Learning Lushootseed in an Environment of Intergenerational Trauma (aired August 2023)
Tribal Canoe Journey 2023 Protocol (aired August 2023)
The InterTribal Canoe Journey, otherwise referred to as “canoe journey” or “tribal journey” are a Coast Salish tribal event to bring back the ancestral cultural ways of using cedars canoes on the Salish Sea as a means to live in relation. Canoe journeys started in the 1980s and have grown over the years.
Muckleshoot Tribe hosted Intertribal Canoe Journey 2023, welcoming 120 canoes to its shores. Canoe families came from as far north as Juneau Alaska, British Columbia’s Campbell River and Ahousat areas, and as far south as Southern California.
On August 6, the 2023 Intertribal Canoe Journey ended with protocol at Muckleshoot. Listen to sounds and voices of the people there.
Producers: Yuko Kodama, Lucy Braginski and Widder Sessions – Special thanks to Maizy Brown Bear for help with this story
Photos: Widder Sessions and Maizy Brown Bear
Muckleshoot protocol
Line for dinner at Muckleshoot canoe journey protocol
Danny Stevenson – Muckleshoot tribal member
Jenel Hunter Muckleshoot tribal member
Stanley Jones Cowichan First Nations and Katrina “Alex” Johnson Ahousaht/Mowachaht First Nations (British Columbia)
Teaching Lushootseed to Toddlers
Lushootseed is the language spoken by Coast Salish tribes in the greater Seattle area and north to Skagit River Valley near Bellingham and Whidbey Island, and south to Olympia and Shelton. In 1819, Congress passed the Civilization Fund Act to assimilate indigenous youth to western culture. The policy authorized forcible separation of indigenous children from their families to be sent to boarding schools far away, where they were to be stripped of their language, culture and religious practices. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that this practice was outlawed. This caused a severe disruption in likelihood for traditional practices and lifestyles to continue.
Today, members of these communities are reawakening their native tongue through education to everyone from 6 month olds, elementary and high school students and adults.
Jasmyne Diaz is an enrolled Tulalip member and shares a peek into her work of teaching Lushootseed language as a Teacher Assistant to six-month to two-year old children in Tulalip, Washington through the Tulalip Lushootseed Language Program
Producers: Laura Florez and Yuko Kodama
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women 1 – What’s Needed
Roxanne White, of the Yakama, Nez Perce, Nooksack and Gros Ventre tribes, is an activist who advocates for the families of missing and murdered women (MMIW). KBCS’s Yuko Kodama spoke with White about the MMIW movement at an indigenous prayer skirt sewing circle organized as a community building event in honor of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
Nature: The Western Red Cedar and Native Tribes
KBCS’s Yuko Kodama spoke with Ed Dominguez, Seward Park Audubon Center Lead Naturalist, about one tree that was the Tree of Life for the local Duwamish people: the Western Red Cedar.