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An Unlikely Celebration
I discovered this week, while visiting the Hibulb Cultural Center, that the Tulalip Tribes celebrate annual ‘Treaty Days.’ This event commemorates the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855, in which local tribes were pushed to cede 10,000 square miles of ancestral land between Seattle and the Canadian border. Most of us would consider this an epic injustice, not something to celebrate. What is going on here? To borrow the Center’s quote from Vi Hilbert: “Treaty Day is not the celebration of losing our land, but the regaining of our right to practice our spiritual traditions.” Apparently in 1912, a tribal leader…
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Sacred Spaces
The word ‘sacred’ has cropped up often this month. Or maybe this word has always been prominent, and I’ve been slow to notice it. I attended a powwow orientation class through the Episcopal Diocese, where I learned that the space inside of a talking circle is sacred. So are the sage, cedar, tobacco and sweet grass plants that we received as gifts. And so are the eagle feathers worn by the dancers at that day’s Muckleshoot Powwow. I love this learning, and I soak it in. But, to be honest, I don’t really know what ‘sacred’ means. In my mind,…