The Muckleshoot Indian Tribe launched a public information initiative last week to increase awareness and understanding of its history, culture, treaty rights and sovereignty, and to clearly illustrate its enduring legal and ancestral connection with its Duwamish ancestors.
On Aug. 9, more than 95% of Muckleshoot tribal members are of Duwamish descent and the tribe is federally recognized as a rightful successor to several of the Duwamish lands on whose behalf Chief Seattle signed the Treaty of Point Elliott.
In a news release, the tribe said that a group calling itself the Duwamish Tribal Organization “continues its decades-old efforts to garner public attention and support based on a misleading historical account and rejected calls for federal tribal recognition.”
It’s time to set the record straight, it said.
“This scheme aimed at appropriating our culture in the name of our Duwamish ancestors has gone on long enough,” said Muckleshoot Tribal Council Chairman Jaison Elkins.
Advertisements have appeared in several Western Washington newspapers and online stating the tribe’s case and connecting people to an informational website: theRealDuwamish.org.