Se'Si'Le - Seven Sisters

Indigenous matriarchal wisdom from across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska was shared by the Seven Sisters on the evening of June 27 before a near-capacity crowd at St. Marks Cathedral Parish in Seattle.

Seven Sisters on the evening of June 27 at St. Marks Cathedral Parish in Seattle

The event, the second of six in the Seven Sisters campaign, was grounded in—and inspired by—a sacred obligation (Xa xalh Xechnging) the Seven Sisters feel for their gravely imperiled relatives: Sk’aliCh’elh (the Southern Resident Killer Whale clan).

In the spirit of netse mot (one mind), the Seven Sisters invited the audience to envision, embrace, and fully participate in the creation of a hopeful and humane future for these relatives and for all our relations. It is an emerging ancestral future being liberated from the pathos of a dominating, destructive, and misbegotten hyper-masculinity by an ethos of the nurturing matriarchal principles of deep remembrance, continuity of the spirit, familial ties and community, and an empathic relationality with the greatness of nature.

These matriarchal principles also signify the Seven Sisters tapestry (Photo 2), created by Cyaltsa Finkbonner, one of the Seven Sisters and a citizen of the Lummi Nation. Just prior to the start of the event, attendees were invited to post on the tapestry a message of remembrance to one of their matriarchs (Photo 3). The evocative tapestry and its heart-shaped post-it notes invoked deeply personal memories and fostered a common bond between all those—seen and unseen—who were present. The tapestry was then placed on the altar just before the SevenSisters and their Witnesses processioned past the Holy Water font and down the center aisle, brought forward to the altar by a traditional Welcoming Song shared by Chenoa Egawa (Photo4).

Alyssa Macy served as emcee for the gathering and was the voice of the ancestral matriarchal future (Photo 5). The Sisters spoke to this future about honor, empathy, the transformative power of art, communion with nature and continuity, and what we can and must do individually and collectively to realize a future in balance with right and respectful relations (Photos 6-10). One of many profound moments was gifted the gathering by Seven Sister and Lummi Nation citizen Raynell Morris. She spoke near-to-tears about the death in 2023, due to decades in captivity, of L-pod member Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut, about the courage and perseverance of her aggrieved, century-old mother Ocean Sun, and the avoidable, immoral, and altogether unacceptable threat of extinction facing her Sk’aliCh’elh relatives. After the Sisters spoke, two witnesses, who were wrapped in blankets by the Sisters in accordance with tribal protocol, spoke their truth to those assembled in the Parish about the words, the work, and the heartfelt-sense and significance of the gathering (Photo 11).

The event concluded with a call-and-response with the audience who were invited to say a few words about an important matriarch in their life. The respondents came from very different walks and ways of life, and time in life (Photos 12 and 13). It was an altogether fitting conclusion for a gathering dedicated to inclusiveness, kin-centric relations, communion, continuity, and caretaking the Creation.

Seven Sisters tapestry by Cyaltsa Finkbonner