The Coast Salish designers behind this year’s Sounders community kit

This article was originally published at Underscore Native News.

Walking into master weaver Gail White Eagle’s cozy home on the Muckleshoot Reservation in Auburn, you enter a project workspace. White Eagle’s sewing machine sits at a table filled with an assortment of colorful beads. To the right hangs a beautiful weaving of hers with red roses, and in front of her is a fireplace used as shelving for an array of herbal medicines and works in progress. To the left are displays of White Eagle’s finished cedar baskets, hats, and a Seattle Sounders Salish Sea kit scarf.

“Everything you see here is everything I do,” said White Eagle, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe. “It’s my life. It’s not just a job. It’s my life’s work.” 

White Eagle, along with Connie McCloud, Puyallup Tribe, and Danielle Morsette, Suquamish Tribe, collaborated with the Seattle Sounders to create the new Salish Sea Kit, which includes a jersey, shorts, socks and a scarf. The jerseys will be worn during the 2025 and 2026 Major League Soccer seasons as the team’s secondary kit. (Underscore + ICT were unable to reach Connie McCloud for this story.) 

In addition to collaborating with Coast Salish weavers for the jersey designs, Sounders FC donated the first $50,000 made from sales of the jerseys to local Native nonprofit organizations. 

The contribution to Seattle’s newest MLS jersey design was done in a way that White Eagle believes aligns with and accurately represents Coast Salish peoples by including a deep blue and green traditional Coast Salish weaving pattern and color theme, specifically twilling and twining weaving techniques.

The jersey design includes other elements meaningful to the region: a wave, an orca tail, and an S representing the Salish Sea and the Sounders, plus the phrase x̌ax̌aʔ ti qʷuʔ meaning “Water is sacred” in Lushootseed, and also written in English. 

In 2022, White Eagle and Morsette were referred to the Sounders through Eighth Generation, a distributor of Native-designed goods. McCloud was referred through the Puyallup Tribe’s partnership with the Sounders.

“It’s really a beautiful thing that happened, because it was three generations of women, three different voices, from the tribes that represent the region,” Morsette told Underscore + ICT. 

The Salish Sea Kit

Together, White Eagle, McCloud and Morsette got to work and created a storyboard that shared the story they wanted to tell, providing visual inspiration to the design team at MLS kit manufacturer Adidas. The first design was great, according to Morsette, but looked completely twined — a weaving technique in which two weft strands are twisted around each other to enclose the warp threads — so they sent the design back hoping to include twill weaving as well.

The second and third versions also missed the mark, prompting the weavers to send instructional videos to Adidas explaining their weaving techniques. They took a hands-on, creative lead throughout the process. Ultimately, the fourth and final jersey captured their vision.

“It was a lot of round-table discussions, what direction we wanted to go, what colors we thought would be best suited,” Morsette said. “The Sounders basically listened and implemented. It was important for them to recognize that we were the weavers and the culture-bearers who had the knowledge to execute this the best way it could.”

Morsette and White Eagle shared that traditional weaving designs often have different meanings for each weaver and are open for interpretation to the viewer, but the designs you see on the jersey are common for Coast Salish weaving style. 

“For me, Salish weaving is very interpretive,” Morsette said. “This process is choosing colors and the design to evoke a feeling. It’s really important to me that I come from a place of good intention because I want people to see in my work the beauty of Salish weaving. So while someone may look at this jersey and they’ll see water — however they want to interpret it, they may see mountains — I believe that when they see this, they’ll see our home, which is the Salish Sea.”

While the weavers are proud of the final design, it has also been incredibly rewarding for them to experience the positive feedback and excitement from their communities as well. 

“Fellow tribal members have expressed nothing but pride,” Morsette told Underscore + ICT. 

She works at the Suquamish Clearwater Casino Resort, where they’ve added the new Sounders jersey and an article from the Suquamish tribal newsletter on display in the company suite where the Mariners and Seahawks jerseys are also on display. They’re even giving the jerseys away as general counsel prizes at community events and at the casino. 

“To see that kind of support where I work has been so amazing,” Morsette said. “I’m just really proud to be part of something where my tribe, the people, have something that represents us.”

