“My Old People Used to Say . . .”: Reflections on Sacred Places in Tuwaduq Territories of the Pacific Northwest

Abstract: In this first-person interview with an elder and oral historian of the Skokomish Indian Nation, Sm3tcoom Delbert Miller shares a wealth of cultural knowledge as he describes how ancestral knowledge was handed down through generations of his people. In sharing how young people of his tribal nation were culturally trained by their elders, he explains how certain places within the natural world became known as sacred places to Indigenous peoples, whose connection to the lands in which they live is of paramount importance. Sm3tcoom juxtaposes the tranquility and sanctity of some of the Skokomish people’s most sacred places with the destruction of those places by the State Highway Department “steamrolling everything in their path to make a highway.” He describes the impact of colonization, which cast traditional knowledge as “evil” and banned it. Sm3tcoom also reflects on the resilience of Indigenous peoples and the ways in which knowledge of the sacred places endures and regenerates through the ceremonial naming of individuals with the names of ancestral village sites. The inextricable relationship between the people and the land is revealed in a moving and powerful conclusion.