Ey Kw’elhsh en-sela’Iexw
(Take good care of the elders) BY W’TOT LHEM (JAY JULIUS)
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s 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 1 the sparkle of the sun off the water’s surface.” 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. 1
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S P R I N G 2 0 2 3 • N O. 13 7
“Salmon Woman and Her Children,” by Jewell James, Lummi Culture Protection Committee (1992).