Snoqualmie (people)
The Snoqualmie ( S · duk w albix w ) are an Indian tribe living in the US state of Washington . They live in the Snoqualmie Valley in eastern King County and Snohomish County . Their traditional territory included Monroe, Carnation, Fall City, Snoqualmie , North Bend , Mercer Island, and Issaquah . Since 1999 they have been recognized as a tribe.
They speak a dialect of the southwest coastal Salish , the Lushootseed . According to its own information, the tribe has 597 members, but about 650 are also given.
history
Like all coastal salish , the snoqualmie migrated seasonally depending on salmon , game and vegetation cycles. This meant that they only moved into permanent houses in winter, known as plank houses. They also lived in houses that were only covered with mats and opened to one side with a view of a fire.
They traded their canoes in Puget Sound and northward as far as the Fraser River , making blankets from goat and dog hair and grass. What is unusual for a coastal Salish tribe, however, is that the Snoqualmie owned a few horses and the tribe was more strictly organized. They probably got the horses from the Yakima , with whom they were related. However, the relationship with the Nisqually , the Klallam and the Cowichan on Vancouver Island was conflicted .
At Snoqualmie Falls, the Creator first created man and woman, and from here a connection leads to heaven. The waterfall is still sacred to the tribe today, but they could not prevent its use for energy production (1898 and 1910).
The people of the Snoqualmie lived in two villages in the valley of the Snoqualmie River from 1844 at the latest . One was at the mouth of the Tok River, the other about a mile below the 82 m high Snoqualmie Falls . In addition to their usual lifestyle, they also planted potatoes.
The Point Elliott Treaty
By 1855 the Snoqualmie were one of the largest tribes on Puget Sound , with about 4,000 members, but it was more likely a tribal confederation. The figures for the middle of the 19th century otherwise fluctuate between 225 and 350. The Snoqualmie chief Patkanim attacked Fort Nisqually on May 1, 1849 . Two of the later accused were hanged by an American court, including the chief's brother, a Skykomish .
Putkanim signed the Treaty of Point Elliott in 1855, ceding all of the Snoqualmie land from Snoqualmie Pass to Everett to the federal government. The Snoqualmie were to move to the Tulalip Reserve. They never succeeded in regaining their territory on the Tok River. Putkanim was more of an enemy of the British than the American, whom he supported with sixty men shortly after the treaty was signed against other tribes. He received bonuses for killing them, mostly in the form of blankets.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Chief Pat Kanim's nephew, Chief Jerry Kanim (1870-1956), led the tribe, which in 1870, under Chief Samawa, consisted of 301 people. The tribe had federal recognition from 1859, when the US Senate and President ratified the Point-Elliott Treaty, until 1953, when they no longer fell under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs as an "organized" tribe .
The Treaty of Point Elliott was of central importance in its protective provisions and in its power of definition for the 22 tribes involved. Compliance with it was repeatedly demanded and the recognition of the signatory tribes demanded. However, until 1934 the government had a program of dissolving the tribes into individuals. The tribes resisted, increasingly with the participation of a media public that had now emerged.
The big meeting of 1933
In 1933 the American Legion post in Kirkland tried to arrange a meeting of as many tribes as possible. Snoqualmie Chief Jerry Kanim was the first to accept the offer. In March 1933, he gathered many tribes near Lake Sammamish . Both the community and the Legion should do deep insights into Indian culture and also benefit materially from it. Kirkland and the operators of the Lake Washington ferry, which connected Seattle to the bay, expected numerous visitors and substantial income in the middle of the Great Depression.
Chief Jerry Kanim and Skykomish Chief Black Thunder as well as a women's delegation from Muckleshoot conducted the preliminary negotiations. The beaches of Juanita Bay, a collection point for wapato (arrowhead, sagittaria) for generations , were chosen as the place of the great gathering.
The La Conner tribe borrowed two large canoes, Joseph Hillaire gave lectures to citizens and schools, Martin Samson, President of the Northwest Federation of Indians , called for participation in radio interviews.
