Updated: The First Inhabitants Of Redmond

In meetings, Redmond City Council, led by CM Vanessa Kritzer and CM Jessica Forsythe, are recognizing the Salish tribe as being the original inhabitants of Redmond. CM Varisha Kahn came up with the idea.  I'm not sure what this has to do with governance but I certainly find this honorable and a kind acknowledgement of our indigenous.  Below, is some background on the Salish tribes in our area -- we have many:  Sammamish, Squak, Snoqualmie, and Duwamish. The Lower Bear Creek restoration identified the presence of  Muckleshoot, Tulalip and Stillaguamish tribes. All are Salish. 

It appears the Sammamish tribe may have been named after the Great Blue Heron - "our species of local importance."

-- Bob Yoder

The Coast Salish is a group of ethnically and linguistically related Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, living in British Columbia, Canada and the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon. ... The Coast Salish are a large, loose grouping of many tribes with numerous distinct cultures and languages. The Sammamish (/səˈmæmɪʃ/; indigenously, [t͡saˈpaːbʃ]) people were a Coast Salish Native American tribe in the Sammamish River Valley in central King County, Washington. 

Their name is variously translated as ssts'p-abc ("meander dwellers", a group residing around Bothell),^[2] s-tah-PAHBSH ("willow people") or as Samena ("hunter people"), which was corrupted into Sammamish.^[3] According to Hitchman, it does not mean "hunter people", the name is derived from samma, meaning "the sound of the blue crane" and mish, meaning "river." The name may have originated with the Snoqualmie—some tribal members once lived along the lake near the bottom of Inglewood Hill—but this has not been verified.^[4] They were also known to early European-American settlers as "Squak", "Simump", and "Squowh.",^[5] Squak is a corruption of sqwa'ux, meaning Issaquah Creek, which was a village site on Sammamish Lake. They were closely related to the Duwamish, and have often been considered a Duwamish sub-group as part of the Xacuabš ("People of the Large Lake") who lived near Lake Washington. Like the Duwamish, the Sammamish originally spoke a southern dialect of Lushootseed.

Salish Indian religious beliefs focus chiefly on guardian spirits. Guardian spirit, supernatural teacher, frequently depicted in animal form, who guides an individual in every important activity through advice and songs; the belief in guardian spirits is widely diffused among the North American Indians.

Wikipedia, 12/8/2020