Vi Hilbert

Honoring an Elder, Vi Hilbert: IslandWood's House Post Dedication

In a forest on Bainbridge Island, a crane lifts a twenty-foot red cedar house post into place. Carved into the massive trunk is the image of a woman. Her face is strong and her black eyes stare confidently at the forest of cedar, hemlock, and Douglas fir that surrounds her. A cape and skirt, woven from red cedar bark, drape over her massive body. A group of school children excitedly look on. The figure is in the image of Vi Hilbert (Taq s blu), an admired elder of the Lushootseed people (Lushootseed refers to the common language that was once spoken throughout the Puget Sound region). Her spirit, along with that of the tree, will welcome children into the Great Hall at IslandWood. Here young people will learn about the natural and cultural history of Puget Sound with the integration of ecology, technology, and the arts. The Great Hall, is filled with native Coastal Salish art from the Puget Sound region, will serve as an indoor gathering place for the children and educators.

As the house post, created by artists Roger Fernandes, Bruce Cook, and a team of carvers is put into place, a dedication ceremony with 170 people commemorates the event. The celebration corresponds to the Coastal Salish tradition of honoring and blessing the house post, and the ancestral figure that it represents.

"Our culture is 10,000 years old, but it became like a small ember in a fire that had nearly gone out," announces Bruce Miller, the master of ceremonies, and a traditional longhouse spiritual leader. "But enough ember has remained to blow on it and bring it alive again.

Peggy Deam, a Suquamish weaver, shuffles barefooted about the carving. She sprinkles soil at the feet of the female figure. "We feel all living things are created from the red earth," Miller says, explaining the symbolism of the soil. Deam's cedar skirt flutters as she moves, her long and broad beaded Haikwa, a Suquamish necklace that almost reaches her ankles, rattles softly.

"Bless this spirit house post," says Miller. "Bless the spirit of this precious person in Coast Salish Culture - Taq s blu."

Vi Hilbert, today an 83 year-old Upper Skagit elder, watches, surrounded by friends, family, IslandWood staff, and local children. Hilbert, a linguist, educator, and storyteller, is recognized throughout the world for her efforts to preserve the oral literature and culture of the native Puget Sound Lushootseed people. In 1972 she cofounded the Lushootseed language and culture program at the University of Washington. Her family's heritage as medicine people felt they had a cultural responsibility and thus has inspired Hilbert to devote over thirty years of her life gathering and recording stories of her people. She has now translated and published many of the stories and legends in books like Haboo, Stories from Puget Sound. Today she is one of five elders remaining who still speak Lushootseed. In an effort to preserve her peoples' native tongue, Hilbert has also published a lexicon and dictionary of the Lushootseed language.

Two years ago, as planning was underway for the educational facility, Debbi Brainerd, Founder and IslandWood Board Chair, spent months consulting with experts on Coastal Salish heritage. Her vision was to create an environmental learning center that could integrate the cultural history of the Puget Sound, along with the science curriculum that would support natural history programs. Feeling that Native Americans should contribute to that vision, she consulted a local artist and educator of the Salish art and culture, Roger Fernandes. Fernandes pointed out that while many museums around the Pacific Northwest highlight the work of the Haida, Tlingit, and other northern Coastal Salish peoples, the art of the Puget Salish has received little attention. Local Coastal Salish people shared with Brainerd that totem poles were not art native to this area, but that house posts were what typically would be found. When Brainerd finally had the opportunity to meet Hilbert, she told the elder about what they had learned. Hilbert suggested that a house post should be carved in the image of a grandmother with open arms, welcoming the children into the space, explains Brainerd. It didn't take long before Fernandes had the idea that they should ask Hilbert to be their grandmother.

Equally significant is the carving's representation of Hilbert as a grandmother. Contemplating the house post she explains, "This carving reveals the important role of grandmothers in our community. Grandmothers for my people are responsible to all children. We grandmother other people's children as well as our own. This house post will symbolize the love and nurturing of all our young people." When the carving is completed, the attached arms of the grandmother will welcome the children into the hall. They will represent an open heart and mind, and a desire to learn.

