Lama meets Lummi

Lummi Nation, Dalai Lama share vision of peace

Tribe presents Tibetan leader traditional hat, sash, necklaceThe Dalai Lama donned a Lummi Nation cedar bark hat Sunday as he urged a small audience of Native Americans to safeguard their culture. A Lummi delegation presented him with the hat as well as a sash and necklace during a brief meeting that followed his main address to a gathering of about 50,000 people inside the stadium. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetans and head of that land’s government-in-exile. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.

The setting for his meeting with the native groups was a bit incongruous: the FSN Lounge inside Qwest Field, beneath larger-than-life portraits of Cortez Kennedy, Jim Zorn and other members of the Seattle Seahawks’ Ring of Honor. But the drums and chants of the Lummi, Tulalip and other tribes transformed a sports fan’s watering hole into a place of ceremony.