NANCY SHIPPENTOWER

MY MOTHER

My mother brought spirituality back to us here, especially the use of the sweat lodge. Also the way to say prayers, our way. The way to bury somebody—she brought it back here. She fought for educational rights, for treaty rights, for children’s rights. The rights of abused children and victims of domestic violence were big things for her too. She fought for feeding the hungry kids in school, in any school!

She worked on setting up food kitchens, and building housing on tribal reservations. For HUD housing on reservations, the first ten houses built here forthe Nisqually Tribe were the result of her work. She also fought for civil rights, the movements led by Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

So she did a lot. When we were growing up, she used to get donations, you know, like food and clothes, and she handed those out to all the people in the area. Then she’d get donations for kids, and she would go out and hand those out. And she’d make boxes of things for kids in boarding schools, and she sent them to the boarding schools, all over!

SHE FOUGHT

She fought for all of those issues, and yet she’s not really acknowledged outside of our family. She was from Tulalip and is buried up there at Tulalip. We got a beautiful headstone for her. She’s buried by Kiya, one of our sacred places. My mom’s Indian name was Yet-si-blu. My Indian name is Wakible.

Isadore Tom was her uncle. And then there was Joe Washington, another activist. My mother was close with them, so these leaders would come to the house, all the time, including Kenny Moses and Hank Gobin. She had some real strong protectors behind her, even Mary Hillaire. We actually went to school with Mary at Evergreen State College. And then there was Thomas Banyacya from the Hopi in Arizona. Together they wrote the book about the Hopi prophecies, andThomas would interpret them all the time. Then there were the Six Nation chiefs, including Oren Lyons. They were always coming to visit my mother.

These people were always coming and going. My mother was a really well known woman throughout the world. She opened the door for a lot of people and for our fishing rights in the times leading up to the Boldt Decision. Many of our people went to jail for that fishing issue, you know.

OUR PEOPLE USED TO MIGRATE

I fished in Nisqually and Puyallup until they kicked my dad off Nisqually. See, the Boldt Decision, it was harmful in some ways. Our people used to migrate. My dad always fished in Tulalip, too, with my mom. So when the Boldt Decision was being made, you had to pick your area, and my dad was in Nisqually. So they kicked him off the river—he could no longer fish there, even though he grew up on the Nisqually River.

And even today, look at Nisqually in the chum season. Nisqually was the tribe with the biggest chums coming back! I mean, it was a great run! Now, nothing is coming back. They no longer have a chum season. That’s always on the news! Who’s overharvesting? There’s no fish coming back from nowhere. And then there are contaminated fish from the hatcheries, which are killing the natural runs off!

Just like my grandpa would say, “When the fish cease to come, we soon cease to exist.” Yeah, we’re seeing it now.

And now our kids are flowing right into that movement of rapping and everything else that’s on TV, you know? I remember when we were young, we were taught to dance, and bead, and weave baskets, and sew, and everything. Now, nobody does that, or even bake, or cook. See, my daughters will come and say, “Hey, Mom, are you cooking stew tonight?” [she laughs]. And I say, “Yeah, I’ll cook the stew” [she laughs again].

So I worry about our future. I’m sitting here listening to my mom saying, “I’m worried about our future.” I remember her saying that to people. And we weren’t that bad, were we? [she laughs].

GOING TO JAIL

Anyways, a lot of the Puyallups—the ones who went to jail, the ones that they call the renegades—were enrolled in the Puyallup Tribe, except Al Bridges, who was enrolled in Squaxin, I think. I’m not sure. And Uncle Billy Frank was enrolled in Nisqually. He actually was put in jail later than many of the others, and then he got out later than they did. Yeah, he came in after they were in jail. There were only five in jail at first, then he came in, and then they got out, and he had to stay another week.

But when they went to jail, they went to jail from the courthouse. We were there, as kids. We went to court every time they went to court. My mother would take us there, and we’d watch even though we didn’t understand what was going on at first. But when they handcuffed our dad and took him out, then we knew, you know, that he’s gone. I actually went to see him.

I was interviewed in 2010 for that documentary film Back to the River [from the organization Salmon Defense]. There’s a whole bunch of us in it. I told a story about when I went and saw my dad in jail. Um, I really have a hard time telling this story. It’s, uh, I think it’s one of the most profane emotional things I went through as a child. See? I can’t even talk about it.

Me and my sister talked about memories the other day. I think she was four, maybe five, and I was like twelve or thirteen. And when they came up and started beating on everybody and arresting everybody, my grandmother’s standing there, holding my sister. And I’m running by crying, ’cause they’re dragging my dad up the hill. My dad, and my aunts and uncles, and my mother, and, um, they’re dragging them up the hill. And as my grandmother grabs me, I’m trying to get away from her, but the guy takes a picture of us. My grandmother, myself, and my sister, and it lands on the front page of the paper, October 13, 1965.

I remember as a kid, one year we had a beautiful, beautiful Christmas. I mean the presents were just full. I think we got the first Barbies, me and my sister, with the case. That was the only best Christmas I remember. After that it was, meh … ’cause they were fighting for their rights then!

Well, then they couldn’t even fish. Every time they’d go to fish, they’d go to jail. So it was a constant, constant fight every time they went out there. My dad, they all got their canoes confiscated and everything. My dad’s canoe is now sitting in a museum in Tacoma, Washington, and I can’t get it. I have to prove it was my dad’s, but I have no pictures. But I know that it’s his, and it’s there, still in jail.

CELEBRITIES

Dick Gregory came over here and went to jail, you know—in Thurston County. And him and Marlon Brando came at the same time ’cause they were all friends. And so he came up and went preaching, and they arrested him. They arrested Dick Gregory for sure, ’cause that was during the civil rights movement. And thenthey arrested Marlon Brando, but the only thing they did with Marlon Brando was get his autograph!

Jane Fonda was here. She came too. It was called Fort Lawton at the time [now Discovery Park in Seattle], and we did a takeover there. And a whole bunch of us ended up in the stockade. And they released some of us, but Jane Fonda showed up, but what was weird was some of the Indian women leaders got jealous of her. Like, she’s taking the limelight from us. ’Cause she did! You know, she just got through making that goofy space movie, whatever it was [Barbarella]. So sure, she came out to show support.

So her and my mother got to be good friends. Mom took her out to the prison—McNeil Island—to meet with the inmates out there. And then my mom just took her around and showed her everything. So if you look in Star magazine, every once in a while they’ll post like a flashback. Well, I used to buy it all the time. I kind of quit buying it, but I bought it one day. There was a picture of my mom and Jane Fonda walking.

So then anyway, Dick Gregory got sentenced to sixty days in jail. And he went on a fast. He said, “I’m not eating nothing until I’m free or you guys recognize the Indigenous people of this land.” And so my mother set up a teepee—teepee grounds there—in front of the state capitol right across from the Thurston County jail.

My mother fought for religious freedom for Native Americans in the prison, for them to have a sweat lodge. And she fought hard with the prison, but also with the court, and they had attorneys working with her. So that’s how the sweat lodges came to be in the prisons. And then she fought for the Native Americans who didn’t want to go to war. Because in the treaties it says that the only way the Indians would have to go to war was if there was war on this land.

This is one of the magazines my mother used to put out. We were young kids with a mimeograph machine, and I had this old typewriter, and we used to have to type on the old stencil. And then my brothers used to have to do the mimeograph, and we put all the papers in line. And my mother was the one that started the Survival of American Indians Association in 1964. She actually started that organization with Don Matheson, my dad, and Aunt Masil. My other sister and my brother have been part of this movement too, our whole family.