Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Cory Asato | SILVERDALE, Wash. (Nov. 25, 2015) - Barbara Lawrence-Piecuch, educational outreach...... read more read more
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SILVERDALE, Wash. - Transient Personnel Unit Puget Sound (TPUPS) held Native American Heritage Month observance training featuring a guest speaker from the Suquamish Tribe, Nov. 25.
TPUPS held the training in accordance with the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute’s annual observance of Native American heritage and reached out to the local Suquamish Tribe to share their history and legacy in the sound.
“Suquamish is known worldwide for our ancestral leader, Chief Seattle, Seattle’s namesake,” said Barbara Lawrence-Piecuch, guest speaker and educational outreach coordinator for Suquamish Museum. “We are a tribe and community first and foremost, our land reaches across the Puget Sound and we are known for marrying throughout other tribes and cultures, learning their languages and community bonds.”
Lawrence-Piecuch shared “Waterborne” and “Come Forth Landing,” multimedia videos depicting photos from as early as the late 1800s with interviews from village elders sharing their experience integrating with President Theodore Roosevelt’s assimilation of Native Americans and experiences of keeping their culture alive through the younger generations.
“The first video represented 37 canoe tribes throughout the state of Washington and the second was of first-hand experiences of tribal elders attending military schools,” said Lawrence-Piecuch. “Our tribes now has 1,160 members, up from 130 in 1950 and we’re the third largest non-government employer in Kitsap County.”
Lawrence-Piecuch also shared how the focus of the tribe is community.
“We speak Lushootseed and the worst possible words to call someone translates to stingy,” said Lawrence-Piecuch. “We’re community driven and we’re the first tribe that doesn’t give individual allowances to tribe members, we instead choose to focus on community development, including infrastructure, programs and sponsoring the higher education of tribe members. We’re the only tribe in the nation to own our own school district.”
The Suquamish tribe is deeply tied to local governments and companies.
“I wanted to our Sailors to appreciate and understand how culturally rich we are here,” said Gas Turbine Systems Technician (Mechanical) 1st Class Alexander Currier, a San Jose, California, native and Command Managed Equal Opportunity manager for TPUPS. “I felt a need to reach out to this great untapped resource we have here in the Suquamish Tribe.
“Many people drive through this tribal land with no understanding of what we have surrounding us, the history and impact of the Suquamish Tribe in our community.”
Chief Seattle is credited with stating, “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”
“It’s gravely important to remember your history, and learn the lessons laid before you, we can’t successfully go forward unless we’ve come to understand what’s happened,” said Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Felix, a Steubenville, Ohio, native and TPUPS executive officer. “Being in the Pacific Northwest provides us the opportunity to be intertwined with the native tribes and learn their culture.”
For more information about the Suquamish Tribe museum, visit: http://www.suquamishmuseum.org/.
For more information on Native American Heritage Month, visit: http://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/.
| Date Taken: | 11.25.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 11.25.2015 19:21 |
| Story ID: | 182949 |
| Location: | SILVERDALE, WA, US |
| Hometown: | SAN JOSE, CA, US |
| Hometown: | STEUBENVILLE, OH, US |
| Web Views: | 255 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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