TULALIP — For decades, traditional tribal cedar baskets, tools, clothing, canoes and totem poles, some of them hundreds of years old, sat stored away in people’s homes on the Tulalip Indian Reservation.
“Things were in people’s closets and attics, hidden, for years and years,” tribal board member Mark Hatch said.
There was no one central place for the physical objects of tribal culture to be seen and appreciated, where they could educate tribal members and others, and serve as a source of pride.
After decades of dreaming, talking and planning, that has all changed.
Many of those stored-away items can now be seen at the tribes’ sparkling new $19 million Hibulb Cultural Center, which opens to the public Saturday.
The center is named for the tribes’ old village at the mouth of the Snohomish River, below Preston Point at the northern tip of Everett. Hibulb means “the place where the white doves live,” museum director Hank Gobin said.
The Tulalip Tribes celebrated the completion of their cultural center and museum with a ceremony Friday, after which the building was opened to tribal members.
The 23,000-square foot building features a long, tiled, east-west hallway — following the path of the sun, Gobin said.
The multi-colored, earth-tone tiles were installed in a pattern inspired by a satellite mosaic of the Snohomish River, tribal spokeswoman Francesca Hillery said.
Windows near the ceiling bring natural light into the hallway, reminiscent of a tribal smokehouse, where gatherings and spiritual ceremonies take place. The building faintly smells of the cedar used in much of its construction. The wood came from a mill in Oregon, Gobin said.
Carvings by Tulalip artists greet visitors, on giant cedar doors and in the form of larger-than-life-size welcoming figures at the entrance to the exhibit area.
The first permanent exhibit focuses on cedar and its many uses, such as baskets, clothing and tools, with artifacts as examples.
The museum has interactive elements such as push-buttons to hear narratives in both English and Lushootseed, the language native the Salish tribes of the Puget Sound basin.
Other exhibits include a focus on salmon; on the Christian boarding schools where many tribal children were taken in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; on the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855; and on the Tulalip Tribes today.
In another exhibit, tribal members can trace their lineage. Family trees take up an entire wall. Members can enter their tribal identification number into a computer and find information about their predecessors.
Pauline Harvey Joe, 51, found her grandfather on the wall. She took a photo of the family tree with her cellphone.
A photo of her brother, Jackson Harvey, who served in the Navy in the 1980s, is on the wall in the museum’s current temporary exhibit, “Warriors: We Remember,” honoring Tulalip members who served in the military.
“I love it,” Joe said of the museum. “I was just blown away.”
Tribal elder Jeannie McCoy pointed to a young boy she believes was her father in a photo of children at a boarding school in the early 1900s.
“It’s wonderful,” she said of the museum.
A replica smokehouse extends off the main hallway, with a large screen that shows a film about tribal traditions.
Flanking the screen are four large totem poles carved by William Shelton, a tribal leader from the early 20th century.
The poles were part of an earlier smokehouse built in 1914, Gobin said. After that smokehouse was torn down in the ’50s, the poles were kept at the home of Shelton’s daughter, Harriette. Her son, Wayne Williams, now 83, kept them on the property afterward.
Several years ago, when talk of starting a museum got serious, Williams told Gobin he had some things to donate — as in more than 280 items, including the poles.
A huge part of the museum’s collection is from Williams’ home, Gobin said.
“He saved the day,” he said.
Harriette Shelton Williams pushed for a museum as far back as the 1950s, tribal leaders said. In the past 20 years or so, Gobin, who has an art degree, took up the mantle.
In 2005, tribal leaders summoned Gobin to the board room and told him they were ready to build his museum.
“I was just dumbfounded,” said Gobin, now 70.
Ground was broken shortly thereafter.
The tribes never had the money to build the museum until recent years, when proceeds from two casinos and the Quil Ceda Village shopping center bolstered their finances.
Earlier, “we had to pass the hat among the directors to get enough money to pay for postage,” Williams said at the ceremony. “That’s what I think about when I see what we have here today.”
While the building is complete, the cultural center is a fledgling with room to grow.
The museum building has a 10,000-square-foot curation wing full of more artifacts. They’ll eventually be rotated into exhibits or displayed if the museum expands in the future, Gobin said.
“We have boxes that haven’t even been opened yet,” board member Chuck James said.
Also part of the center is a Natural History Preserve, in which 42 acres are being set aside for native plants, gardens, trails and cultural education programs. Work on the preserve has just begun.
“We’re finally able to share who we are and what we represent,” tribal member Katrina Lane said. “It’s a blessing to see this finally come to fruition and be able to be a part of it.
“I couldn’t be more proud.”
Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439; sheets@heraldnet.com.
Where: 6410 23rd Ave. NE
Hours: Noon to 5 p.m. weekends; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; closed Monday
Admission: $10 for adults, with discounts for seniors, students, military members and veterans, groups, classes and families. Children under 5, cultural center members and Tulalip tribal members are admitted free.
More info: 360-716-2635 or http://tinyurl.com/hibulb
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