Coast Salish

Vista

Seattle, Washington

Metropolitan Seattle is located on the traditional lands of the Dkhᵂ'Duw'Absh (Duwamish), a Coast Salish group. Here, Mount Rainier is seen in the background.

Image credit: L. Valencia

Chief Seattle (Sealth) 

Suquamish, Washington

The city of Seattle takes its name from Chief Seattle, a Suquamish and Duwamish leader. Under pressure from the U.S. government, Chief Seattle and 81 other leaders relinquished a huge swath of ancestral land, from Puget Sound north to the Canadian border, in the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliot. But they did not give up their rights to fish there. It took more than a century to uphold these rights in court.

Image credit: Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI)

Chief Seattle (Sealth)

Suquamish, Washington

Here at Old Man House State Park, an enormous longhouse once stood facing the water—according to some estimates, it was between 600 and 1,000 feet long. Chief Seattle lived in the house, the centerpiece of a Suquamish winter village.

Image credit: E. Willhite

Chief Seattle (Sealth)

Suquamish, Washington

The Suquamish Museum displays various artifacts that were uncovered by archaeologists at the site of Old Man House, the longhouse where Chief Seattle lived.

Image credit: Braunger-Ullstein Bild/Granger NYC

Coming Ashore

Ballast Island, Seattle, around 1891

Duwamish and other Coast Salish people, the original inhabitants of the Seattle area, were forced out by Euro-American settlement in the 1800s. But they continued to come to Seattle by canoe, bringing shellfish, baskets and other items to sell in city markets. Because they were not allowed to camp or stay within the city limits, they moored their canoes and pitched tents on Ballast Island, which had formed in the harbor from rubble dumped from ships and other landfill.

Image credit: University of Washington, Special Collections, NA680

Coming Ashore

Ballast Island, Seattle, around 1891

In the late 1800s, Coast Salish people camped on Ballast Island, in Seattle’s harbor, while working to harvest hops in the river valleys southeast of the city. A plank road connected the island to Railroad Avenue (today called Alaskan Way) and covered it by the 1890s.

Image credit: Museum of History & Industry, Anders B. Wilse Collection, 1990.45.14

Home Base in the City

Seattle, Washington

In 1970 hundreds of indigenous people in Seattle occupied Fort Lawton—a decommissioned U.S. Army base on land that had originally been Coast Salish territory. Ultimately they won 20 acres within what is now Discovery Park, where they built a cultural center.

Image credit: Associated Press

Home Base in the City

Seattle, Washington

The Daybreak Star Cultural Center opened in Seattle’s Discovery Park in 1977. It provides an urban base for indigenous people from many communities in the Seattle area. The center was built after Native American activists staged a nonviolent occupation of the land in 1970.

Image credit: A. Morrison

Indigenous Day

Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C.

Here, members of the local dance group Tsatsu stalqayu perform in 2015 at a multi-nation celebration at a Vancouver university. Their name means “Coastal Wolf Pack” to reflect the diversity of Coast Salish groups in this region.

Image credit: G. Lawson

Northwest Coast Hip Hop

Rhizome Café, Vancouver, B.C

The indigenous hip hop scene thrives in Vancouver, where young artists of many First Nations embrace this way to express their perspectives, activate their cultures and speak out on issues of justice and equality. Here, JB the First Lady, who is of Nuxalk and Onondaga heritage, performs.

Image credit: C. Frampton

Message in Graffiti

Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre, B.C.

People of many First Nations intersect in Vancouver. Here in the parking lot of a community center, Haida artist Corey Bulpitt created a salmon head in a classic design. “I spray paint a lot of work focusing on salmon to raise awareness of their existence within cityscapes where spawning streams have often been blocked off by development,” says Bulpitt.

Image credit: G. Lawson

City Before the City

c̓əsnaʔəm (Cesnam), Vancouver, B.C.

This strip mall is one of the present-day buildings on the site of the largest ancient village and burial ground of Vancouver’s first people, the Musqueam, a Coast Salish community that still thrives today. The village of c̓əsnaʔəm, later called Marpole, sits near the Fraser River and was first occupied almost 5,000 years ago. The site is of great cultural and archaeological significance.

Image credit: G. Lawson

Ancestral Musqueam Lands

Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia

A display of totem poles makes Vancouver’s Stanley Park popular with tourists. The poles represent several Northwest Coast nations—but not the Musqueam, the Coast Salish community indigenous to this place. So Musqueam artist Susan Point carved three cedar gateways to the totem poles—one of them pictured here—that incorporate Coast Salish motifs and were installed in 2008.

Image credit: G. Marx/Alamy

Museum of Anthropology (MOA)

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C.

This university museum houses and exhibits historic and contemporary art and cultural expression from Native communities up and down the Northwest Coast. Although located in ancestral Coast Salish territory, its concrete and glass architecture was inspired by the traditional houses of northern nations such as the Haida and Tlingit.

Image credit: Museum Of Anthropology/The University of British Columbia

Environmental Impact

Vancouver, British Columbia

First Nations and allies have protested vigorously over the last decade against a proposed pipeline that would carry crude oil extracted from tar sands in the interior of Canada to the Northwest Coast. There it would be loaded onto tankers bound for Asia. An accident would foul critical waters, harming fisheries and life on the shore. Here, Marilyn Slett, the elected chief councilor of the Heiltsuk Nation (left) and hereditary chief Harvey Humchitt, Sr. (Wigvilhba-Wakas, right) lead protesters in a 2,000-person rally in 2012.

Image credit: P. Hodgson

First Salmon Ceremony

Ambleside Beach, West Vancouver, B.C.

All along the Northwest Coast, indigenous people today continue to celebrate the arrival of spawning salmon. Ceremonies differ from place to place, but in general, people ritually prepare and eat the first salmon caught in the spring. Then, in a formal gesture of gratitude, they return the bones to the water as this family is doing.

Image credit: C. Camm

Fishing Traditions

Lake Quinault, Washington

In 1974, a landmark court ruling known as the Boldt Decision affirmed treaty rights of Washington tribes to harvest salmon and other fish. For more than a century, Euro-Americans had violated these rights in many ways, for example by denying indigenous people access to traditional fishing areas.

Image credit: RJ Simon/Stockimo/Alamy

Clamming at Low Tide

Sequim Bay, Washington, late 1800s

This S’Klallam family is collecting clams in baskets loosely woven from cedar roots. When the tide rises, it will float their finely made canoe.

Image credit: Jefferson County Historical Society