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Spring Ritual Honors Tribe's Historic Reliance on Fish for Sustenance

 
 

by Kari Shaw, The Bellingham Herald

 
 

credits: photo 1: FIRST SALMON: Lummi Tribal School second-graders (right to left) Roger James, Zak Lane, Brenden McMillan and Shawn Edwards carry the ceremonial first salmon around Wex Li Em Community Center.; photo 2: The Lummi Indian tribe celebrated its way of life Thursday with the annual First Salmon Ceremony, honoring the return of spring chinook to local waters and praying for continued healthy salmon runs to nourish the tribe. Photos by Pete Kendall Bellingham Herald

 

FIRST SALMON: Lummi Tribal School second-graders (right to left) Roger James, Zak Lane, Brenden McMillan and Shawn Edwards carry the ceremonial first salmon around Wex Li Em Community Center. Photos by Pete Kendall Bellingham HeraldLUMMI RESERVATION - The Lummi tribe celebrated its "schelangen," (pronounced shlay-n-gun), or way of life, as one intertwined with salmon at the annual First Salmon Ceremony on Thursday.

Nearly 500 Lummi Tribal School students, community members and guests filled the Wex Li Em hall for dance, prayer and to eat tiny, oily pieces of the first chinook salmon caught this year.

"Everyone comes over and eats a piece," said James Wilson, 78, the elder fisher who prepared the fish. "We take the fish bones, backbone and all, and it has been our ceremony to put it back in the river and say, 'You go down and next year you tell the rest of (the salmon) to come back in abundance.'"

Six tribal fishers netted the ceremonial first fish Wednesday on the Nooksack River. Tribal members also served up fish raised at the Lummi's hatchery.

Every May on Vancouver Island, the lower British Columbia mainland, Washington and Oregon coasts, the descendant tribes of the lhaqtemish, (pronounced sh-lay-mish) or First People, pray for enduring salmon runs with similar ceremonies.

The tribes historically have sustained themselves on salmon, berries and roots.

Fishing remains an important vocation at the Lummi Reservation, although the tribe's fishing fleet has dwindled along with salmon runs. In the past decade, the Lummi fishing fleet has fallen from three dozen boats to fewer than six.

"This is a very important time of our lives," said Smitty Hillaire, who led prayers during the morning service. "It's when the cycle of the salmon begins. It's time for celebration that our long winter is over."

Outside the building, Wilson looked on as six other men threaded fat hunks of salmon onto cedar skewers in Thursday's morning drizzle.

Terry Hillaire tossed cedar, alder and maple logs onto a fire pit, filling the wet air with its smoky smell. He leaned the tall skewers against the pit to barbecue slowly.

"We used to fish (for spring chinook) commercially, but because of habitat, they aren't coming back," Hillaire said. Now he and the other fishers catch the chinooks, also known as river kings, only for ceremonial purposes.

The Lummi Indian tribe celebrated its way of life Thursday with the annual First Salmon Ceremony, honoring the return of spring chinook to local waters and praying for continued healthy salmon runs to nourish the tribe.NOAA Fisheries, formerly the National Marine Fisheries Service, listed the Nooksack River chinook as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act in 1999. It allows Indian tribes to take a small catch annually for ceremony: the Lummi, a tribe of several thousand, is allowed 50.

Lummi fishers also take other salmon commercially, such as sockeye from Canada's Fraser River.

Even so, the annual ceremony marks determination by the tribe that fish will continue to run and their culture as a "salmon people" will continue.

"Salmon is a part of our culture we will never forget," said Elden Hillaire, a Lummi tribal council member. "They are a part of our lives like the air that we breathe."

Smitty, Hillaire and wife, Lutie Hillaire, thanked the tribe's natural resources department for their work preserving salmon habitat so that Lummi children may fish in the future.

Lummi Tribal Chairman Darrell Hillaire echoed their sentiments in his address.

"It's so important that our young ones here stand next to our fishermen and know who they are and what they do," he said. "I hope that some day, the young ones will be able to fish, too."

Lummi Indian Reservation, WA Map

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