The Salish Sea Kit is more than just a jersey for the Seattle Sounders. It is a representation of the generations of weavers in the Coast Salish Communities and our region’s intrinsic connection to water.
Along with the Anniversary Kit launched last season, the Sounders will be wearing the Salish Sea Kit in a select number of matches as a way to honor the historic traditions and advocate for the future of the Salish Sea.
The art of weaving flows like water. The design of the kit is a way to remind those of the sacredness of the substance that gives us life, the resilience it holds and the underlying connection it has with the Indigenous people surrounding the Salish Sea watershed and beyond.
“The spirit of the Salish Sea encompasses our subsistence…the water brings so much nourishment to our communities,” said Danielle Morsette of the Suquamish Tribe. “Our communities have long lived alongside these shores, and it's our way that we've traveled, that we fed our families.”
The inspiration behind the kit is derived specifically from the art of weavers Connie McCloud of the Puyallup Tribe, Gail White Eagle of the Muckleshoot Tribe, and Morsette. The three weavers were introduced to the Sounders staff by Coast Salish artist, activist and social entrepreneur, Louie Gong of the Nooksack Tribe.
“When something is needed, ceremonially, or art installations, you're called upon for that, and it is our duty and our responsibility to educate other people on who we are and what these techniques mean to us, and how it weaves us all together,” said White Eagle.
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In doing so, the three weavers introduced the Sounders to the traditional techniques of twilling and twining utilized in their own work. In order to emulate a similar approach into the kit, the club incorporated patterns of symmetrical shapes and continual diagonal lines to depict dimensionality and movement.
“The geometric designs are used to symbolize either a story, a plant, a tree, or a feeling,” said White Eagle. “The different techniques used, like the twining of the design of a triangle, sometimes there's ovals, sometimes there's diamonds… Different shapes are used to symbolize something holistically where we tell our story in our garments and our blankets using these techniques.”
The collaboration with McCloud, White Eagle, and Morsette also came with understanding the importance of incorporating hues of greens and blues into the color scheme of the overall design.
“Those colors are sacred and have a lot of meaning, and it's a shared meaning across many cultures,” said McCloud. “The blue represents the sky, and the green represents the earth. And because all of us are all part of the same natural circle, the sky, which is the rain, nourishes us, it feeds our water, and the earth produces the grass, the food, oxygen, our trees, everything, there's a great interdependence between the sky and the earth.”
Along with the colors and patterns, the club incorporated a sign off on the jock tag that includes the statement, “Water Is Sacred” in English and Southern Lushootseed, the accustomed language of the Suquamish, Muckleshoot, Puyallup, and neighboring Coast Salish Tribes.
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The artists’ influence on the community kit was deemed necessary to produce something authentic to the heritage and traditions of the Coast Salish communities and their weavers that date back for more than 10,000 years.
“When you're weaving, and I use this as an example in the work that I do, the first four weavers of a basket represent your family, where you come from,” said McCloud. "Then, as you go along, you're adding a weaver, and you're weaving around."
“Each of the materials has its own spirit, and you're working with that spirit of the cedar, spirit of the sweet grass, spirit of the water, because it tells a story, and it begins with family, and then it connects your entire community.”
Currently the Heritage Division Manager for the Puyallup Tribe, McCloud was once a young girl who embarked on her journey with the Coast Salish practice through her own grandmother, Nancy Secena. A master weaver, Secena taught not only McCloud, but former Washington State Treasurer and Chehalis Tribal member Hazel Pete as well.
“When we were young, we'd go with my mother, and we'd gather cattail and other things that my grandmother used to weave her baskets,” said McCloud. “We would go to my grandmother's house, and the rafters would be where her basket materials were drying and hanging…”We have had different teachers at different times. But it really began with our grandmother.”
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Hazel Pete passed on the learnings she received from Secena and taught people like White Eagle, who’s been weaving since 1994. Yvonne Peterson of the Chehalis Tribe and Bruce Miller of the Skokomish Tribe were also amongst the several teachers in White Eagle’s weaving journey, guiding her through techniques of basketry, ceremonial weaving, Coast Salish weaving, and cedar weaving. Since then, she’s integrated these techniques into her own work, while teaching others.
“[Weaving] is part of my identity, it’s actually who I am now,” said White Eagle.
Morsette began weaving professionally in 2010, but found her love for the craft seven years prior in a class with the Suquamish Youth Program, taught by Tulalip Tribal member Marjorie Lawrence. After apprenticing with the late Virginia Adams of the Suquamish Tribe and learning from Marcie Baker from the Squamish First Nation, she found her footing in the weaving space making doll regalia, garments and art installations.
“What interested me in weaving is that I didn't see it in my community. There were very few weavers who were making beautiful things that I didn't even know that was my identity,” said Morsette. “And to [now] be a weaver in my community is something I hold with such high regard.”
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The three weavers recognize that the mastery of their craft wouldn’t have been possible without their own influences originating from ancestral weavings.
“Ancestral weavings are also our teachers,” said White Eagle. “We almost lost everything during the Indian Wars. Long houses were burned down, materials gone, everything gone. And if it wasn't for those few ancestral pieces still in museums, we wouldn't have what we have.”
Just as their family members, teachers and ancestors did for them, these women are committed to passing on the tradition of weaving to future generations.
“I've been very fortunate to have received this gift, to not only create, but to teach and to share and hopefully to inspire,” said Morsette.
Weaving is a way of life for Morsette, White Eagle and McCloud. It is a practice that allows them to connect with the world around them while understanding who they are and where they came from. It is a practice of comfort and love, but one that embodies strength as well.
“It is ingrained into who I am as an Indigenous person, and it's a huge responsibility to carry forward,” said Morsette. “And when you're called upon to be part of something, to make something, it's really an honor.”
The history behind the Coast Salish community and its weavers is a story worth telling, and the Salish Sea Kit is intended to serve as a physical manifestation of that story.
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