The white man is still troubled by primitive fears; he still has in his consciousness the perils of this frontier continent, some of  it not yet having yielded to his questing footsteps and imquiring eyes.

     He shudders still with the memory of the loss of his forefathers upon its scorching deserts and forbidding mountaintops. The man from Europe is still a foreigner and alien. And he still hates the man who questioned his path across the continent.

     But in the Indian the spirit of the land is still vested; it will be a long time until other men are able to divine and meet its rhythum. Men must be born and reborn to belong. Their bodies must be formed of the dust of their forefathers' bones.

 

 

 

     A few more hours, a few more winters, and none of the children of the great tribes that once lived on this earth, or roamed in small bands in the woods, will be left to mourn the graves of a people once as powerful and hopeful as yours.

     The whites, too, shall pass - perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your own bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

     When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, andthe view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires, whereis the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.

     And what is to say farewell to the swift and the hunt, to the end of a living and the beginning of survival? We might understand if we knew what it was that the white man dreams, what he describes to his children on the long winter nights, what visions he burns into their minds, so they will wish for tomorrow. But we are savages. The white man's dreams are hidden from us.

 

 

 

     If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other and different desires.

     Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows. Now we are poor but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights.

 

 

 

     The white people think we have no brains in our heads. They are great and powerful, and that makes them make war with us. We are but a little handful to what you are.

     But remember ... when you hunt for rattlesnake, you usually cannot find it - and perhaps it will bite you before you see it.