TULALIP — Jordan Jira, who graduated from Lakewood High School Friday, is headed to Central Washington University to play football.
Bryce Juneau Jr. plans to attend Northwest Indian College or Whatcom Community College after tonight’s graduation from Marysville Pilchuck High School.
The next step for Marysa Eastman, a recent Western Washington University graduate, is in the Seattle University master’s degree program in school counseling.
“I grew up at Tulalip and I want to come back here,” said Eastman, 23, the niece of Tulalip Heritage High School Principal Shelly Lacy.
With more than 100 others, they were celebrated Monday night at the Tulalip Tribes’ banquet for its 2016 graduates. Proud parents, grandparents and other loved ones, about 625 in all, filled a Tulalip Resort Casino ballroom. With Tulalip Tribal Chairman Mel Sheldon Jr. doing the honors, guests cheered, angled for pictures and shed a few tears during the buffet dinner and program.
One by one, graduates of colleges and universities, high schools, GED and certificate programs came forward. And on each head was placed a handcrafted gift made to last a lifetime. In a group picture taken at the end of the evening, each graduate is wearing that keepsake — a mortarboard-style graduation cap lovingly woven of cedar.
“This is the first time that they have all had woven hats,” said tribal member Judy Gobin, 60, who spent months making the caps with the help of her daughter, Toni Jo Gobin.
“It’s been kind of a dream of mine,” said Judy Gobin, recording secretary for the Tulalip Tribes Board of Directors. She had read about a school in Canada where a weaver had made cedar hats for all the kindergartners. “I wanted to do that, so our graduates would all have hats,” she said. Through the years, “I’ve been making them for my nieces and nephews.”
The Tulalips needed 105 caps for all the graduates. Gobin and her daughter started weaving and stitching together the hats in February, but the process actually began last summer with the gathering of cedar.
“They’re woven of western red cedar we gather ourselves from the forest,” Gobin said. “It’s like firewood when you cut it yourself. You have to let it season. I let it season about nine months.”
The part of a cedar tree used for weaving is a layer between the outer scratchy bark and the hard wood inside. “When it’s hot and the sap is gone, you can pull it. We gather it, pull it apart, wind it up, clean it and let it hang for nine months,” Gobin said. Her husband, Tony Gobin, and other family members come along for cedar-gathering.
Each hat takes about five hours to make, Judy Gobin said. For comfort, they are lined with soft muslin cloth. The headband has an open end that can be tied to adjust for size.
“She made my hat with a family crest on it,” said Justice Napeahi, 21, who got his cap when he graduated from Marysville Pilchuck in 2013. Napeahi, a drummer who works for the Tulalip housing program, attended Monday’s banquet. He said he’ll keep his cedar mortarboard forever.
During the presentation of graduates, Robert Miles Jr., a 2016 graduate of Tulalip Heritage High School, was already wearing his cedar hat. It was beautifully beaded by his father, Cyrus “Bubba” Fryberg Jr., a Heritage football coach.
“That is a super-special one,” Judy Gobin said.
Gobin didn’t grow up learning her ancestral art of weaving, although she said “I had aunties and a grandma who were master weavers from the Swinomish area.”
She credits the tribal gaming business for providing money to offer “rediscovery” classes in carving, leather work and basket-making. “I had always wanted to learn, so I took this class in 1992. I’ve been weaving ever since,” she said.
Cedar has been significant to her people for centuries.
“To us, it’s everything,” Gobin said. “It was our transportation. All our canoes were made with cedar, and our paddles, cooking utensils, baskets, clothing and tools. They used to make nets out of it, huge baskets with holes. They would tie them to two canoes, paddle and catch fish. Cedar was our life.”
Gobin, who also makes paper and other artwork from cedar, said the aroma of the wood fills her house.
Sheldon said some of the teens had experienced “bumpy roads” even before adulthood. He introduced one inspirational graduate, Marysville Pilchuck’s Malia Grato. She was born with spina bifida and lost her father in an accident. Using a wheelchair to come forward, Grato was all smiles as she received her graduation cap.
At the end of the banquet, Sheldon announced that Jira was the Tulalips’ Senior Boy of the Year, while the Senior Girl of the Year award went to Katerina Hegnes, another Lakewood graduate. “I’d just like to thank everybody, and thank my family,” Jira said.
It was an evening of gratitude. Thanks were given to parents, educators and an entire community that nurtured the Class of 2016.
“Elders taught us to look forward while looking back,” said Tony Hatch, who led a group of young Tulalip drummers and singers at the event. “Don’t be backwards about your culture. Step right up and be proud of who you are.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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