Quotes Chiefs, Medicine Men, Warriors, and others

 

    The whites told only one side. Told it to please themselves. Told much that is not true. Only his best deeds, only the worst deeds of the Indians, has the white man told.

                               Yellow Wolf of the Nez Perce's  1879

                     

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        Since the time of his youth, Crazy horse (Tashunka Witko )  had known that the world men lived in was only a shadow of the real world. To get into the real world he had to dream, and when he was in the real world everything seemed to float and dance. In this real world his horse danced as if it were wild or crazy, and this was why he was called Crazy Horse. He  had learned that if he dreamed himself into the real world before going into battle, he could endure anything.

         Dee Brown, " Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"

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      Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as they swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with the memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people. And the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than to yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch.

           Chief Seattle of the Suquamish   1853

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       The earth is part of our body, and we never gave up the earth.

                    Toohoolhoolzote, Wallowa prophet 1877

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    The earth was created by the assistance of the sun and it should be left as it was... The country was made without lines of demarcation, and it is no man's business to devide it.... The one who has the right to dispose of it is the one who  has created it.

      Heinmot Tooyalaket ( Chief Joseph ) Nez Perce's 1879

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       WE know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy-- and when he has conquered it, he moves on.

          Chief Seattle  of the Suquamish   1853

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     We understand that your religion is written in a book. If it was intended for us as well, why has not the Great Spirit given it to us? Why did he not give to our forefathers the knowledge of that book, with the means of understanding it rightly?

    Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it? Why not all agree, as you can all read the book?

    Brother, the Great Spirit has made us all. But  He  has made agreat differance between His white and red children. He has given us a differant complexion and differant customs. Since he has made so great a differance between us in other things, why may we not conclude that He has given us a differant relligion, accordind to our own understanding?

    Brother, we do not wish to destroy your religion or take it from you. We only want to enjoy our own.

           Chief Red Jacket of the Seneca  1805

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    Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors--- the dreams of our old men, given to them in the solem hours of night by the Great Spirit and the visions of our sachems--- and is written in the hearts of our people

     Cheif Seattle of the Suquamish 1853

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    We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men, sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. We do not want to learn that.

       Heinmot Tooyalaket ( Chief Joseph )  Nez Perce's  1873

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      Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander way beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. They still love it's verdant valleys, it's murmering rivers, it's magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant-lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender, fond affection over the lonely-hearted living, and often return from the Great Beyond to visit, guide, console and comfort them. And when the last red man shall have perished and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the white men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe. At night, when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filed them and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death. Only a change of worlds.

         Chief Seattle of the Suquamish 1853

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     Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the clouds, and the great sea? Did nnot the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his Children?

              Tecumseh ( Crouching Tiger ) Shawnee war chief

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     When Jesus Christ, the son of your own God, came to earth you murdered him. Then later you made war on those who did not believe in his ways. How can we trust such a people as you?

               Tecumseh

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      I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures. I was living peaceably when people began to speak bad of me. I want to know now who it was ordered me arrested. I was praying to the light and to the darkness, To God and to the sun, to let me live quietly with my family.

   Goyathlay ( Geronimo ) Chiricahua Apache 1885

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      If a man loses anything and goes back and looks carefully for it he will find it, and that is what the Indians are doing now when they ask you to give them the things that were promised them in the past. And I do not consider that they should be treated like beasts, and that is the reason I have grown up with the feelings I have. I feel that my country has gotten a bad name, and I want it to have a good name. It used to have a good name, and I sit sometimes and wonder who it is that has given it a bad name.

    Tatanka Yotanka ( Sitting Bull ) Teton Sioux 1883