Tuluwat Island

By David Holper

Hinarr rrou shiruwaqh rruqhe loulhi’silh dagou,
Tuluwat hou wenoutwuqu’l, hou gou lhughiraduk.

“Our ancestors (spirits) can rest,
because Tuluwat has healed and been returned to us.” (Written in Wiyot)


I)

Let us risk ourselves in remembering the forgotten. Step into the darkness
of February 26, 1860. What words will ferry you through dark waters
to Tuluwat Island to conjure the terrors executed on the Wiyot women, children, old men?
Even if you dare, hat spell might distill your belief in these white men’s dark sorcery
of machetes, hatchets, and clubs—imagine it: six white men metamorphosing into monsters
and casting their incantations of blood where the Wiyot had come to celebrate
the holy renewal of the world. It was not magic a few escaped—one hid in a trash pile,
a child was found suckling at his dead mother’s breast, one man leapt in the Bay, swam
into history. No one knows the number—only those few survivors could say for certain
what the land bore in blood. That is the risk then: to understand what every survivor felt
when they heard that great silence spread over which the land keened: do not forget
this place. Do not forget that if ever the world is to be renewed,
this is the ground where the people must gather and sing.

II)

Let us risk stepping beyond that day and imagine who might speak for these dead,
their bodies long ago buried into a nearly forgotten history. Imagine if Tuluwat could
speak, Tuluwat might lift its ancient voice out of the gloom of the fog, sing to those
imprisoned in Fort Humboldt, to those banished to the misery of the reservation. Tuluwat knows the sweet words to tongue to the children, ripped from their parents, held hostage
in boarding schools, where their native tongues were straight-jacketed, where their heads
were bent to pray to an unfamiliar god, who, miracle, ordained everything
the white people commanded, until the aftermath meant drinking pain,
eating pain—or blinding it in whatever poison served. That, too, is the risk—to venture into those dark waters, where Tuluwat cries out, remember what must never be forgotten!

III

Let us risk ourselves in recognizing this place where death picks up its skirts and dances
with the living: Let Tuluwat be returned to the Wiyot. The land desecrated with trash and toxins.
No matter—did you think anyone can kill the land? Did you think what has been lost
cannot be reborn? Did you not recognize the risk in tuning an ear to the joyful voices
of those who know what Tuluwat has long taught: blood is unanswered in blood.
It is answered in apology, in song, in the whirlwind of the rising dance—for in this celebration we all prepare to bury old hatreds, to renew our world again. Let Tuluwat cry out—
to bless each of us in renewal, to bless what has been broken; to renew in the gift, in the return. Let us take the final risk in bowing to what must die, in a rebirth to what remains
greater in each of us; yes, bow, make offerings, and let all of us rejoice as the land cries out
on this great good day.
______

On Monday, October 21, 2019, the City of Eureka, California, officially
returned Tuluwat Island to the Wiyot Tribe. According to recent research,
Eureka is the first city in the United States to return land to any tribe as a gift.