Lummi people

Lummi

Xwlemi
Lummi Nation citizen operating a canoe in tribal waters (2008)
Regions with significant populations
Washington, United States
Languages
Lummi, English
Religion
Indigenous folk religion, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Other Central Coast Salish peoples

The Lummi (Lummi dialect: Xwlemi or Lhaq'temish) are a Central Coast Salish people Indigenous to western Washington, namely parts of the San Juan Islands and the mainland near what is now Bellingham, Washington.

There are two names that are used by the Lummi to describe themselves: Xwlemi and Lhaq'temish. The name "Lummi" is an anglicization of one of the Lummi endonyms, Xwlemi. Xwlemi is spelled several ways, including Xwlemey' and Nexwlemey'. The name is said to be derived from Xwlalemes, the name of a Lummi longhouse at Gooseberry Point, meaning "L-shaped."^[1][2] The name possibly came to refer to the Lummi as a people after the Lummi concentrated around that area in the 19th century.^[3]

The name in English has been recorded many ways. The first attested recording was in 1824, as Lummie. Other spellings include Lummi, Nuglummi,^[3] Holumma, Whullumy, Wholerneils, Whellamay, and Noohlummi.^[1]

The Lummi are a Central Coast Salish people. The Central Coast Salish are a group of culturally related peoples in the Salish Sea, including the Squamish, Nooksack, Halkomelem-speaking peoples, the Klallam, and the other Northern Straits-speaking peoples.^[4] The Lummi are part of the North Straits peoples, who are a group of related peoples in the San Juan Islands, as well as on parts of Vancouver and Fidalgo islands.^[5]

The Lummi were not a historically unified people. According to their oral history, the Lummi are composed of the descendants of the last Klalakamish and Swallah peoples. The Klalakamish were a group who were located on northern San Juan Island, while the Swallah were a people whose land was at Eastsound, on Orcas Island. These peoples are said to have joined with their Lummi relatives after they moved to the mainland, following the destruction of their villages by smallpox.^[5]

There are several pieces of the oral history of the Lummi which explain the origin of the Lummi people. In one, the First Man fell from the sky in northern San Juan Island, becoming the first Klalakamish. Another story tells of how the Klalakamish were threatened with extinction, with only one remaining. The last man gave his house to another who lived at Flat Point on Lopez Island, who arranged his (now two) houses in an L-shape, calling his home Xwlalemes, which eventually turned into Xwlemi. As the Lummi settled the mainland, the man moved his Xwlemi house to Gooseberry Point, which became the center of Lummi society in the modern era.^[2]

Another history tells of how, around 1725, a man of the Swallah murdered the Skalakhan as revenge for the murder of his brother. The man had gained a powerful spirit power that enabled him to kill almost all of the Skalakhan, who were a (possibly Nooksack-speaking)^[5] group living at the mouth of the Nooksack River, and after doing so, the last surviving Skalakhan ceded their territory to the Lummi. Thereafter, the rest of the Lummi settled on the mainland after the removal of the Skalakhan.^[2]

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Lummi were recovering from devastating waves of smallpox which devastated their lands. The epidemics wiped out or nearly wiped out three villages in the San Juan Islands, and past their destruction, the islands no longer were used as winter spots, only summer gathering grounds.^[2] Not only that, but the Lummi were suffering from large-scale slave raids on their villages from northern peoples. The surviving Lummi abandoned their villages on the islands and moved to the mainland. There, they defeated the Skalakhan and Hulwhaluq peoples and absorbed their villages.^[3] From that point on, the center of power for the Lummi was on the mainland.^[6] They built large stockades to fortify their new villages on the mainland.^[3]

In 1853, ethnologist George Gibbs reported that there were two Lummi "bands" on the mainland, one in the south and one in the north. The northern band was led by a man named Chilleuk, while the southern band was led by a man named Chowitsoot. ^[7]

On January 22, 1855, the Lummi were party to the Treaty of Point Elliott. Thirteen Lummi leaders signed the treaty, led by the American-appointed Chowitsoot.^[6] The Lummi ceded their lands, roughly 107,000 acres,^[8] to the United States, in return for guaranteed hunting and fishing rights, as well as retaining reservation lands as established in the treaty. The treaty established the Lummi Reservation, to which the Lummi and several other local peoples (including the Nooksack and Samish) were scheduled to be removed. Many who moved to the reservation left, and in the end, it was majorly inhabited by Lummis.^[9]

In 1857, the Indian agent of the Lummi Reservation reported that there were three Lummi bands, each located at the forks of the mouth of the Nooksack River. Each acknowledged Chowitsoot as their leader.^[7]

In the 1980s, the fishing rights of the Lummi were attacked. Private canneries built salmon traps at traditional Lummi fishing sites, depriving the Lummi of their reef-netting fishing locations. They also lost access to fishing in Bellingham Bay due to a large log jam. Not only that, but they continually lost land on their reservation due to the sale of land to private individuals.^[10]

In the 1930s, the Lummi built a dike on the Nooksack River, allowing them to acquire and cultivate new land along the river delta.^[10]

The mid-to-late 1900s marked a push to regain Lummi treaty rights, especially in the case of fishing.