Today the house post celebrates Hilbert's life and work. "She is the preeminent elder dedicated to preserving the language and beliefs of her people," explains Fernandes who designed the house post carving. For Brainerd it has become a way to honor all that Hilbert has done for the Puget Salish people.

Since her retirement from the University of Washington in 1988, Hilbert has continued her crusade to pass on the language and stories of her people. As a storyteller at 83, her energy continues to engage others. "It is legends and stories that keep cultures alive," she explains. "Our stories reveal the philosophy, humor, geography, and history of the Lushootseed people."

While many Coastal Salish poles to the north were freestanding and placed outside of the home, the house post of the Puget Salish stood inside, and bore the figure of an ancestor. It served to honor a person who was still alive, or deceased. "Every leader had a house post," explains Hilbert. "The house post was the most significant part of the building. It served as a reminder to the community that our spiritual leaders get their strength from the spirit."

Among the timbers of The Great Hall, the house post will help educators teach about the many traditions and ways of life of the Puget Sound Coastal Salish people. "The house post, along with other art from this area, will enable us to teach children about the culture of indigenous people" explains Debbi Brainerd. "The art will allow history to be shared about who occupied this land before the while European settlers arrived in the 1800's. This will help to provide children with a sense of place."

The IslandWood Great Hall will feature artifacts, weavings, baskets made from bark and grasses, cattail mats, and carvings only from this area. Its efforts will create a unique opportunity as this Puget Sound art is seldom exhibited elsewhere.

As Fernandes designed IslandWood house post he made sure it was in keeping with the traditional Puget Salish Style. "These types of carvings are far more naturalistic than those created to the north in Canada and Alaska," Fernandes points out. "They use less modeling, and work with a flatter plane, yet they are straight forward and fairly realistic. There is also a primal quality, that gives them a spiritual immediacy."

Bruce Cook, a well-known Northwest Coast Haida artist, served as the lead carver for the project. Cook had worked with artists like Steve Brown of Seattle, a renowned carver and authority on Northwest Coast art, and Greg Colfax, a highly regarded carver from Neah Bay. While Cook was born in Alaska and raised in Wyoming, he looked forward to the challenge of carving a piece in the Puget Salish style. "I wanted to create a work that would inspire young carvers and artists at the learning center," he explains. He carefully studied Puget Salish art before beginning work on the house post. Then Cook invited Suquamish weavers, Peg Deam and Barbara Lawrence, to create the cedar skirt and cape. Since the Suquamish tribe originally inhabited the land of Bainbridge Island, Cook's idea added further authenticity to the piece.

Carvers Terry Peele, Shaun Peterson, Roger Fernandes, and his son Anthony Fernandes, joined Cook as supporting carvers. For two months, the group of artists banded together to work on the carving of Taq s blu. Each time they met, the occasion was sacred. "We always wanted to acknowledge the living tree," explains Peele. "So when we worked on her we always treated her as a living thing. We said a prayer in the morning and burned sage. The smoke of the sage carried our prayers. We let her know that we wouldn't hurt her, and that we respected her. The spirit of the tree and Vi Hilbert are one and we always were careful to acknowledge these spirits."

Today the house post figure remains somewhere between the world of creation and true existence. Her hands are not yet in place. Her eyes, though colored a rich black, remain uncarved. "My grandmother always told me to wait and carve the eyes last, because that would bring the figure to life. We want her to come alive at the same time the construction of the Great Hall is completed," explains Cook.

Vi Hilbert speaks to the group in Lushootseed. Her elegant words sound like poetry. The visitors are silent. They listen. "I'm thanking the cedar tree for allowing me to live within it, to share its space," she explains. Then as she thanks the group who has gathered for enduring the cold, for their strength and responsibility, her voice grows confident. "At last the Lushootseed people will be known. Because you have made it your goal to make them known."