Honoring Seattle as native land
Seattle’s Waterfront (Dzidzilalich) stands on the lands and shared waters of the Puget Sound Coast Salish People, whose ancestors resided here since time immemorial. With gratitude, we honor the land, the water and its peoples.
Coordination with local tribes
The City of Seattle coordinated with local tribes on ways to honor the waterfront as native land. Here are some of the artwork, activities and outcomes from these conversations. There is also a continuing partnership with tribes on cultural events at Waterfront Park and Pier 62.
Tribes provided guidance on environmental mitigation, strategies such as habitat restoration and using native plants.
The Waterfront design team met with several local tribes, including Suquamish Tribal Chairman Leonard Forsman, early in the design process.
Tribal representatives participated in a working group to develop interpretive storytelling along the waterfront.
Dzidzilalich means “little crossing-over place” in Lushootseed, one of the languages of the Coast Salish people. To honor the history of this region, the name Dzidzilalich has been added to Alaskan Way from S Dearborn St to Pine St, and to the new road, Elliott Way, between Pine St and Bell St. In April of 2023, the honorary street sign was unveiled.
Permanent Indigenous Artwork
Randi Purser
Indigenous carvers Randi Purser, Tyson Simmons, and Keith Stevenson collaborated on a unique Salish form that combines architecture and sculpture. On the north end, Purser’s (Suquamish Tribe) post represents Chief Seattle’s mother Sholeetsa, holding Chief Seattle as an infant.
Qwalsius-Shaun Peterson
Qwalsius-Shaun Peterson is a Coast Salish artist (Puyallup Tribe) working and residing in the Pacific Northwest region. He will create three figures – located along the promenade near Pier 58 – that will welcome visitors to the homelands of the Coast Salish people as sculptures have for many generations.
A rendering of Qwalsius-Shaun Peterson’s artwork on the promenade, across from Pier 58.
Tyson Simmons and Keith Stevenson
The carved artwork is on either end of Oscar Tuazon's 3 block-long house posts. The art responds to the Coast Salish history of the site. For the southernmost structure, Tyson Simmons and Keith Stevenson’s (Muckleshoot Indian Tribe) carving honors a warrior, representing “strength and honor for the people.”
MTK Matriarchs
The MTK Matriarchs are a team of artists - Malynn Foster (Squaxin Island Tribe and SkokomishTribe), Tamela Laclair (Skokomish Indian Tribe) and Kimberly Deriana (Mandan and Hidatsa Nation) – who are developing large scale permanent artwork on the Overlook Walk site.
A drawing of the final artwork shows the size of the artwork in the space on the lower level of the Overlook Walk pedestrian bridge.
The artists, who represent both local tribes and Urban Natives, are creating artwork inspired by “the matriarchs, the weavers and carvers who kept our traditions, teachings and technologies alive and have provided resiliency to our future generations.
The project encompasses the web of life, honoring the weaver’s traditions in the form of a Coast Salish open cross-warped twined weaving sculpture (a clam basket.
Dzidzilalich ("little crossing-over place")
The Puget Sound Coast Salish people have resided in current-day Seattle since time immemorial. The waterfront was a fishing village, a center for trade, and a place through which many different tribal communities travelled.
Dzidzilalich means “little crossing-over place” in Lushootseed, one of the languages of the Coast Salish people, and refers to one of the several villages that once stood here. According to HistoryLink, the "little crossing-over place" likely refers to either a saddle of land (about where today’s Washington Street is located) that provided a route between the bay and the lagoon (located approximately where Occidental Park is today) or the trail along today’s Yesler Way, which led to Lake Washington.
The City gave Alaskan Way and Elliott Way, between Pioneer Square and Belltown, the honorary name Dzidzilalich (pronounced: dzee-dzuh-lah-leech) to honor the lands and shared waters of the Puget Sound Coast Salish People.
The Suquamish and Muckleshoot Tribal Councils provided guidance to the city of Seattle’s Mayor’s Office, the Office of the Waterfront and Civic Projects and the Seattle Department of Transportation in the process of selecting Dzidzilalich as the honorary name for this roadway.
Map of Seattle looking east adapted from the Waterlines Map by the Burke Museum: “The place names on this map, written in the Lushootseed language of the Coast Salish people, are drawn from elders who worked with ethnographers in the early twentieth century, from the work of linguists and scholars such as the late Vi taqʷšəblu Hilbert, and the work of Southern Lushootseed consultants q̓ʷaťələmu (Nancy Jo Bob) and qəɫtəblu (Tami Hohn).