Lummi Indian Reservation

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The Lummi (governed by the Lummi Nation) are a Native American tribe of the Coast Salish ethnolinguistic group in western Washington state in the United States. The tribe lives on the Lummi Indian Reservation in the inland northwest corner of Washington, 8 miles (13 km) west of Bellingham and 20 miles (32 km) south of the Canadian border, in western Whatcom County.

The Lummi were forcibly moved to reservation lands after the signing of the Point Elliott Treaty in 1855. The reservation has a land area of 54.378 km² (20.996 sq mi), which includes the Lummi Peninsula, and uninhabited Portage Island.

In pre-Colonial times, the tribe migrated seasonally between many sites including Point Roberts, Washington, Lummi Peninsula, Portage Island, as well as sites in the San Juan Islands, including Sucia Island.

Many tribal members were Christianised in the late Nineteenth Century by the Catholic Oblate order.

The traditional lifestyle of the Lummi, like many Northwest Coast tribes, consisted of the collecting of shellfish, gathering of plants such as Camas and different species of berries, and most importantly involved the fishing of salmon. The Lummi developed a fishing technique known as "reef netting". Reef netting was used for taking large quantities of fish in salt water. Lummi had reef net sets on Orcas Island, San Juan Island, Lummi Island and Fidalgo Island, Portage Island and near Point Roberts and Sandy Point.

From July 30th to August 4th 2007, the Lummi hosted their first potlatch since the 1930s, the Paddle to Lummi. 68 canoeing families paddled hand-made canoes to the Lummi Reservation from parts of Washington and British Columbia.

It is estimated that there are 6,590 people living on the Lummi Reservation. Roughly 2,564 of these people are enrolled tribal members, 665 are either related to or live with an enrolled tribal member, and 3,361 are not tribal members nor are they affiliated with the Lummi Nation.

There are approximately 1,864 homes located on the reservation. Approximately 697 of these have an enrolled Lummi living in the home; thus, roughly 1,167 homes on the reservation do not house a tribal member. The 2000 census official numbers were 4,193 persons residing on its territory, of whom 1,828 (43.6 percent) were whites, and only 2,114 (50.4 percent) were of solely Native American heritage.

www.lummi-nsn.gov