By Jonathan Ferreira
What began as a football logo turned into a powerful bridge between sport and ancestry, revealing how Indigenous art, history, and identity quietly shaped one of the NFL’s most recognisable symbols.
For longtime Seattle Seahawks superfan Wallace Nagedzi Watts, a discovery about the team’s logo transformed more than his love of American football, it reshaped his connection to his Indigenous heritage.
Watts, known to fellow fans as “Captain Seahawk”, had attended Seahawks games for nearly 30 years when research revealed that the team’s iconic logo was inspired by a ceremonial mask created by the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation of Canada’s Vancouver Island. The finding emerged during the Seahawks’ Super Bowl run in 2014, when Seattle’s Burke Museum traced the logo’s origins to a 19th Century transformational mask held in a museum collection in Maine.
The mask, carved from cedar and originally used in potlatch ceremonies, depicts ancestral origins and spiritual transformation. It was created at a time when Indigenous cultural practices in Canada were heavily restricted under the Indian Act, which criminalised ceremonies such as potlatches. Despite the ban, Kwakwaka’wakw communities continued practising their traditions in secret until restrictions were lifted in 1951.
When the mask was loaned to Seattle, tribal members and Seahawks representatives took part in a ceremonial event, highlighting the cultural roots of the logo. For Watts, the moment sparked a personal journey. Though he grew up on a reserve connected to his father’s tribe, he began exploring his mother’s Kwakwaka’wakw ancestry, travelling back to Vancouver Island and taking part in traditional canoe journeys and ceremonies.
He was later declared a cultural “warrior”, a guardian role that he says profoundly changed his outlook on life. Artists and community leaders from the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation say Watts is not alone, noting that the Seahawks’ popularity across Canada’s west coast has encouraged others to reconnect with their heritage.
Unlike many sports logos that reference Indigenous imagery, the Seahawks emblem has largely avoided criticism. Indigenous artists and leaders say it respectfully borrows from traditional art rather than relying on harmful stereotypes, and has instead helped spark renewed interest in language, culture and identity.
Today, Watts uses his visibility as a superfan to raise money for charities, volunteer at food banks and mentor Indigenous youth, saying the logo helped remind him of a deeper responsibility to protect and uplift his community.
