Fellow Worker Sean interviews Naiome about the project Longhouse for the People.
Tell us about your project, what you’re seeking to accomplish?
My name is Naiome and my current project focus is the Longhouse for the People. We have purchased 11.5 acres in Quilcene, where we plan on building a traditional longhouse with traditional first foods, gardens, and more. Currently the clean up of the land is underway and quite extensive.
This project is to bring back our history. From 1910 to 2019, it was illegal to own or build a longhouse in Chemakum territory. We plan on bringing back longhouses while simultaneously creating a space in our community for indigenous and non-indigenous people to gather. This will be a space for education, potlatches and celebrations.
Why this project?
I’m working to reclaim and re-matriate my family’s territory. I’m doing this by getting land back for my people. We’re replanting traditional foods and constructing semi-traditional homes and longhouses for people, we’re educating the public about the people’s land they are on. We’re learning language and relearning language; relearning and teaching people about ancestral ways. I’ve been taking classes on cedar gathering and weaving and I recently carved a beautiful paddle.
Who are your people?
I’m mixed Chemakum and I am organizing in Chemakum Territory. We’re displaced people and not federally recognized. We’re trying to make ourselves seen and prove that we aren’t extinct, which is what has been taught around here. Some people don’t know we exist.
I think this is what it feels like in a Tribe colonized by the US government. I am Qawalangin, from Alaska. We’re recognized but heading towards extinction because of land theft and climate change. Why is community and outreach important for Tribal diaspora?
It’s strange to convince society that you exist as a people and that people are surprised that the Chemakum people still exist. We exist and we were removed from our land, people need to know they live on other peoples land, stolen land. Families were broken up and sent to boarding schools for land. We were almost destroyed for land and profits. In 1910, my family experienced land theft and my ancestors were sent to boarding schools.
My family experienced land theft in 1942 and boarding schools too. It’s colonization and that feeling of fighting for existence, I know it well, too. How has the community responded?
White people are becoming more aware of the injustices committed against people of color. This awareness is bringing the Chemakum story to view. Indigenous people are starting to say “We’re done. We’re finding our voices and white people are starting to listen. We don’t need recognition from the federal government, we need to get our land back by ourselves.”
What are some of the challenges?
Resources. We need help getting the land back and keeping it. The tribes around here were coastal based and coastal land is expensive. Corporations only care about profits. They’ve poisoned the land and the people on it. You ever notice how natives are always on the land that has resources on it and we’re always poisoned and moved?
Why is land so important?
Because we were forcibly removed from our land. Ancestors were killed defending these lands. I want to be where my ancestors fell because their spirits are important to me. I go to the places my ancestors lived, I can close my eyes and picture what a village might have been like. There were massacres on Chemakum land. My ancestors fought for this land and I can feel the connection. It’s important to have spaces. Chemakum are displaced from their traditional lands and it would be healthy to have Chemakum back on ancestral lands.
Why is this important?
What we do today will ripple and affect our children and their grandchildren. There’s no time like the present to start making changes. I’m getting older and I must do something. I want to live in harmony with nature and create art, I want community villages where people farm and harvest in harmony with nature. I want less cars, and to be able to canoe around the home territories for my needs.
Community is important, isn’t it? And tribes have used community to live sustainably.
Community is everything. Humans were meant for community living. Everyone works a little in community, we all are cared for, and we live together just fine.
How can people find out more?
Friends of the project are welcome to join us for a work party on the 3rd Sunday of every month from 11am – 4pm. Contact us for more information and directions:
longhouseforthepeople@gmail.com or naiomedkrienke@gmail.com
Seattle Industrial Workers of the World 