By Hailey Palmer, Puyallup Tribal News
Passengers on the Kenmore Air South Sound Scenic Flight will hear part of the history of the Puyallup people from the Puyallup people during this summer’s flight season.
Heritage Division Manager Connie McCloud and Multi-Media Manager Chris Duenas teamed up with Kenmore to narrate the 25-minute flight around the South Sound and parts of the Puyallup Reservation.
The narration includes place names, what happened in those areas and why the Tribe named those locations the way it did.
Duenas called it a cool project to be a part of and acknowledged how important something like this is to the Tribe.
“It’s such a big thing for the Tribe and to be part of that voice and actually have my voice recorded is really exciting to be a part of,” he said. “Our goal has always been language visibility and language existence in our day-to-day life, so we have something this big as a Tribe where we’re going to have such a broad audience and almost normalize Lushootseed being a part of it. It’s not Lushootseed sprinkled here, Lushootseed sprinkled there, it’s part of the actual tour now. Getting to be a part of that has been a goal of mine and the Language team since the start.”
McCloud said it’s not only important for people to hear part of the story of the Puyallup people from Tribal Members, but it’s also a teaching moment.
“So many people who live here don’t know the history of the Tribe, the far reach the Tribe has with its sovereign rights, its treaty rights, its history and even the work the Tribe does today,” McCloud said. “Most of the people that live here have no clue, but they see all the lights at the casino from the freeway, they know some of the smoke shops, but that’s where the information stops. They don’t know the history, they don’t know that we’re your next-door neighbor. We live right next to you.”
The narration begins with a land acknowledgement from McCloud who explains a brief history of the Tribe and its traditional homelands.
As passengers fly over Point Ruston they’ll hear č’uč’uʔɫac (vine maple trees) or ʔabidgʷəs (projecting chest). When passing over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge they’ll hear dxʷsx̌ʷəb (place of swift water) and for Chambers Bay Golf Course they’ll hear sč’(i)talqʷəb named for the village site located north of Steilacoom.
Other Lushootseed place names throughout the flight include sʔilc (edge) and ɫəq’ayucid (side of the mouth) when flying over Anderson Island, along with swuxʷtəd (steam house), dxʷx̌ʷədib (bullhead) and ƛ’iƛ’cas (little island) for Fox Island.
The end of the flight takes passengers over č’itus which means “near face or near cliff” referring to the geography of Point Defiance. Rounding out the trip is sqʷuʔqʷuʔqʷaǰali meaning “a place that is befallen with drinking water” for present-day Owen Beach.
Puyallup Tribal Language Program Director Amber Hayward said Lushootseed was added to the script in order to bring more awareness to the Tribe’s ancestral spaces, and unlike settlers who named locations after themselves, the Tribe’s ancestors named locations based on geography, what was there or what the place was used for.
By sharing these Lushootseed names with guests on the Tribe’s traditional homelands, it was the intent to share the ancestral way of thinking, she said.
Duenas said the flight narration also serves as an opportunity to let people know the Tribe hasn’t gone anywhere and its reach extends far beyond what people might think.
“We’re here all the time, we’re at the Tribe all the time, so we know what’s being done, but someone who isn’t who is just going to Woven and is like, ‘Oh, a cool plane tour,’ they might not know how close they are (to the Tribe),” he said. “It’s those kinds of things. When someone has zero idea, even that little bit of history can spark that interest or let them know this work is being done. We’re still speaking Lushootseed, still practicing this culture, still keeping our spaces alive.”
The South Sound Scenic Flight, taking off from the Puyallup Tribal Air Terminal next to Woven Seafood & Chophouse, runs until Sept. 15 and can be booked at kenmoreair.com/south-sound-scenic/.
