Mary Lou Slaughter's Blackberry Dumplings

Princess Angeline/Kikisoblu, daughter of Chief Seattle/Seeathl, pictured here in a rare photograph tending to clothing. It is said she was born around 1820 near today’s Pritchard Island in Rainier Beach along Lake Washington. RVHS Photograph 

August means many different things to Seattlites—some may find the dusk of summer bittersweet, some may celebrate the traffic-stopping spectacle of Seafair, while still others may celebrate one of the many independence days that fall in the American holiday lull of August. One thing we can probably all agree on, however, is the wonderful explosion of berries across the city. These berries have been sustaining and bringing joy to residents of the Seattle area for hundreds of years, so this month, we’re highlighting a Duwamish recipe for Blackberry dumplings to explore how the Xacua’bs (pronounced hah-chu-ABSH), a band of the Duwamish tribe who lived on the shores along Lake Washington, have and continue to use the rich natural resources of the Rainier Valley. 

A band of the Duwamish tribe whose name aptly means “Lake People,” historians estimate that the Southern Xacua’bs people, who lived in the area we now call Rainier Valley, numbered three to four hundred at any given time. There were groups of longhouses at the outlet of Lake Washington (where the Renton Airport is today) and at Bryn Mawr, Brighton Beach, Pritchard Island, and Leschi Park. Similar to the practices of many Native Americans on the Northwest Coast, the Xacua’bs wintered in small villages and spent the warmer months moving around the area in their canoes, staying at temporary camps as they gathered and preserved food for the winter. Fish from the lake was a primary source of food—sockeye salmon and longfin smelt, as well as peamouth, whitefish, and suckers—which they caught with weirs, spears, and dip nets along the streams feeding the lake. The Xacua’bs diet was quite diverse, with their sources of food including crayfish, freshwater mussels, duck, geese (if you commute down the Boulevard often, you’ll know the amount of geese we have!), deer, elk, bear, beaver, muskrat, raccoon, weasel, otter, and, of course, plants. The most abundant of these plants were berries, for Seward Park alone boasts thimbleberries, salal, currants, black caps, salmonberries, huckleberries, blackberries, strawberries, serviceberries, and others. 

As Seattle residents today might be able to guess, of the plant foods gathered by the “Lake People,” blackberries are by far the most persistent these days. The Xacua’bs historically enjoyed Seattle’s smaller, sweeter native blackberries known as trailing blackberry (rubus ursinus) until Californian experimental farmer Luther Burbank began selling the invasive Himalayan blackberry to the Puget Sound in the late 19th century. Since then, the Himalayan blackberry has taken over the city, which comes both with serious issues and an extremely abundant source of blackberries for people to pick on a hot August day. Whether you make Mary Lou Slaughter’s blackberry dumpling recipe below—originally sourced from the wonderful Native American Delicacies: the Duwamish Cookbook—with native or Himalayan blackberries this August, we encourage you to enjoy your dumplings while thinking deeply about the historic and continued Indigenous presence in Rainier Valley. Since August also includes Washington’s annual Museum Day on Saturday, August 8th, consider checking out a local museum exhibit to engage with the city and state’s history, whether it is attending one of RVHS’s own Hillman City walking tours, visiting one of the many tribal cultural centers across the state, or checking out the rich Indigenous artwork featured across our city’s many art museums!

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Blackberry Dumplings

Mary Lou Slaughter, from Native American Delicacies: the Duwamish Cookbook 

Sauce: 

• 3 pints ripe blackberries 

• ¾ cup water 

• 1 cup sugar 

• 1½ Tbsp. butter 

Combine ingredients in a pan and set aside while fixing dumplings. 

Dumplings: 

• 2 cups flour 

• 3 Tbsp. sugar 

• 3 ½ tsp. baking powder 

• 1 tsp. salt 

• 1 egg milk 

Sift flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Add egg, mix well. Add enough milk to make a stiff batter. 

Put sauce on the stove and bring to boil. Drop dumpling batter, a spoonful at a time, into the boiling mixture. Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes. 

Serve with cream, ice cream, or whipped cream.