Nootkah

The Nootkah, also known as the Nuu-chah-nulth, are fifteen related Wakashan-speaking tribes of the west coast of Vancouver Island. For at least four thousand years they have been whalers, chief-led crews paddling cedar canoes after gray and humpback whales with ritual bathing and prayer. The Yuquot Whalers' Shrine held memorial posts and whalers' bones used in these preparations. Chiefs controlled access to resource grounds and redistributed wealth through the potlatch, a word from Nuu-chah-nulth.

In 1778 James Cook anchored at Yuquot and took the local word nuutkaa, to circle around, as the name of Nootka Sound. The Mowachaht chief Maquinna hosted talks that settled the Nootka Crisis of 1790.

In 1803 his men seized the ship Boston, keeping the armourer John Jewitt captive for nearly three years. In 1811 Tla-o-qui-aht warriors attacked the Tonquin, and by 1830 epidemics had carried off more than nine in ten Nootkah.