Since Time Immemorial is a recurring series featuring community members whose families have been here since time immemorial. The ancestral knowledge carried by Lhaq’temish, Nooksack, and other Coast Salish peoples is knowledge about how to live in our shared home in a good, life-sustaining way. We live in a time when we need to restore our relationship with Mother Earth and with one another. We are grateful for these stories, told in the words of each featured individual.
Photograph by Julie Trimingham
Hy’oltse Shirley Bob is a mother, a grandmother, and a Lummi tribal member. Currently she is the Family Cultural Coordinator at Behavioral Health. She has served in many capacities in the education system at Lummi Nation. Additionally, she was a leader in the cultural and spiritual work to bring the qwe’lhol’mechen (orca) Sk’aliCh’elh tenaut (Tokitae / Lolita) out of captivity and back home to the Salish Sea.
I have two Indian names. Xwe ti mi itse and Hy’oltse. And I use Hy’oltse. I’m a Lummi elder. Shirley Bob. I work for Behavioral Health as a cultural coordinator. I’ve worked with Lummi for years. I worked in Head Start since ’72 until 2016 or ’17. Child Welfare, Childcare, Lummi Language, Head Start. I’ve been with education for years, since my kids are small.
I enjoy working with families. Really proud of the children that I’m working with now and in the past. The young leaders at Lummi—Chairman, Vice-Chair, Council members, Director of Child Welfare—those were my Head Start babies. Two of my students have been my bosses. I’m walking with them all and proud of each one. I know it wasn’t just me, it was their families, but what I instilled in them when they were young in Head Start must have stayed with them, because I always talked about love and kindness and how to carry yourself. I didn’t think they were listening, but they were, because look at them now. And I follow them. I follow each one of them, make sure that they’re all okay. I feel bad for the ones that didn’t make it, left the Red Road and they’re gone now, had to follow them to the cemetery.
I learned a lot, and I tell you right now, I don’t know everything. I’m just a person like everybody else. What I teach comes from my heart, and from what I learned when I was growing up, from my elders. That doesn’t come out unless it’s ready to come out. You speak from your heart. Words come out. Sometimes, when I have to get up and talk, that’s what happens to me. I’ll ask my kids later, did I say anything to hurt anybody? Because you always have to say it. I’m sorry if I offended anybody, I apologize. They say, No, Mom, you done really good. Because it’s not me talking, it’s the ancestors talking through me, telling me what I need to say. The words just come out. I can’t explain it.
That’s who I am.
If it wasn’t for my mother and father and the elders that my dad brought me around to, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today. My directors, the bosses that worked with me when I was going to school, if it wasn’t for them, wasn’t for Head Start, and the classes and training that I got through them, I wouldn’t be where I’m at. All those people helped me, my mom and dad especially.
There’s a saying my dad gave me—he was on Council at the time, and he went through a lot—anyway, he says, Babe, I want you to say this every time you’re down and out: I’m good, I’m great, I can conquer anything. You say that every day in your mind, two, three hundred times a day, or just think it, when you’re having problems. I’m good, I’m great, I can conquer anything. That’ll build your confidence back up. It does, I’ve done it. When I teach the kids, when I talk to them, I tell them, and they love it. I see it on their little posts, or whatever. I’m good. I’m great. So it’s a good affirmation.
My mother always said to pray and ask God for guidance, and that’s what I do. I pray. I don’t go to church. I believe in God. I go to different churches when I feel like going.
The elders say, walk your talk, and listen. You don’t add anything. You don’t take anything away.
In life. Walk head high, and believe in yourself, and believe in who you are and where you come from. That’s who you are. Be proud of who you are.
The way we are, we live the life that is our culture. We all have cultures, we all have traditions that we live by, so follow that. Do that to the best of your ability, don’t take anything away, don’t add, just do what you need to do. Take care of you and your family. Raise them in a good way, not with anger about what happened years ago—that was done, that’s gone now. Come back here to where you’re at and move forward.
Walk together. Learn how to live with each other. Indian, non-Indians. Learn how to walk this life together. Because nobody’s better than the other, nobody. In God’s eyes, we’re no better than the other. We’re all brothers and sisters, no matter what color you are, still brothers and sisters.
Julie Trimingham is grateful to make her home on traditional Lhaq’temish territory, and to work for the Sacred Lands Conservancy (sacredsea.org), an Indigenous led 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the life, culture, and sanctity of the Salish Sea.
