The Salish Sea and its peoples

The Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, sdukʷalbixʷ in their language, the People of the Moon, write that their people "have lived in the Snoqualmie Valley and surrounding ancestral lands since time immemorial." Snoqualmie Falls is their sacred site and, in their words, the birthplace of their People; the Falls is listed on the National Register as a Traditional Cultural Property. The Tribe's own Valley of the Snoqualmie map tells the valley in its own names and asks that its content not be reused without permission, so we link to it rather than copy it.

The Snoqualmie lost federal recognition in 1953. The Department of the Interior affirmed it again on October 6, 1999, after a first determination in 1997; the Tribe marks October 6 as Snoqualmie Rights Day. While unrecognized, the Tribe was left out of the 1974 fishing-rights ruling below.

Puget Sound is home to many Coast Salish Tribes, among them the Tulalip, Muckleshoot, Suquamish, Duwamish, Puyallup, Nisqually, Stillaguamish, Sauk-Suiattle, Swinomish and Snoqualmie, and the Lummi to the north. Several publish their names in Lushootseed: the Duwamish, dxʷdəwʔabš; the Snohomish, sduhubš; the Puyallup, puyaləpabš, "people at the bend at the bottom of the river"; the Stillaguamish, stuləgʷábš, "People of the River." The name Muckleshoot comes from the Lushootseed bəqəlšuɫ.

Lushootseed is a Salish-family language spoken from Olympia to the Skagit and from Hood Canal to the Cascades. It was nearly lost to the boarding-school era, when students at the Tulalip school were forbidden to speak it. The Tulalip, Puyallup, Muckleshoot and Snoqualmie all run revitalization programs today, and Lushootseed Research, founded in 1983 by Vi Hilbert (taqʷšəblu), keeps lessons and a dictionary online.

The city of Seattle is named for Si'ahl (about 1780–1866), whose mother was Duwamish and whose father was Suquamish. The Duwamish Tribe is not federally recognized today; its effort continues, and the Tribe's own FAQ tells where it stands.

In the Treaty of Medicine Creek, concluded December 26, 1854, and the Treaty of Point Elliott, concluded January 22, 1855 at Mukilteo, the Tribes of Puget Sound ceded most of their lands to the United States and kept small reservations. Si'ahl signed Point Elliott first, as "Chief of the Dwamish and Suquamish tribes." The Nisqually Tribe records that whether Chief Leschi agreed to Medicine Creek was heavily disputed. Point Elliott was not ratified until 1859.

Both treaties kept something that mattered more than land: "the right of taking fish at usual and accustomed grounds and stations," "in common with all citizens of the Territory." (Medicine Creek says "at all usual and accustomed grounds.") As the Tulalip Tribes put it, these rights "were not granted by the treaty; they were retained."

A century later the state was arresting tribal fishers for using that right. Through the 1960s and early 1970s, fish-ins at Frank's Landing on the Nisqually and on the Puyallup River met with arrests and jail. Billy Frank Jr. of the Nisqually, whose home was Frank's Landing, became the movement's best-known voice and later led the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission for many years.

In 1970 the United States, as trustee for the Tribes, sued the State of Washington. On February 12, 1974, Judge George Boldt ruled that the treaties reserved to the Tribes the right to take up to half of the harvestable fish, run by run, and made the Tribes co-managers of the fishery. In 1979 the Supreme Court upheld the core of that principle: the treaties secure "a share of each run," roughly equal between treaty and non-treaty fishers.

The Nisqually Tribe writes that salmon "has not only been the mainstay of their diet, but the foundation of their culture." The Southern Resident orcas of this sea eat Chinook salmon above all, and both are now endangered; the whales' future is the salmon's future. Tribes run salmon restoration across the region, from the Snoqualmie Tribe's kokanee work at Lake Sammamish to Nisqually and Tulalip salmon recovery. Our Orca Watch page follows the whales.

The Tribal Canoe Journey began with the Paddle to Seattle in July 1989, when canoes from seventeen Tribes landed at Golden Gardens, and continues nearly every year; in 2026 it was the Paddle to Nisqually.

The pattern behind this page, our orca mark and the formline pieces on Art are drawn by code from the vocabulary of Coast Salish design: in the Burke Museum's description, "concentric circles and ovals, negative crescents, and negative trigons." They are not Native art and are not made by Native artists. If you want the real thing, buy it from the artists directly. Contemporary Coast Salish artists include Qwalsius Shaun Peterson (Puyallup), Jason and Judy Gobin (Tulalip), and Andrea Wilbur-Sigo and Joe Seymour Jr. (Squaxin Island); the Suquamish Native Makers Market, Duwamish Longhouse art markets and the Muckleshoot Artist Directory list many more.