Ey Kw’elhsh en-sela’Iexw

(Take good care of the elders)

BY W’TOT LHEM (JAY JULIUS)

As I write this, I am here on Swa’lax (Orcas Island) with other members of our Indigenousled nonprofit, Se’Si’Le (Our Grandmother), working on writing a book, Right and Respectful Relations. It is good we are here, where the Lummi people lived for countless generations, back to the ancestral before-time of Xales (the Transformer) and where our Ancient Ones live on in sacred songs, oral histories, and the spirit of place. Like other members of the Lummi Nation, I am often out on these waters in the company of our ancestors and with our elders: scha’enexw (the salmon), qwe’lhol mechen (the killer whales), and all our other relations in Xw’ullemy (the Salish Sea).

We call these beings our elders because they are the ones who came first. We were the young and weak ones who could not survive without their generosity, their pity and compassion, and their spiritual strength. I sometimes wonder what a qwe’lhol mechen would say if they could speak about their two-legged relatives on the land. I believe they would ask us if we know we are destroying their home and way of life, starving their families and driving them to extinction. I believe they would ask why we have forgotten the inviolable and sacred obligation we made with them long ago.

The same is true for the scha’enexw, who have been in these waters for thousands of years and who once were so many in the streams it is said you could walk on their backs. The scha’enexw would remind us of our covenant, our promise to Salmon Woman. When we were starving, she came and said to our people, “I am Salmon Woman. I have many children. My children play in the oceans all around you. They follow me wherever I go and lead them. My children are beautiful, healthy, and their color glows like the sparkle of the sun off the water’s surface.” 1 Every year, our First Salmon Ceremony reminds the people to always respect Salmon Woman and her children. But the salmon people are disappearing, down almost 99 percent of what their numbers were in the Salish Sea just 100 years ago. They, too, would ask if we have forgotten or forsaken our covenant with Salmon Woman.

Lest we forget!

But we have not forgotten or forsaken this sacred obligation, this covenant. Like our Xw’ullemy relatives, we, too, are living through a catastrophic disruption that arrived to our lands and waters just six generations ago and is driving our Xw’ullemy to a catastrophic ecological collapse. The salmon are disappearing from their ancestral waters—from the Yukon River in Alaska to the Frasier River in British Columbia to the Columbia River, down the West Coast to the Sacramento River, and across the Bering Sea to the Russian Far East. We need to ask ourselves: According to what higher moral authority are these extinctions allowed, and what is the price to be paid by the Salmon Nations, whose lifeway, cultural identity, and spirituality relies on our salmon relatives?

This betrayal of trust is occurring now on the Lower Snake River. The urgent ecological, cultural, and spiritual crisis on the Lower Snake River led Se’Si’Le to request a letter from the Washington State Catholic Conference in May 2022. The letter, “Caring for Creation and the Common Good in the Lower Snake River Region,” arrived on October 30, 2022. It was read by Archbishop Etienne during our International Indigenous Salmon Seas Summit. The letter, signed by all five Bishops of the Washington State Catholic Conference, cites Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home): “It is essential to show special care for Indigenous communities and their cultural traditions. They are not merely one minority among others, but should be the principal dialogue partners.” The bishops’ letter draws on Pope Francis’ statement and places it in the context of the Lower Snake River dams: “We urge federal and state policy makers to develop and implement a holistic plan for the Lower Snake River region that seeks input from the Original Peoples of Washington State as principal dialogue partners” (italics added).

These are good and necessary words, but they are not sufficient in themselves to prevent the great dying of the salmon or the end of the southern resident killer whales. We appeal to state and federal politicians to honor the spirit and intent of the treaties by breaching the Lower Snake River dams. They know and understand this is a matter of the survival of our lifeway and the spirit of our people. But, as in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13, we find in them “hearts that are waxed gross, ears are dull of hearing, and eyes they have closed.” We have been, and are being, betrayed by descendants of those who made promises to our people in the name of every American.

I will close with the words and feelings of a Lummi elder, who I hope speaks to the deeper meaning of our spiritual struggle for our relatives and to the sacred obligation of honoring the Creator by stewarding in right and respectful relations with the Creation:

Scientists will offer theories on the precipitous decline of the salmon population. Politicians will talk about stakeholders, economic trade-offs, and constituents, while agencies will tell you how they are—at least in our view—managing salmon, along with the southern resident killer whales, to extinction. If that sounds harsh, it is because it is the hard reality: Ecocide leads to extinction and, with it, genocide. Our salmon and orca relatives are being dishonored, along with the rights and promises made by the settler sovereign to the Salmon Nations of the Xw’ullemy just six generations ago. The First Peoples of the Xw’ullemy are awake to this reality.

The Salmon People aren’t hardly here no more. We need to talk to them. We need you, Salmon People; the life-givers. You gave up your lives so we can live. It is important for our people, about who we really are. We sit in the lap of Mother Earth learning all there is to learn . . . not all at once, but built up over a lifetime, every day. We need to keep learning. To never quit learning.

W’tot lhem is a former chairman of the Lummi Nation, a fulltime fisher and father, and the founder and president of Se’Si’Le. Learn more about their work at https://se-si-le.org/.