By MARGOT BOYER

For The Beachcomber

Like many of us on Vashon, I spend a lot of time on the ferries. Often I get out of the car and go up to the cabin to stretch and look around. I really appreciate the historical photographs in the cabins.

The photographs of indigenous people from Puget Sound and the rest of Washington State are especially poignant; they are beautiful images. Yet the Lummi, Duwamish, Suquamish, Snohomish and other Native people in the images, even those who physically survived, were the victims of genocide. I’m glad these pictures are on display to remind us of local history. At the same time, I’m perturbed by the way they are sometimes treated.

During the winter holidays, there seems to be a tradition of decorating the ferry passenger cabins, and covering the photographs with holiday wrapping. It makes sense that the ferry crew would want to dress up the space where they work, and it’s generous of them to try to make the cabins more festive for all of us.

The practice of covering historical photographs of people with wrapping paper, as if they were gifts, troubles me. It seems to imply the images are things to be wrapped, rather than people to be remembered. It’s especially disturbing because the people in the images were subject to genocide.

The indigenous people of our region lost their lands and access to fishing grounds. Some starved to death on lands that had been full of game. Settlers and armies murdered them. European-American government, institutions and individuals eroded the cultures, religious practices and languages of those who were here before us. Some of the photographs — I’m thinking of an image of boys at an “Indian boarding school” on the ferry Klahowya — actually show cultural genocide under way.

It’s hard to imagine that photographs of other victims of genocide would be treated this way. Would images of Jewish people under the Nazi regime, or enslaved African American people on the auction block, be decorated with holiday wrapping paper? Such an action would be offensive and shocking. Many of us would express our outrage.

I’d like to see the ferry crews find ways to decorate the cabins that do not involve covering photographs of human beings with wrapping paper. These are ancestors — to Native people still living here and in a sense to all of us who live now on their lands. We should treat them with honor and respect, just as we would treat photographs of our own family members.

If you share this concern, consider contacting Washington State Ferries with your comments.

— Margot Boyer is a freelance writer living on Vashon and a contributing writer to The Beachcomber.