In October 2014, Columbus Day was not honored in Seattle. Instead, the Seattle City Council introduced Indigenous Peoples’ Day in remembrance of both the struggles and survival of Native Americans, the first peoples to live in North America.
“The Native peoples are probably the least learned about and most misunderstood in this country,” Matt Remle says. A Seattle-based Lakota tribal member, teacher working with Tulalip tribal members, Remle is also the author of the Indigenous Peoples’ Day Resolution. “There are so many myths and misunderstandings,” he says, for example, that all Native Americans live in teepees or still ride horses.
Native Americans in the Pacific Northwest are a diverse collection of individuals, both from tribes who were the first people to live in present-day Washington, and tribal members who have moved here from other parts of the United States.
Remle points out that Seattle was a designated “relocation city” in the 1940s and 1950s, when the U.S. Government encouraged Native Americans to move to urban areas.
Home Care Aides (HCAs) should be careful to try to understand the unique individual: their history, traditions, and preferred methods of care. Varying tribes have different food preferences, traditional housing, art, and manners of traditional dress.
Respectful willingness to admit misperceptions and to be open-minded will help an HCA understand their Consumer.
Let’s take a look at the traditions and cultures of two Washington tribes: The Tulalip, based along the Washington Coast, and The Spokane, in the Washington Interior.
The Tulalip Tribe
The Tulalip (pronounced Tuh’-lay-lup) Indian Reservation is located just north of Everett, Washington, on the Salish Sea.
The Tulalip are still surviving and thriving. “Our culture is still here,” says Mary Jane Topash, a Tulalip tribal member and group tour specialist. “We still practice our culture, with our first salmon ceremony held in June, with our intertribal canoe journey every summer,” along with weddings, funerals, and other community gatherings.
Traditional foods included more than 250 different foods gathered from the surrounding mountains, forests, fields, fresh water and salt water. It was important to eat with the changing seasons, eat a diversity of foods, gather only what was needed, and share with others at family meals. Foods included wild game, wild onions, berries, dandelions, stinging nettles, salmon, and mushrooms.
Red cedar was used in very inventive ways: to craft canoes, clothing, baskets, hats, baby diapers and fishing nets. Cedar planks were used to build the 1914 longhouse, still in use on the Tulalip reservation. Cedar was carved into story poles (tall carvings up to 70 feet tall) to share community stories, or teaching poles, which grandparents would use to share tribal stories with youth, Topash says. These are not totem poles, which actually are an art of Alaskan and Northern BC First Nations.
“We have a strong sense of community, we’re very close and tight-knit,” Topash says. “We’re taught to respect our elders, it’s the first thing ingrained in our brain,” she says, and elders come first at everything, whether speaking or being served food.
Language is also very important, she says. “We’re one of the few tribes who didn’t lose our language,” she says, and today Lushootseed is spoken from Olympia to the Canadian border.
The Tulalip community is proudly self-sustaining today, offering health and dental clinics, a senior center, and tribal court. The community operates Quil Ceda Village, the only municipality within a tribe in the U.S., Topash says. As well, there are two on-site casinos, an outlet mall and a beautiful museum, the Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve.
The Spokane Tribe
The Spokane Tribe (pronounced spoh-kan) belongs to the Interior Salishan community, primarily east of the Washington Cascade mountain range. “Historically, we had an area that covered over 3 million acres where we roamed freely, before reservations,” says Velma Brehm, a Salish language instructor, Spokane Tribe Member, and adjunct professor of Native American studies classes and history at Spokane Tribal College. Brehm also worked as an HCA for her mother, father, and grandmother.
“Our people depended heavily on salmon for our food, and almost 50 percent of our food intake came from salmon,” she says. Other foods that are still eaten today include wild game (such as deer, elk, and moose), small game birds (such as grouse and wild chickens), along with roots and berries. Sweet treats included “Indian Ice Cream,” which Brehm describes as foamberries and sugar whipped into frothy foam.
When you first meet a Consumer, ask how the elder would like to be addressed, Brehm says, and whether there are items in the house that are personal or not to be touched. For example, items such as an eagle feather, another sacred item, or traditional medicine can hold spiritual or personal significance, she says. “Most elders will be outspoken about what you can and can’t do in the house,” Brehm says, but listen for important rules around items.
Traditionally, only the significant other and family members handle a person’s hair. Elders may ask HCAs for the hairs filling a hairbrush; they will deal with the hair in a respectful way.
Some newcomers make a few common mistakes, Brehm says.
For example, don’t ask older Native Consumers to interpret dreams or bestow an “Indian Name.” These requests are based on Hollywood misconceptions, not real life. As well, discussing a “distant Cherokee ancestor” will not help two individuals connect.
It’s important for the Spokane Consumers to know they’re able to trust their Home Care Aides, Brehm says. Consumers afflicted by strokes or speech difficulties may rely on HCAs, she says. “The more that the HCA knows their client, knows their needs, wants, and wishes, the better they can speak out on their behalf,” she says.
“Don’t come in with any preconceived notions about what it’s like to be a Spokane elder,” she says. “Treat them like a person, and they will quickly start looking at you as a member of extended family. Treat them with the respect that they deserve and they’ve earned, not that they’re going to Shaman up your way of life and give you a mystical Indian name. Treat them with the attitude that, ‘Yeah, you’re my client, and my potential friend too.’”
