Take time to learn Vashon’s Native history, good and bad | Editorial
Published 7:00 am Wednesday, June 4, 2014
It’s not often that an exhibit at the heritage museum is featured on the front page of The Beachcomber. The museum has undoubtedly put on some robust shows, but we believe its next offering, which will be on display for nine months, is especially noteworthy.
The Vashon-Maury Island Heritage museum’s latest exhibit, on Vashon’s Native American history, is in many ways the story of our island’s beginnings. It’s also a story that we don’t often hear. Before the Mosquito Fleet, before the early Vashon families whose names still mark spots around the island, a band of people inhabited the island who lived with a light touch and a proud culture for hundreds of years. Museum volunteers and the exhibit’s two curators have gone to great lengths to accurately and respectfully piece together what’s known about the Sqababsh people, a band of the Puyallup tribe that lived on Vashon and on parts of the Kitsap Peninsula. What they’re preparing to show is a painstakingly researched story of the Sqababsh and likely one of the most complete pictures of these people ever presented in one place. The steps they’ve taken to present an exhibit that’s both professional as well as fascinating and interactive are unlike any effort we’ve seen at the museum before.
While the volunteers could have focused solely on the more pleasant points of Native history on Vashon — living off the land, traveling by water and Native culture — the exhibit goes far beyond that. While it’s well known that Native Americans were decimated by European diseases and war, some will be surprised to learn that the Natives of Vashon and the surrounding region were also sent to internment camps, similar to the injustices Japanese Americans experienced during World War II. This era, in which the island’s original inhabitants lost everything and were eventually placed on a reservation, is a sad part of our history, but it’s one worth learning.
Museum organizers present this exhibit with hopes that it will not only leave islanders and visitors with a greater understanding of Vashon, but perhaps more importantly, that it will present the Puyallup people’s own story, helping us better understand the tribe today. One curator said it is not within the museum’s capacity to honor the Puyallup people, but she hopes they feel acknowledged and respected. We look forward to seeing the finished product, which we expect will accomplish what its curators set out to do. And with nine months of the exhibit ahead, there is plenty of time for islanders to spend an afternoon taking it in.
