Those Who Were Here Before Us

They were a quiet, reserved, and subtle people, and they still are.

During the centuries this gentle land belonged to them, the salmon practically walked up to the long house door. During the summers they smoked the fish for the winter while eating the favored portion, the cheeks, as they worked. When the rains came they retired to their lodges for the winter dances.

They were mild and harmless, little inclined to war. Their society was a complex hierarchy which included nobility, commoners, and slaves. Neighboring groups, whether villages or adjacent tribes, were related by marriage, shared feasts and religious rituals, and common territory. Relations were especially close among peoples living along the same waterway. These types of relations among all the peoples of the Puget Sound region were extensive, but there was no formal political organization or political offices. There was no need for such things.

The arrival of whites who came to stay in the 19th century changed everything of course, but most dramatically it diminished the numbers of the Salish people. A smallpox epidemic broke out among the northwest tribes in 1862, and the territorial government, while not the cause, did nothing to try to stem the advance of the mortality, which carried off about half the affected populations. Other diseases took a toll as well, so that by 1885 the native population of the Sound region had dropped from a pre-contact high of over 12,000 to fewer than two thousand.

They and their culture have made a comeback, however, and they're preserved the memory of their way of life for all of us. We may have to draw on the wisdom embodied in that memory very soon.