Morsette has also received praise from Betty Pasco, a Suquamish elder who is a Salish-style wool weaver. 

“Anytime I see my elder Betty Pasco, she just tells me how important the work that I’m doing [is] and how proud she is,” Morsette shared, holding back tears. “She is an incredible weaver herself. To have that kind of support makes me feel like what I’m doing is a good thing.”

White Eagle has received similarly positive feedback. 

At the March 8 game, the first time the Sounders wore the Salish Sea jersey, White Eagle brought Tillie Jones’ kids, whom White Eagle calls her “adopted soccer children.” Jones, Tulalip, is the vice president of the Coast Salish Wool Weaving Center where White Eagle serves as a board member. 

“They thought it was so cool,” White Eagle said. 

White Eagle went on to share that many people in her community went out and bought jerseys and people are still talking about how special that first game was. 

Sounders players have sounded equally excited about the new jersey and the opportunity to learn more about the first people of the land they now play and live on. 

“It’s one of my favorite secondary kits,” midfielder Cristian Roldan told Underscore + ICT. “I just love the mixture. It just looks so clean and it wraps up what the PNW is all about.”

Goalkeeper Andrew Thomas agreed. “It was only at the start of this year that I saw the kit and kind of saw the entirety of the project come together and it is a beautiful, beautiful game,” Thomas said. “I think you’re gonna be very hard-pressed to find a better one in the world. I’m a huge, huge fan of it.”

Roldan moved from California to attend the University of Washington, where he played soccer for the Washington Huskies before joining the Sounders in 2015. He shared that he had been unaware of Coast Salish peoples when he moved here, but as a student he began to learn. 

“This certainly wasn’t our land, and it’s still not our land, and it’s beautiful to be able to represent the culture and what the city is all about,” Roldan said about the collaboration. 

Thomas, who’s lived in Washington since he came to play for the Seattle Sounders in 2021, said he feels lucky to have learned about Coast Salish peoples’ connection to the land and water and to have become connected in some small way to the area’s history and continued culture. 

“It’s important to just keep feeling the power of those connections and hearing those stories,” Thomas said, “and hearing kind of the way the culture that exists and has existed for a long time.” 

‘Water Is Sacred’

Roldan and Thomas both shared how special they’ve found the partnership between Coast Salish nations and Major League Soccer, and with their teammates applauded the addition of the message “Water Is Sacred.”

“For me, it means water is extremely important in our daily lives, and it’s the reason why we exist today and the way we’re able to survive,” Roldan said of his understanding of the phrase. “Water brings a whole lot to not only us, but the things around us, trees, the atmosphere, animals. I think it brings everybody together.”

Much like the Sounders’ Bruce Lee kit in 2023 and Jimi Hendrix kit in 2021, which included signatures on the bottom of the bottom corner of the jersey, the weavers decided this was an opportunity to include a message in Lushootseed. 

“I thought it was an opportunity to put a Lushootseed word or phrase in there to incorporate such an important part of the culture in the region,” Morsette said. 

She worked with Cassie George, a Suquamish language teacher who helped with the final translation of “Water Is Sacred.”  

“I wasn’t expecting such positive feedback for that little detail,” Morsette said. “With the social and political climate, I was kind of worried. How is this gonna be received?” 

The phrase is meaningful for Morsette as a Suquamish citizen who comes from generations of subsistence fishermen and clam diggers who have harvested food from the sea and its beaches since time immemorial.

“When it comes to food and the seafood that we have, when it’s brought for ceremony, it brings people together,” Morsette said. “So not only is it nourishing for the body, but also for spirit.”

Stewardship of the lands and the Salish Sea are culturally and spiritually important to her as a Suquamish woman, Morsette explained, as well as to the health and survival of everyone who benefits from it. 

“Without water, we would cease to exist,” Morsette said. “It’s such a valuable resource that we need. Having grown up in Suquamish, we’re right here on the Salish Sea. So much has been provided by the sea. It’s something that we have to take care of. … It’s so valuable to my tribe and to the area, and to everybody who lives here.”

White Eagle is a retired skipper in Suquamish canoe journeys and plays an important role as the leader, teacher and navigator of the crew. 

