The Daily Herald reports on the first canoe being carved for the Stillaguamish Tribe in what is believed to be about 100 years.
When the Stillaguamish Tribe suffered its diaspora before the turn of the last century, much was lost. With no land to call their own after the Homestead Act and lacking federal recognition even though they had signed the Point Elliott Treaty, the Stillaguamish people began to scatter. They married out of the tribe, sought jobs away from home and began to forget the traditional ways.
Though the tribe received federal recognition in 1976, the journey to regain the cultural life of the Stillaguamish continues.
Last summer, the 200-member tribe celebrated its first salmon-welcoming ceremony in more than a generation.
Now, the tribe’s new river canoe will play a key role in this summer’s salmon ceremony on the banks of the Stilly.
“We’ll never get back to the way it was,” Yanity said. “But we will celebrate our past and the coming day when we launch our new canoe, carved from a tree that was growing when the ancestors walked among the old cedar forests.”
