Quileute Legends | Folklore | Myths | Stories

La Push, Washington is located in the westernmost region of the United States. The author Stephenie Meyer of the Twilight series fame uses La Push, Washington as the area to base her award winning books on. It has become a tourist attraction for those who want to see where she garnered her vast knowledge of the area. La Push, Washington is also home of the Quileute Tribe; they are Native Americans who number about 371. They settled on the Quileute Indian Reservation in 1855, at that time there were 750 natives. The people of the Quileute tribe have a similar story about how white settlers wanted to take their land by force. Their history is told about how a settler wanted their land and burned down their village to obtain it. This forced them to move to a reservation where they drafted a treaty and signed it with once sentence regarding slave ownership.

Forks Washington is part of the area that is considered in the Twilight series, it is fictional. The La Push, Washington Natives have their own government that consists of a chair, vice-chair and secretary as well as a treasurer. The Quileute language is very rare because it is one of only five languages that do not have nasal sounds used in letters such as “m” and “n”. Their history reveals them to be master craftsmen because of their ability to create what they needed from the land they were given. They wove baskets, some were so tight that they would boil water and cook in them. Once they determined how to craft their own weapons they became wailers.

Although the author of the Twilight series focuses on the Quileute Tribe she varies the story to portray them as shape shifters, they are wolves but more advance as werewolves because those are enemies of vampires. The right of passage for a young man in the Quileute tribe is a quest to reveal their manhood; Stephenie Meyer takes this part of their heritage and uses it for the transformation into a werewolf for screen purposes only. There are two people in the film that are of the Quileute Tribe in origin, Jacob Black and Sam Uley, the Clearwater family is also from the Quileute Tribe.

There have been a few books written about the area and also about the Quileute Tribe in La Push, Washington. “Spirit Quest” was written in 1991 by Susan Sharpe and “Saving Cascadia” by John J. Nance in 2005. Susan’s story tells about a young person who spends part of his summer vacation on the reservation, he becomes friends with a Quileute boy who he accompanies on a vision quest. John J. Nance’s story is about the silence between the area of two tribes, not only their silence but the fact that no tremors have happened there setting up a story for a huge earthquake to happen in the near future. If you want to visit the Olympic National Park that surrounds La Push, Washington and experience the beautiful scenery for yourself then type La Push, Washington into your favorite search engine to get information on fishing tours and river guide services.