From the Editor
Salmon Woman sacrifices her children to humanity, writes Jewell Praying Wolf James in a retelling of a Lummi story, because she is moved by Raven’s compassion for his people and his generosity.1 “I give my children to you and your people, so that they may survive,” she tells Raven. “If your people are as loving and caring as you are then they deserve these children.”
And for a while, everyone lives together in harmony. The people never have to worry about food. Raven and Salmon Woman get married. Everyone is happy. But then, something happens—somehow, in some way, the people forget to significance of the gift that has been given them. And Salmon Woman takes her children, and they leave. “She vowed to never bring her children to a place that they are not wanted or appreciated,” writes James. “She would not tolerate the disrespect of herself or her children’s great sacrifice.”
The people had no food, and they began to starve. Raven went out in search of Salmon Woman and her children, but it was only after promising to respect her and her children that she would even come close enough to his canoe to talk. After a long discussion, she agreed to come back, but there were some conditions. No longer would they stay all year long with the people: Now they would leave the river for certain times of a year, returning to Salmon Woman’s home in the ocean.
Today, writes James, the First Salmon Ceremony “teaches and reminds the people to respect their food . . . It reminds the people that their food, once again, could be taken away from them.”
Today, the people—or, to be more accurate, non-Indigenous Americans—have again shown disrespect for the salmon, and Salmon Women and her children have again left. Today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration lists 28 populations of salmon and steelhead on the West Coast as threatened or endangered.2 A 2020 Washington State report, “The State of Salmon in Watersheds,” lists several reasons for this population decline, including: habitat degradation, climate change, dams, predation, and harvesting practices.3
1 Jewell Praying Wolf James, “Salmon Woman and her Children,” Lummi Culture Protection Committee, February 4, 1992, / https://www.lummi-nsn.gov/userfiles/190_Story%20of%20 Conservation%20of%20the%20Salmon.pdf.
2 “Pacific Salmon and Steelhead,” NOAA Fisheries, January 27, 2023, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/pacific-salmon-and-steelhead.
3 “2020 State of Salmon in Watersheds,” Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office, December 2020, /https://stateofsalmon.wa.gov/wpcontent/uploads/2020/12/StateofSalmonExecSummary2020.pdf.
In 2022, the Washington State Catholic Conference recognized this crisis, releasing a statement that called for the development of a plan to care for salmon populations in the Lower Snake River region. Guided by Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’ (On Care for Our Common Home), the bishops write, “We pray for a plan that serves the common good, taking into account care for God’s creation, treaties and rights of the Original Peoples of Washington state, and those who live and work in the Lower Snake River region.”
Inspired by the bishops’ statement and Laudato Si’, this issue of A Matter of Spirit considers our responsibility to be guided by Indigenous people when caring for our common home, specifically when it comes to preserving salmon populations in the Pacific Northwest. In “Ey Kw’elhsh en-sela’Iexw,” Jay Julius talks about salmon’s place in Lummi culture and the effect of their population decline. “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?” he asks. He makes a plea to listen to the Indigenous people who are calling for measures like dam removals in the spirit of honoring our treaties with them and working to repair the damage that has been done.
In “A Web of Relationships,” Jeff Renner focuses on the science of the problem, explaining the salmon’s lifecycle and why, exactly, they are so sensitive to environmental changes. And Tere Flores Onofre, in “Our Common Home,” put the issue of salmon within the context of Catholic social teaching and the call to care for creation. Finally, in “Land Justice,” I interview Brittany Koteles, director of the Nuns & Nones Land Justice project, about how people of faith around the nation can work to restore relationships with both the land and marginalized communities. “Land justice is about healing the land but also about healing human relationships and those relationships that have been cut off from land because of past and present colonization, extraction, and racism,” she says. Together, the articles in this issue demonstrate the importance of being in what Robin Wall Kimmerer calls reciprocal relationships. “Just as all beings have a duty to me, I have a duty to them,” she writes in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass (Milkweed Editions).
Emily Sanna