Living, breathing, working for my culture

ʔu, gwəlapu, haʔɬ sləxil. Mary Jane Topash tsi dsdaʔ tul̕ʔal čəd dxwlilap, sduhubš čəd. Hello everyone, good day, my name is Mary Jane Topash.

I am Tulalip, with Snohomish ancestry.

I was grown and raised on the Tulalip reservation, 30 miles north of Seattle, and I continue to live there today. I am the youngest of four children and the only one raised fully enveloped in my culture. My older siblings learned our culture when they were older or adults. As for me, it is all I know.

My father lived off the reservation in Montana most of his life and came back to Tulalip when the Tribe was beginning to grow, and there were more employment opportunities. This created a unique situation where I was teaching him about our culture as young as 5 years old when typically it’s the other way around. Traditionally, your grandparents, aunties and uncles, and your parents teach the necessary traditions, stories, lessons, cultural etiquette, etc. Since my family’s path wasn’t traditional, I found myself sharing stories, the Lushootseed I had learned, protocols, etc., with my parents and siblings.

My favorite story, which I learned when I was little, is called Lifting Up the Sky.

It is a Tulalip story about how, a long time ago, the sky used to be low. It was so low that people and animals would walk bent over it. You couldn’t stand upright. They were constantly bumping into the sky. After some time, all the animals and people decided they wanted to stand tall and knew they needed to lift the sky. They all gathered together and began to take poles and lifted together. It took four tries, and on the fourth attempt, the sky was lifted to where it is now. Everyone rejoiced and was happy that with their work, determination, and collective action, they could accomplish something to better all of their lives.

This is a very condensed version of this story, and there are multiple layers to it—as many tribal stories do—but this one always stuck with me. I always think of my community and Tribe and how it takes everyone to work together. I think of all the people, cousins, family, parents, and siblings who have helped lift a pole in my own life to get me where I am now.

All my family and siblings have lived in Washington for over 30 years now, and we all know our culture, actively participate in it, and know our traditions.

I am very fortunate to live, breathe, and work in and for my culture. I have the lived experience, the academic experience (BA in Anthropology and American Indian Studies from UW and an MA in Cultural Studies from UW Bothell), and a 13-year career of professional experience working in informal education in museums.

Read more from our storytelling project:

Lifting Up the Sky

Glukeek Legend

Learning txʷəlšucid and telling the stories

Living, breathing, working for my culture

Family stories handed down

The Chicken and Two  Scorpions

A family of Moths: Recreating The Moth StorySLAM at home

The Best Mother She Ever Had

‘Out of my heart a story will come: Storytelling in schools’

The Lion and the Mouse

Why do we tell stories around the fire?