What cooking oils, if any, did various Native American groups have access to before the Columbian exchange

by OwenSpalding
Muskwatch

Here's some of the oils that groups had access to: seal, walrus, whale and other similar types of oil. Groups all along the coasts of North America rendered oil from these animals, and use the results both as food, and for things like lamps (among the Inuit) and for combustion (for example in assisting dugout canoe construction in the PNW).

Bear fat was commonly rendered for oil, along with other animal oils, and used for things like rubbing in the hair, on the face, as well as for mixing with medicines, or mixing with pitch during the process of making birch bark canoes.

Along the Pacific northwest, Oolichan (Eulachon, Candlefish, or other names/spellings) are a small fish that are fished in rivers and made into grease/oil that has been the basis of interior coastal trade for many thousands of years, and is highly valued today, both in cooking, mixed with berries, or used as a dip for dried fish, or even as a lubricant.

Mountain goat grease was used by the Nuxalk and others as a travelling food, where a small amount in a bag could last a person a long trip, and finally even pemmican had a portion of fat (usually buffalo) rendered and included in the recipe.

That's just a few of the oils that I know people used, and I suspect there were many more! including vegetable based ones in some locations, though I've only included what I know.