“Spiritually, there is nothing like being out there on the water, being in peace, being able to be feeling serene enough to know that the Creator is hearing our prayers, and respecting the water and all that she has to offer,” White Eagle said. “Because not only is it spiritual, our food comes from it, our salmon, our clams, geoduck, everything comes from that water that we need to survive.”

White Eagle echoed Morsette’s sentiments, explaining that as stewards of the land and the Salish Sea, she believes that caring for the land should be a bigger responsibility for everyone who lives in the Puget Sound region. 

“The Sounders are right there on the Puget Sound, and it’s one of the things that we all talked about that needs more attention,” White Eagle said. “We need to bring everybody’s focus that water is sacred and that we need to treat it as such, and so we need to be careful what we put into the water, how what we take from the water.

“We are only as strong as the weakest link, so if we don’t educate everybody on how important it is to make sure that our water is considered sacred and we need to be careful with it, nobody knows, right?” White Eagle continued. 

Done in a good way

Morsette expressed gratitude for the good way the Salish Sea kit collaboration with the Sounders has been handled. 

“This was such a unique collaboration for a professional sports team to work with the local Indigenous artists, weavers,” Morsette said. This could have been a hit or miss, but it was an absolute hit. The Sounders really let us guide the whole project, and the way that I personally felt seen and heard was something that I wasn’t expecting.”

One of the comments Morsette received was, “Wow, this was a true master class of how to collaborate and how to uplift Indigenous voices.” 

“We chose those places to receive that money to help them continue their work so everything that this jersey represented was done in a good way,” White Eagle said. “I still get chills thinking about it, because it’s a good work.” 

Morsette and White Eagle hope that this example spreads and other MLS teams will consider working with the Native artists in their regions. 

Sounders players are proud of the way the Salish Sea kit came together as well. 

“[It’s] very much a privilege to be able to share these spaces that people have such deep ties to that I obviously do not,” Thomas said. 

Thomas shared that friends back home in the United Kingdom will ask about the kit because they’ve seen photos of it, and it gives him the opportunity to share details about the first people of the land he is living on now. 

“We’re unaware of all the traditions that Natives have, and so for us to be able to see that firsthand. … It gives us a little bit more perspective on things,” Roldan said. 

“We definitely need to do a better job of understanding each other,” Roldan continued. “We coexist so much in our communities. To get a better understanding of where people come from and their traditions is really important because at the end of the day, I think what everybody wants to do at this organization is be inclusive, right? And I think the jersey in itself displays that, but I think there’s also more that we can do.”

Medicine for the people

White Eagle is the collections and exhibits specialist for the Muckleshoot preservations department and has worked as an official cultural leader for almost a decade. But she wasn’t always as connected as she is now. 

In 1994 she felt like she was “the only Indian in the whole wide world that didn’t know about how to make a basket,” White Eagle shared. 

She decided then to learn about her culture so that she could share it with other people like her. 

“I grew up in a time where it still wasn’t OK to be Indian,” White Eagle shared. “Once I started learning, that’s what anchored me, and I started doing better in life, and here I am.”

White Eagle remains a devoted teacher and mentor who shares knowledge and traditional weaving techniques, and sees teaching as medicine. 

“If you really think about it, everything we do is ceremonial,” White Eagle said. “There’s a reason for it. We’re putting our prayers into an item or a garment, either praying for a person or we are praying for an area or for the people. I like to think that I’m medicine for the people, because I help people learn.”

White Eagle has been able to pass on these teachings since she had her first child. Her children and grandchild all know how to gather cedar and camas and how to collect stinging nettle, and as a master weaver she has taught her children and many others how to weave cedar bark.

“I used to always think to myself that if I could just affect one person to say, ‘Hey, yeah, I got what it takes. I can do it.’ Just one person. It makes our world better,” White Eagle said.

Morsette, who started out making headbands and purses and then doll regalia before moving on to adult regalia and blankets, echoed these sentiments.

“From wearable regalia to public art, I’m grateful that I get to leave an imprint for future generations to look at and be inspired,” Morsette said.

This article first appeared on Underscore Native News on Sept. 11, 2025. and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.