Ancestral Land, 2,800 miles from Home
Daniela Tierra
I stand on the Lummi nation during the day for the first time in a long time. I stand on Coast Salish land connected to home. I am on the ever-present water of my childhood, I am on ancestral land. The skies open up and the ferry pulls away from the dock, the seagulls squawk from the skies above and I hear the noises of my childhood. I walk under the wooden beams of the dock as the water trickles down from the bank, running clear and sparkling in the sunlight over the shells dug into the sand. I am the only one here for what stretches for miles, I see a portrait of my life laid out in front of me – without separation. My early mornings at Yellowstone reflected in the water. I wonder who walked here 10,00 years ago. One tribe, one land. Do we walk together now?
When I first enter the rez, I don’t even know where the border is until the casino. Then I know, I am on a Lummi nation. Before that, the lines between Ferndale and Lummi nation bleed into each other. I drive alongside barren trees, open blue skies, and field of absolutely nothing noteworthy or distinguishable. Hand painted sides nailed alongside the road in bright colors. “be nice”. The blue mountains in the distance remind me of home, wherever that may be. I drive alongside it for as long as I can. Suddenly, I’m on winding roads deeper into the rez. The beach houses and cottages by the bay turned to trailers. Dogs chained in yards, barking as I pass. The roads get narrow. The side roads aren’t paved. I pass by many places, I never stop. I don’t stop and I don’t turn around. The wetlands look like home to me.
Then hand painted signs on the side of the road turns to ‘speak out’ in red paint, yellow splashed in the back. ‘not all wounds are visible’ red paint again. ‘pray for our nation’, solemn grey paint. I see a building in the woods, the windows were broken and brambles found their way to reclaim the past – I pass by. Lummi cemetery, and for a moment I wonder if this is where I pray. Maybe my ancestors will find me in a burial ground. Maybe they’ll hear the pain of the Coast Salish. I pass by. I see a white church on a hill and I question what it means when the colonizer sits in everyday life. I pass by. I kept driving through barren trees and fields of something ambiguous. I think I’m headed to Ferndale but it looks the same. I can not tell where one begins and where another ends. I think I’ve disappeared from Lummi but I don’t know when. Pioneer Park – not Lummi. I think I’m in a historic area, they seem proud of the historic buildings on colonized land. Historic – As if we aren’t feet from Lummi nation, existing for tens of thousands of years but erased in the books.
Before I go to Lummi nation during the day, I go the night before. I take a notebook and I write down everything I see and I feel. I go under the night sky when the casino lights flash. I drive under the darkness and barely lit streetlight to Lummi Ferry. At night, it looks like an empty parking lot with a dock on the side. The boats are old and rusted, the crab pots look abandoned – eerie to say the least.
But during the day, I see something else. I see my home again. I see my life on the water, I see my family history, I see legacy in the land.
I am so far from what I consider to be home. Pihuamo, Jalisco is 2,801 miles away from where I’m standing. The mountains my father really considers us to be from are much farther. I am not in the desert and the brush. I am not covered in dust.
But when I stand on Lummi, I stand with beaders and weavers. I stand with indigenous artists like the ones I descend from. I stand with storytellers. I stand with legacy and stories. Stories are all we are, all we have. I stand with the community.
I have always grown up on Coast Salish land but crossing into the rez is the only time I feel the power shift even slightly from the colonizer.
In Ferndale, I feel unsettled. This happens when I go to Lummi, that I suddenly I begin to see pain everywhere I see trauma in the land, in the building – suddenly it only reads colonizer. My ancestors shake their heads, if only they had known what the land would become.
I’m back in Bellingham. The skies have closed, I lose my connection to my ancestors. My ancestors don’t speak English. I don’t speak Wixárika. Maybe that’s why we communicate through the pain.I
stand on the Lummi nation during the day for the first time in a long time. I stand on Coast Salish land connected to home. I am on the ever-present water of my childhood, I am on ancestral land. The skies open up and the ferry pulls away from the dock, the seagulls squawk from the skies above and I hear the noises of my childhood. I walk under the wooden beams of the dock as the water trickles down from the bank, running clear and sparkling in the sunlight over the shells dug into the sand. I am the only one here for what stretches for miles, I see a portrait of my life laid out in front of me – without separation. My early mornings at Yellowstone reflected in the water. I wonder who walked here 10,00 years ago. One tribe, one land. Do we walk together now?
When I first enter the rez, I don’t even know where the border is until the casino. Then I know, I am on a Lummi nation. Before that, the lines between Ferndale and Lummi nation bleed into each other. I drive alongside barren trees, open blue skies, and field of absolutely nothing noteworthy or distinguishable. Hand painted sides nailed alongside the road in bright colors. “be nice”. The blue mountains in the distance remind me of home, wherever that may be. I drive alongside it for as long as I can. Suddenly, I’m on winding roads deeper into the rez. The beach houses and cottages by the bay turned to trailers. Dogs chained in yards, barking as I pass. The roads get narrow. The side roads aren’t paved. I pass by many places, I never stop. I don’t stop and I don’t turn around. The wetlands look like home to me.
Then hand painted signs on the side of the road turns to ‘speak out’ in red paint, yellow splashed in the back. ‘not all wounds are visible’ red paint again. ‘pray for our nation’, solemn grey paint. I see a building in the woods, the windows were broken and brambles found their way to reclaim the past – I pass by. Lummi cemetery, and for a moment I wonder if this is where I pray. Maybe my ancestors will find me in a burial ground. Maybe they’ll hear the pain of the Coast Salish. I pass by. I see a white church on a hill and I question what it means when the colonizer sits in everyday life. I pass by. I kept driving through barren trees and fields of something ambiguous. I think I’m headed to Ferndale but it looks the same. I can not tell where one begins and where another ends. I think I’ve disappeared from Lummi but I don’t know when. Pioneer Park – not Lummi. I think I’m in a historic area, they seem proud of the historic buildings on colonized land. Historic – As if we aren’t feet from Lummi nation, existing for tens of thousands of years but erased in the books.
Before I go to Lummi nation during the day, I go the night before. I take a notebook and I write down everything I see and I feel. I go under the night sky when the casino lights flash. I drive under the darkness and barely lit streetlight to Lummi Ferry. At night, it looks like an empty parking lot with a dock on the side. The boats are old and rusted, the crab pots look abandoned – eerie to say the least.
But during the day, I see something else. I see my home again. I see my life on the water, I see my family history, I see legacy in the land.
I am so far from what I consider to be home. Pihuamo, Jalisco is 2,801 miles away from where I’m standing. The mountains my father really considers us to be from are much farther. I am not in the desert and the brush. I am not covered in dust.
But when I stand on Lummi, I stand with beaders and weavers. I stand with indigenous artists like the ones I descend from. I stand with storytellers. I stand with legacy and stories. Stories are all we are, all we have. I stand with the community.
I have always grown up on Coast Salish land but crossing into the rez is the only time I feel the power shift even slightly from the colonizer.
In Ferndale, I feel unsettled. This happens when I go to Lummi, that I suddenly I begin to see pain everywhere I see trauma in the land, in the building – suddenly it only reads colonizer. My ancestors shake their heads, if only they had known what the land would become.
I’m back in Bellingham. The skies have closed, I lose my connection to my ancestors. My ancestors don’t speak English. I don’t speak Wixárika. Maybe that’s why we communicate through the pain.