"Gas Works Park is a great park for a lot of people. Most people who visit the park, I don't think they have any idea of the traditional history and the traditional value of that area."
Featuring Warren King George (Muckleshoot), historian, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe
Hit the Water
Saltwater Soundwalk SHORT
Warren King George (Muckleshoot): [Repeats Southern Lushootseed name three times / Hit the Water]. Hit the Water.
[sounds of water lapping in the background]
The Lake Union is a good memory for me.
[00:00:18] My name is Warren King George. My father’s bloodline is how I'm enrolled in the bəqəlšuɫ Tribe.
Gas Works Park is a great park for a lot of people. Most people who visit the park, I don't think they have any idea of the traditional history and the traditional value of that area; of that—banks of the Lake Union. And the last time I was there, I got to fish that water with my sister[European name] who carries the traditional name [says Lushootseed name].
And, we got to fish together. We fished for sockeye. We got to exercise a treaty right.
Sockeye salmon—[Says Southern Lushootseed word twice] is the way you can say that in Lushootseed. You know, it’s rare that we get a treaty sockeye fishery.
[Repeats Southern Lushootseed word / sockeye]
And we fished in Lake Union. Lake Union falls within the usual and accustomed area of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. The place that my sister and I fished was very near [Says Southern Lushootseed name twice]. It was just east of [Southern Lushootseed name].
Hit the Water.
That was an old fishing site. An old village site. So it was—it meant more to me than just fishing and spending time with my sister and exercising a treaty right. There was a historical value to it, that I was able to repeat something that my ancestors on my father’s side did years and years ago.
[sounds of water fade]
[00:02:36]