The Hupa live in Hoopa Valley, the largest reservation in California. (Eargle: 1986) Their traditional houses are made of redwood or cedar, and they net salmon with large triangular nets and also built long weirs across rivers to trap them. Clothing was made of braided bear grass (Xerophylum tenax) and dentalia shells were used for money and for jewelry. The resources of the Hupa area are owned by individuals, and their shaman have a tradition of ridge walking the sacred trails of the mountains in the area where they live.

They traded with the Yurok to their west and north for redwood dugout canoes, fish, seaweed and dentalia shells, which the Yurok in turn had obtained from the Tolowa, and which the Hupa traded to the Shasta along with acorns, baskets and salt. The Hupa exchanged skins and acorns for Yurok goods. They traded with the Wiyot for white deerskins, and got tobacco and abalone shells from the Mattole, to whom they gave grass for rope and pine nut beads. The Northern Wintun provided salt. The Shasta provided them with buckskin, pine nuts and horn for spoons. (Davis: 1966)

The Chilula were similar to the Hupa in language and culture, according to the Handbook of North American Indians, and were sometimes guests in the Hupa "World Renewal Dance." They lived on the lower part of Redwood Creek and used dip nets and spears to take salmon. They also might drive fish together in shallow water to catch them. They hunted deer and elk. They supplied the Yurok with white grass for baskets. (Heizer: 1978)

The white deerskins were used in the White Deerskin Dance, part of the World Renewal Ceremony which averted natural disasters such as acorn crop or salmon run failures.

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