Very, very. Rough Timeline of my view of the Land of Salmon and Totem just prior to the invasion of the Columbia River basin area.
Alternativly I suppose I don't have to have the whole Civilization building and potatos ala Land of Red and Gold Yams, Its just in the goings of establishing a Haida Kingdom that is centralized and reasonably technologically advanced and socially organized with large urban populations capable of bouncing back from the plagues via organized agriculture.
1000-1500 AD- Willamette Cultural Period
-Through cultivation of native potato plants grown in the Willamette Valley area, the Kalapuya group of native americans grow into a agricultural society. Seperating the valley area into a northern, center, and southern grouping of city-states and tribal townships spread along the Willamette Valley. Only minor use of small religious mounds. Hierarchial structure is matrilineal and based on a tribal-meritocracy. Major urban centers include Chemeketa (Salem, Oregon) as the earliest controlling the traffic from the southern sections of the Willamette to the Columbia River, Umpqua the youngest known Urban Center and smallest, concentrating with trade with the Californian natives it would be the last bastion of the Willamette culture falling to Haida in a period between 1545 and 1564, and Tualatin (Portland area) becoming the most populous and wealthy in the late period of the Willamette Culture area in constant competition with the Chinook.
800AD Intensive Potato agriculture spreads from the center of the Willamette Valley outward north then south.
1000AD Chemketa is founded.
-Organized social structure appears.
-Basic crafts and arts, pottery, copper jewelery, stone carvings etc.
1100AD Date of the famous Cascade Head Cave Carvings
1180AD Tualatin is founded
-Beginning of rivalries
-Spread of organized agriculture amongst the Chinook.
1210 AD Chinook tribes establish a fierce trading chiefdom confederation in competition with Tualatin.
-Establishment of the Chinook culture along the Columbia river, Fishing Salmon oriented culture it is matrilineal. The cultural trait of flattening out the faces and heads of upper class tribe members spreads in fashion to Tualatin just as the potato and organized quilt, pottery, and quilt making spreads amongst the Chinook.
1275AD Date of first “Big Men” stone statues amongst the Willamette Valley Culture
1290AS Umpqua founded
-intensive trade with Californian natives americans, potatoes and Willamette Valley cultural crafts spread amongst the Shasta to the Yokuts along the Sacremento river to central California.
1300AD Beginning of the Little Ice Age
-The Little Ice Age will have global disastourus effects on northern hemispheric civilizations, in the Pacific Northwest the climate and weather will worsen gradually before a low point in the late 15th century sees a gradual warming in temerpatures.
-1300-1400AD The Withering: Drop of temperature and increasing cold conditions in the Pacific Northwest. Leads to a ecological freeze across northern North America. Inuit abandon the high artic and migrate southward and westward eventually reaching Greenland though the Thule culture in the west comes under threat of total collapse several times. Especially cold temperatures in the Alaskan coastal area leads to a freezing of many rivers that are spawning areas for the humpback or pink salmon leading to disruptions in its spawning cycle for generations resulting in a gradual decrease of population. This produces a ecological chain reaction that sees the collapse of seal, whale, and other marine and costal land animals that the high pacific northwest (Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian) depend on the hardest but having various ranges of effect on other central pacific northwest native groups. In some cases this leads to a migration of whale, seal, otter, and other animals groups southward. Combined with harsh winters picking off land animals and land edible plants as well as freezing cold for the people this leads to tension between the various local groups.
1350AD Founding of the Totem Confederation
-Raids by Haida and Tlingit reach increasing southward, moving into the abundant areas of the Nookta and Puget Sound as well as the rich Columbia River mouth area.
-In the face of never before worse weather and food scarcity conditions the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian tribes opt to work together more closer. A meeting is held in 1350 by members of each tribe, coming to a agreement that the land and sea have become either cursed or barren and will soon become to a point where their numbers (native and slave populations) can no longer support them. With Haida raiders bringing back work of plenty to the south, bringing word of the abundance of the Columbia River and the interior.
The place is far away, and the people are feeling hungry, thus it is agreed if the place and its food can not come to them then they will go to it. Though they can not pick up and go all at once to this place, and many do not want to fully abandon their ancestral lands. So it agreed that the tribes need to work together to decimate the competition and pick a suitable spot between their home land and islands and this abundant place.
-The meeting is commemorated with a Potlatch and the building of a twenty foot tall totem, the largest ever built to the date, as a symbol of the cooperation between the tribes. After this totem poles are built larger and taller in villages.
-Increasingly from here there is a intermingling between the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsishiman lineages.
-Concentrated Totem Confederation raids and village decimations sweep down the British Columbian coast attacking the Haisla, Bella Bella, Heiltsuk, destroying their own raiding capacity by killing their warriors in sea canoe combat and stealing or destroying their larger canoes. Raids go as far as Vancouver Island, which interests the Haida especially.
1355-1375AD The Totem Confederation invades the Nookta on Vancouver Island, headed aggressively by Haida warriors launching surprise attacks and raids. Sweeping down the western coast line and either enslaving, decimating, enforcing loyalty to the Totem, or forcing them off the island. Similarly the Costal Salish and Kwakitual are forced off the island as the Totem population moves southward onto the island. A few families from each tribe volunteer to stay behind and live off the conditions and represent their land rights and claims to their home islands.
-Vancouver is divided amongst the tribes and the living is plentiful as tribes of the Totem Confederation move into competition with other local groups for claiming fishing rights int he surrounding waters.
1375-1400AD The Quiletue and Costal Salish down the western Oregon coast are mostly forced to abandon the coastline to the Totem Confederation after a series of aggressive raids that are not followed through inland. The Columbia River mouth comes under yearly increasing raids by the Totem Confederation.