History of Seattle Before White Settlement - Along Lake Washington

Along Lake Washington

All the people living around Lake Washington were collectively known as Xacuabš (hah-choo-AHBSH or hah-chu-AHBSH), People of HAH-choo or Xachu, "People of a Large Lake" or "Lake People". Initially, at the time of major European contact, these people considered themselves related but distinct from the Dkhw'Duw'Absh. The lake drained out the Black River in what is now Renton. The Black River joined the Cedar and White (now Green) rivers to become the Duwamish River and empty into what is now called southeast Elliott Bay.

The hah-chu-AHBSH called the peninsula that is now Seward Park skEba’kst (skuh-BAHKST, “nose”); the isthmus was cqa'lapsEb (TSKAH-lap-suhb, “neck”). The isthmus was only a few hundred feet wide and flooded seasonally, turning the peninsula into an island (the lake level was some 9 ft (3m) higher or more). A large wetland and marsh was north of what is now the park entrance circle, at what is now Andrews Bay. The lake, bay, wetlands, and peninsula were richly abundant.

The Xacuabš had a village of two longhouses (khwaac'ál'al, forerunners of sizable cohousing for tens of people in each one) at xaxao'Ltc (ha-HAO-hlch, the “sacred or taboo place”, from xá?xa?), at or near what is now Brighton Beach. Villages were diffuse. Other khwaac'ál'al were on the southwest lake shore at SExti'tcb (“by means of swimming”, Bryn Mawr), at TL’Ltcus (TLEELH-chus, “little island”, Pritchard’s Island), and to farther north at Leschi Park.

Besides providing food, the lake was home to powerful spirits. The word xá?xa? also means sacred, great and mighty. The previously mentioned xaxao'lc ("taboo place") at Brighton Beach, south of the peninsula, was named for a supernatural spirit who was said to live in the lake there. The unusual sound of the babbling waters at this place indicated its presence. Near Colman Park lived an ?ya’hos, a horned spirit that was associated with landslides and earthquakes. Remarkably, this is the approximate location of the Seattle Fault, which moved more than 20 ft (6.1 m) vertically about 1100 years ago. This quake caused a landslide at South Point on Mercer Island sending a large section of forest into the lake. Little earth beings were said to inhabit the tree stumps there and drove insane a man trying to harvest the bark from the stumps.

East of Downtown on Lake Washington were two villages whose names are not known. One of the possible village sites of the skah-TEHLB-shahbsh was around what was later named Wetmore Slough, now the filled Genesee Park in Columbia City. A second village of the skah-TEHLB-shahbsh was at what is now Leschi Park.

What is now Rainier Beach (Atlantic City Park) is the possible site of one of two skah-TEHLB-shahbsh villages, though the village name is not known.

The influential and principal village of the hloo-weelh-AHBSH was around what is now Brooklyn Avenue at a then- much larger Portage Bay, and SWAH-tsoo-gweel ("portage") on the north shores of a Union Bay nearly a mile farther than today, near what is now the Burke-Gilman Trail and the southeast corner of Ravenna Park. (What is now the Burke-Gilman Trail was built along the shoreline c. 1886 by the Seattle, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway.) Five longhouses were located on the north of the bay. Other longhouses were near the present University of Washington (UW) steam plant (west of the UW IMA Building, and between what is now the Center for Urban Horticulture and present-day Children's Hospital). For this village, their backyard was the neighborhoods of the Ravenna Creek watershed today. In summer, the village largely moved to Sahlouwil, what is now southeast Laurelhurst on Lake Washington.

The village of hehs-KWEE-kweel ("skate") was of the hloo-weelh-AHBSH (from s'hloo-WEELH, "a tiny hole drilled to measure the thickness of a canoe"), for the narrow passage through then-large and resource-rich Union Bay marsh. Traces of the marsh survive as the Union Bay Natural Area and the Foster Island area of north Washington Park Arboretum. The trees and the island of Stitici, (Stee-tee-tchee) were their ceremonial burial ground. Stitici, Little Island, is now called Foster Island. The village was at the northeast tip of what is now Madison Park. One longhouse may have been used as a potlatch house. The Duwamish Tribe is today leveraging the sacred site in the path of substantial enlargement of SR 520 through south Union Bay between Redmond and Interstate 5, in their quest for recognition.

TLEHLS ("minnows" or "shiners") was on the shores of what is now called Wolf Bay in Windermere, on Lake Washington south of SqWsEb, now called Magnuson Park. BEbqwa'bEks (small prairie—anthropogenic grassland) was near what is now Windermere. One or three longhouses have been documented. These people may have been associated with the hloo-weelh-AHBSH of Union Bay.

The village of too-HOO-beed was of the too-oh-beh-DAHBSH extended family and was near what is now called Thornton Creek in what is now Matthews Beach, with Meadowbrook their back yard.