In the 1960s, the Lummi began a new aquaculture project, creating a fish hatchery and a salmon-rearing facility. Throughout the 70s and 80s, the Lummi fishing fleets continued to increase, and by the 1980s, around one-quarter of all fish caught in Washington state were caught by the Lummi.^[11]

The Lummi also fought to restore the hold over the land on their reservation, and revitalize it in other ways. The Lummi Nation reacquired around 10 percent of reservation land into trust, and in the 1980s, the Lummi Nation opened a restaurant-boating complex, processing plant, and several education facilities.^[11]

The historical core of Lummi territory was in the San Juan Islands only, where they controlled about half of the archipelago. The Lummi controlled all of Orcas Island, Shaw Island, and their environs, as well as the north-western half of Lopez Island and the north-eastern half of San Juan island. The borders of Lummi territory was well-known by both the Lummi people and other neighboring peoples.^[2]

Sometime in the 18th century, the Lummi began moving to the mainland, which became the center of Lummi society. Prior to the treaties, the Lummi controlled the shoreline from Point Whitehorn to Chuckanut Bay. Their holdings extended inland as far as Lake Terrell and what is now Ferndale.^[2]

Some of their lands were historically cooperatively owned by the Lummi and one or more neighboring peoples. For example, the area from Whatcom Creek to Chuckanut Bay was shared by the Lummi with the Nuwhaha and the Nooksack.^[2]

The Lummi speak the Lummi language, which is a variety of the Northern Straits Salish language. Although it is typically classed as a dialect, it is traditionally viewed as its own language. Varieties of Northern Straits are spoken by the Lummi, the Semiahmoo, the Samish, Songhees, Saanich, and the Sooke peoples.^[2][5]

The Lummi did not traditionally have "chiefs," nor were they arranged in organized "tribes," as has been commonly posited by both contemporary and modern writers. Rather, the highest unit of social organization in traditional Lummi society was the autonomous village and the household. Although there was a sense of identity even past the village level, there was no centralized means of power or authority that one village held over another. Rather, social cohesion was based upon kinship, alliances, community, and a shared culture and dialect between families and villages.^[2]

"Chiefs," as they have been called in literature, were traditionally people whose prestige gave them sway over others. However, there was by no means any formalized authority that one such leader had over other members of their community, or other communities. Generally, these people were leaders of their respective families and households. They could exercise authority over members of their family, including those in other houses or villages, but had no authority over a village itself.^[2]

The Lummi had a stratified society of three classes: high-class, low-class, and slave.^[2]

Like other peoples of the Northwest Coast, Lummi society was shaped by extensive intermarriage and alliance with other nearby peoples, both locally and abroad. The Lummi often intermarried the Klallam and some northern Lushootseed-speaking peoples, but were commonly hostile to the Cowichan peoples.^[12] In addition, the Lummi were subject to slave raids from the north, which forced them to migrate to the mainland, abandoning their settlements in the San Juans. Despite past conflicts, the Lummi today maintain relations with peoples they historically were hostile to.^[3]

Since the colonial period, the Lummi have both traded and fought with European settlers and Catholic missionaries. A mission was established shortly after the treaty signing, by reverends Chirouse and D'Herbomez. The United States opened Fort Bellingham in 1856 near the Lummi Reservation, which was operated for four years until 1860. The Lummi themselves traded at forts and settlements nearby, including at Victoria and along the Fraser River. Much of the modern history of the Lummi has been marked by their struggle against the American government and White fishermen for their treaty rights, which have been violated many times since the treaty's signing.^[7]

Most Lummi are enrolled in the federally-recognized Lummi Nation (officially known as the Lummi Tribe of the Lummi Reservation), who are the political successors to the aboriginal Lummi who signed the treaty.^[13] The Lummi Nation formally adopted a constitution in 1970, and is run by the Lummi Business Council, a democratically-elected eleven-member council which governs the tribe.^[9]

• Chow-its-hoot

• Lummi Nation
• Lummi dialect
• Lummi Island
• Lummi stick
• Lummi River

• Ruby, Robert H.; Brown, John A.; Collins, Cary C. (2010). A Guide to the Indian Tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Civilization of the American Indian. Vol. 173 (3rd ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 9780806124797.
• Suttles, Wayne (1954-01-31). Post Contact Culture Change Among the Lummi Indians. BC Historical Quarterly.
• Suttles, Wayne (1990). Central Coast Salish. Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 7. Smithsonian Institution. pp. 453–475. ISBN 0-16-020390-2.