos

The Coos are an Indigenous people of the southwest Oregon coast, whose forty to fifty villages clustered around Coos Bay and North Bend. Their combined population has been estimated at about two thousand in 1780.

They spoke two related tongues, Hanis and Miluk, forming the small Coosan family, often grouped with Oregon Penutian; the name Coos may derive from a Hanis word for south or an Athabaskan word for bay. Hunters, fishers and gatherers of the estuaries and forests, they enlivened village life with foot and canoe races and dice games.

They first appear in European records in February 1806, when William Clark, wintering at Fort Clatsop with Lewis and Clark, heard of the Cook-koo-oose nation and met Coos captives held by the Clatsop and Tillamook, noting that they did not flatten their infants' heads as neighbouring peoples did.