The Search for a Proper Resting Place
When Seattle officials sought a name for a new city cemetery in 1885, they turned to Makah traditions to find a title befitting the 'land of the hereafter.'
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Some time since, the Council decided to start the new city cemetery and set about looking for a suitable one. Some suggested 'Evergreen,' some 'Wildwood,' and some 'Oakwood,' but no conclusion could be reached. Finally, the matter was laid before the Ladies' Relief Society, which conceived the idea of giving the new cemetery an appropriate Indian name, which should be different from the names of other burial places. A committee was appointed to write to James G. Swan of Port Townsend on the subject. In reply, Mr. Swan wrote: 'I have looked over my several vocabularies and found one word—significant as well as suitable. 'Wahelli,' the west wind, in the language of the Makah Indians at Cape Flattery. This is the 'home wind' blowing from the land of the hereafter. In order that you may understand the full meaning of the word, you should read Longfellow’s Hiawatha. The West wind is called the home wind, the wind blowing from the land of the hereafter. The word 'Wahelli,' of the Makah, is significant of the idea entertained by all the Indians that the west is the land from whence comes all life, and that the west is the region of death or the land of the hereafter. 'Wahelli Cemetery' would mean 'The cemetery of the land of the hereafter,' which, I think, is more fitting the resting place of the dead than 'Olive Lawn,' 'Lone Mountain,' or 'Lone Tree.' But, as few know, or care to know, the meaning of Indian words, I expect you will find a difficulty in inducing a majority of them to adopt the title I have suggested.' When the issue came up before the Council Friday evening, it was decided by a majority vote to name the new burial place 'Wahelli'—the home of the hereafter.
“Wahelli is significant of the idea entertained by all the Indians that the west is the land from whence comes all life, and that the west is the region of death or the land of the hereafter.”
The name 'Wahelli' survives in the modern Wahelli Cemetery in Seattle (located within the larger Evergreen-Washelli complex). This story reflects a fascinating, if complex, moment of settler-colonial naming practices—where civic leaders explicitly sought to avoid the 'mines and miners' aesthetic of the frontier to adopt indigenous concepts of the afterlife.
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