The vision for Jesintel comes from our respected elder Tom Sampson, who says, “We need to learn and grow together, and if we are able to do this, we will create harmony amongst the people.” As the title Jesintel—“ to learn and grow together”—indicates, there is more than one community at the heart of this work. Like the seasonal round and harvest, Coast Salish culture is dynamic and diverse, yet bound together by shared values and relations. Such connection creates and generates a resilient culture and worldview, and it is not just humans involved in this creation and generation. Within all things, there is an interconnectedness with places, land, water, and the spirit that recognizes ethical reciprocal relationships.

So, then, the people, places, and expressions of culture that hold this work together are interconnected—practically and in spirit—like the traditional village sites that landscape the territories and patterns of Coast Salish culture since time immemorial.

Gathering and sharing stories is a Coast Salish lifeway, our She’lang’en. “This is our way of life,” we say—the breath and the song, the wind and the paddle, the fire to the salmon, the cedar tree’s shade, the cedar basket and cedar hat, and the tectonic shifts of the earth, the drum, and the dance. It is the understanding that animals, plants, material objects, rivers, mountains, forests, and essentially all aspects of the world, and the whole universe, (be)come together through story and the values of gathering and sharing.

This coming together builds a vision and a responsibility to listen and to share, straight from the heart. Relations are at the heart of this work and inform how this gathering has been brought together through a complex yet natural understanding of place and time. Long-standing relations helped build this volume of cultural sharing and trust. Dear reader, the gathering and coming together of friends and relatives for this work have happened through the practice ofhonoring natural laws and protocols and the boundless relations of Coast Salish people and their territory.

The University of Washington Press asked how we chose the people and places to be included in this work and this book. Essentially, how were we clear and specific without elevating ourselves or any individual part? Well, we were having a gathering, and we invited witnesses from each part of our homeland. These are the ones who agreed to have us to their homes and places of worship, to visit with their families and gifts, to share time together at casinos, cultural centers, and all around Coast Salish territory.

Together, we knew the work that was to be done and recognized, and who the people and the places to do this work were. Jesintel is a gathering of stories about our futures and living stories about our past, place, and people—a way to provide for, respect, and cultivate the health and resiliency of the generations who came before and those who will come after.

As you attend this gathering, we ask you to listen carefully to a call to recognize a way of remembering our teachings of abundance, suffering, resilience, connection, and ultimately joy.

As the old people have taught, each of us carries gifts to learn together and to share with future generations. Such ancestral teachings on the pursuit of spirit convey the essence of natural law and the power of the giveaway in Coast Salish culture.

The ancestors’ wisdom is carried by the elders and their relationships with the land, and the water, and the people, plants, and animals—the shared and common homeland. Through their understandings and teachings, the old people are in touch with our past and the relationships that the past has with our present and future. This reciprocal commitment among all things—past, present, and future—upholds our sacred obligation to respect the teachings and the gifts of our elders, conveying the essence of Coast Salish values.

As Coast Salish people, our territory and relations are intersected by an international border between superpowers, yet stories told by the elders demonstrate the continued existence of Coast Salish jurisdictional community. Natural law exists outside of linear and colonial understandings of time and space, taking place instead through intergenerational stories and relations.

The living stories curated to these pages are highly specific to Coast Salish culture, family relations, and accustomed places. Yet at the same time, they are related to building an outward-facing global understanding of relationships and responsibilities toward intergenerational learning and cultural heritage revitalization. Though the conversations and interviews that cultivated the words andimages in this book took place within a span of several years, the teachings they uphold are timeless.

If we reflect on this gathering of people and what is being shared in this way and at this time, important threads become visible and are made stronger from the Salish Sea, across Indian Country, and among Indigenous peoples worldwide. Weaving understandings of how our traditional values inform education, environmental stewardship, family, and sovereignty throughout broader society aligns with the greatest attainment of inherent rights.

By sharing our cultural teachings, Jesintel communicates some of the transformational power of our traditions through a combination of personal narrative, photography, and elements of design.

Because we are a people whose ancestors, belongings, and territory have been taken, exhibited, fragmented, and occupied through the process of colonial settlement, the publishing of Jesintel underscores the importance of maintaining relations and traditions despite historical interference.

We must remember and teach, not only for ourselves but also for the broader society, our brothers and sisters who wish to learn and grow together.

We invite broad exchange with this work. Most important, we invite tribal youth, members, and leaders. We also invite public audiences who wish to know more about the Coast Salish lifeway and our living culture through remembering and storytelling. Focusing on the importance of learning, we ask teachers and educators to weave this work into their curricula. We also invite regional, statewide, and national leaders who wish to grow their understanding of connection and shared sacred responsibility.

This work brings the past forward and bears witness to highly specific and varied remembrances shared through oral traditions, songs, dance, story, anecdotes, and family and place names. These are not stories of singularity but are rather living and emerging stories that come from our infinite and timeless connections and relationships. The result is a dynamic glimpse of a culture alive, one that values cultural identity—that we may learn and grow together.

Jesintel.