On the last weekend in May, over 400 Indians in traditional clothing camped at Juanita Bay, in teepees and tents. Numerous men participated in canoe races of the Swinomish, La Conner, Skagit and other tribes. There were also games and dances. The governor was made a member of the Lummi and promised them compliance with the protections of 1855. On Saturday, over 2,500 people watched the re-signing of the Treaty of Point Elliott. Joseph Hillaire, son of the Lummi chief, who had signed the treaty in 1855, had researched the events surrounding this treaty. Governor Clarence Martin took on the role of then Governor Isaac Ingalls Stevens , Jerry Kanim that of his uncle, Chief Patkanim, other descendants followed suit. Numerous members of the Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Yakima and Skykomish, even the Lost Rainier and Darrington attended the ceremony.
The struggle for state recognition as a tribe
After the contract was signed, the Snoqualmie tried to get a reservation on the Tolt River, but without success. The tribe, comprised of approximately 600 adults and 450 children, has been fighting for state recognition since 1953 when the Congressional Record listed the Snoqualmie as an unrecognized tribe.
They filed a lawsuit for restitution of land they had ceded to the United States in the Point Elliott Treaty. On June 30, 1961, the Indian Claims Commission ruled against the applicants. On August 27, 1965, the Snoqualmie petitioned the Court of Claims for an appeal, and the Court overturned the decision. On September 23, 1968, the commission ruled in favor of Snoqualmie (and Skykomish ) and offered to pay $ 257,698 . The Snoqualmie tribe had already received $ 25,889 in the Point Elliot contract.
In 1974, however, he was denied these rights by the Boldt ruling, which only guaranteed the recognized tribes their contractual fishing rights. The Samish , Duwamish , Snohomish and Steilacoom fared similarly because they were unrecognized tribes.
In order to get recognition again, the tribe pointed out that the federal government took up various responsibilities of the tribe, which came from the Treaty of Point Elliott: Thus some members of the tribe received trust land and food. In addition, the Tulalip agency tried to set up a reservation for the Snoqualmie in the Tolt Valley, but to no avail. The federal government recognized the Snoqualmie tribe in August 1997, but already in December the Tulalip tribe filed claims that the Tulalip tribes were the true successors of the Snoqualmie culture and that the Snoqualmie claim should be limited to the area, that they considered their own. However, these appeals were rejected.
On October 6, 1999, the Snoqualmie tribe was formally recognized by the federal government. This status means that the United States recognizes the Snoqualmie as a sovereign nation and the tribe is entitled to state programs and possibly a reservation. In addition, a constitution and elected leaders were still missing. This was also made up for.
Current situation
In early 2007, the tribe signed a $ 330 million loan agreement with Bear Stearns to build a casino on Trust Land in King County to capitalize on the financial strength of nearby Seattle . The opening is planned for the end of 2008. In addition to games of chance, concerts, boxing events, etc. are planned there.
The chief is Jerry Enick.
literature
- Robert H. Ruby / John A. Brown: A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest , University of Oklahoma Press 1992, pp. 214-216.
- Wayne Suttles (Ed.): Handbook of North American Indians . Volume 7: Northwest Coast. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC 1990. ISBN 0-87474-187-4
- Colin E. Tweddell, The Snoqualmie-Duwamish Dialects of Puget Sound Coast Salish: An Outline of Phonemics and Morphology. University of Washington publications in anthropology, v. 12. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1950
- Kenneth D. Tollefson, The Snoqualmie: A Puget Sound Chiefdom, in: Ethnology 26 (1987) 121-136
See also
Web links
- Website of the Snoqualmie Tribe
- Snoqualmie Casino
- Governors Office of Indian Affairs supporting Indian Affairs - Snoqualmie Tribe
Remarks
- ↑ See the side of the trunk, e.g. History: Archived copy ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ See http://www.snoqualmienation.com/History.htm ( Memento from December 17, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) .
- ↑ Indian Claims, 1965, p. 316 (PDF, 3.6 MB).
- ↑ A short version can be found on the home page of the ( http://www.snoqualmienation.com/ tribal website)
- ^ Sonia Krishnan: Snoqualmie Tribe on road to self-sufficiency , in: Seattle Times, January 4, 2005 .
- ^ Ruby / Brown 214.
- ↑ This and the following from: Alan J. Stein: Indian tribes gather in Juanita to re-enact signing of 1855 Point Elliott Treaty on May 27, 1933 , HistoryLink.org .
