Rights Remembered: A Salish Grandmother Speaks on American Indian History and the Future

Rights Remembered is a remarkable historical narrative and autobiography written by esteemed Lummi elder and culture bearer Pauline R. Hillaire, Scälla-Of the Killer Whale. A direct descendant of the immediate postcontact generation of Coast Salish in Washington State, Hillaire combines in her narrative her own life experiences, Lummi oral traditions preserved and passed on to her, and the written record of relationships between the United States and the Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast. She tells of government officials, treaties, reservations, and the colonial relationship between the Coast Salish people and white settlers.

Hillaire’s book, although written out of frustration with the status of Native peoples in the United States, is not an expression of anger. Rather it represents, in her own words, her hope ＂for greater justice for Indian people in America, and for reconciliation between Indian and non-Indian Americans, based on recognition of the truths of history.＂ Addressed to Indigenous and non-Native peoples alike, Rights Remembered is a thoughtful call for understanding and mutual respect between cultures.

Pauline R. Hillaire, Scälla-Of the Killer Whale (Lummi) (1929-2016), was a historian, genealogist, artist, teacher, and conservator of Coast and Straits Salish knowledge and culture. In 2013 she was recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts as a National Heritage Fellow, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. She is the author, with editor Gregory P. Fields, of A Totem Pole History: The Work of Lummi Carver Joe Hillaire (Nebraska, 2013). Gregory P. Fields is Distinguished Research Professor of philosophy at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He is the author of Religious Therapeutics: Body and Health in Yoga, Ayurveda, and Tantra.