'Keep your Indian alive': After decades of outlawed culture, a Tulalip revival
TULALIP — In Lushootseed, an “s” with a squiggle above it is called a caron. It’s pronounced “sh,” like shore or shout.
Pišpiš means “cat.” It’s one of the first words Kaiser Moses learned with his Montessori classmates on the old wooden floor of the Tulalip Dining Hall. The refurbished early 20th century building sits above the rocky shore of Tulalip Bay. Outside the window, saltwater waves lap against concrete rubble.
Years later, Moses learned those are the ruins of a jail.
“And that’s where they used to put kids who spoke Lushootseed instead of English,” said Moses, 19.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/keep-your-indian-alive-after-decades-of-outlawed-culture-a-tulalip-revival/
Survivor’s story: Snohomish man, 76, lives with boarding school trauma
TULALIP — Often during morning mass, “a handful of kids” would go limp and hit the church floor, passed out from hunger.
“We were always hungry,” said Matthew War Bonnet Jr., 76, of Snohomish, a survivor of the St. Francis Indian School in South Dakota. “That’s what I remember — being hungry all the time.”
Sometimes, he said, you could get a full meal from the priests’ quarters if you washed their dishes.
Otherwise, the food mostly consisted of a yellow or white “mush,” depending on the meal. The best eating came on Sundays: cornflakes in the morning and bologna sandwiches for lunch. War Bonnet remembers bologna being the only meat at school.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/survivors-story-snohomish-man-76-lives-with-boarding-school-trauma/