The Herald
Wednesday, July 6, 2005
By Cathy Logg
TULALIP - Henry Gobin stood on the bluff above Tulalip Bay in a misty rain, surveying the beaches around the bay and on Whidbey Island in the distance.
"This whole area is a repository of history," he said. "People need to
understand who we are and what is our sense of relationship to the land."
More than 2,000 years ago, the Tulalip Tribes' ancestors occupied a broad
area extending from Camano Island to Edmonds, said Gobin, the tribes'
cultural resources manager. They had numerous encampments, including at
Camano City, Warm Beach and a longhouse at Preston Park at the mouth of the Snohomish River, which enabled the tribes to protect sites along the river.
While the tribes have lost control of much of that land over the centuries,
their ancestors are buried in numerous locations. The tribes regard those
burial grounds as sacred.
Among them is Cama Beach, about a mile north of Camano Island State Park on the island's western shore.
The state Parks and Recreation Commission plans to open a park there next
year, but the project has been halted since March, after crews excavating
utility trenches to provide power for rental cabins unearthed the remains of
four people in January and February.
The Tulalips monitored the excavation because they knew the site had been a
tribal encampment.
Now the tribes have asked the state to permanently halt the park project,
and pledged to do whatever is necessary to preserve the site, including
purchasing it.
"Our people always have had a great respect for our dead," Gobin said. "To
build a resort on the remains of our ancestors is disrespectful. ... We take
issue with people wanting to make it a tourist site. That, to us, is very
painful."
As a comparison, he said people would be upset if it was decided to build a
resort at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
"That's the same principle," Gobin said.
State officials say they also are committed to protecting the site, but
they're not interested in selling the park. State officials are meeting with
tribal directors to discuss Cama Beach.
"Our interest is in being good stewards," said Larry Fairleigh, assistant
state parks director in charge of planning, real estate and construction.
Park supporters say there's room for all of the park's varied history to be
showcased in the educational center planned for Cama Beach State Park. An
agreement between the state and tribes gave the Tulalips the option to build
a cultural center at the park.
The agreement also allowed for the digging, and about 85 percent of the
utility trenches had been completed, Fairleigh said.
The permit that allowed the excavation has expired, but the state is seeking
an extension. That application is undergoing a public comment period in
which the Tulalips can express their concerns, Fairleigh said.
The Tulalips reburied the remains of the four people.
"It's time people recognize it's a significant burial and cultural site of
the Tulalip people," Gobin said.
He acknowledged there are probably many similar sites along area waters.
Tribal encampments needed to be accessible, to have water available and to
provide a means of protection from the elements, he said.
That's why Tulalip Bay was chosen as the site for the Tulalip Reservation
under the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855 as a home for the Snohomish,
Stillaguamish, Samish, Skagit, Snoqualmie and Suiattle tribes.
"Our people had longhouses all the way from Warm Beach down," Gobin said. "Mission Beach was a burial site in (Capt. George) Vancouver's time.
"Maintaining the cultural and historic integrity of our land is very
important to us," he said.
The tribe's cultural resources center on the reservation, whose tribal name
means "House of Learning," and a planned cultural museum nearby are
dedicated to "those who have gone home before us and those who remain to
keep the fires burning," Gobin said.
He explained how the tribes' burial practices were transformed over the
centuries.
When the land was pristine forests extending to the water, the common
practice was to wrap bodies in woven cedar blankets suspended between two
cedar trees. Bodies also were wrapped in cedar blankets, tule or cattail
mats and placed in canoes mounted on four posts. Later, Catholic priests
brought the concept of underground burial.
The Cama Beach site has multiple burial locations. Gobin said it could be
even bigger than a Port Angeles site where hundreds of ancient tribal
remains were unearthed. The state has halted a construction project there
and is seeking another location.
The Cama Beach site "is not an insignificant site," Gobin said. "It's a true
and historic legacy of the Tulalip people. To minimize that is a tragedy."