How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? That idea is
strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water,
how can you buy them?
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people.
Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark
woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and
experience of my people.
The sap which courses through the trees carries the memory of the red man.
The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to
walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it
is the mother of the red man.
We are part of the earth and it is part of us.
The perfumed flowers are our sisters, the deer, the horse, the great
eagle, these are our brothers.
The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony,
and man - all belong to the same family.
So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to
buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will
reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves.
He will be our father and we will be his children. So we will consider
your offer to buy our land.
But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us.
This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water
but the blood of our ancestors.
If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must
teach your children that it is sacred and that the ghostly reflection in
the clear water of the lakes tells us events and memories in the life of
my people.
The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our
cannoes, feed our children. If we sell our land, you must learn, and teach
your children, that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you must
henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
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.
He leaves his father's grave behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the
earth from his children, and he does not care.
His father's grave and his children's birthright are forgotten.
He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be
bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads.
His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.
I do not know. Our ways are different than yours.
The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps
because the red man is a savage and does not understand.
There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the
unfurling leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insects wings.
But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand.
The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if
man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the
frogs around a pond at night ? I am red man and do not understand.
The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a
pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a mid-day rain, or
scented by the pinon pine.
The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath.
The white man does not seem to notice the air he breaths. Like a man dying
for many days is numb to the stench.
But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to
us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath
also receives his last sigh.
And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a
place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened
by the meadows flowers.
So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept,
I'll make one condition, the white man must treat the beasts of this land
as his brothers.
I am a savage and I do not understand any other way.
I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white
man who shot them from a passing train.
I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be
more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.
What is man without the beasts ? If all the beasts were gone, man would
die from a great loneliness of spirit.
For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are
connected.
You must teach the children that the ground beneath their feet is the
ashes of your grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your
children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin.
Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the earth is
our mother.
Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit
upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.
This we know, the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth.
This we know.
All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things
are connected.
Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not
weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to
the web, he does to himself.
Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to
friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny.
We may be brothers after all.
We shall see.
One thing we know, which the white man may discover one day - our God is
the same God.
You may think you know that you own Him as you wish to own our land, but you
cannot. He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man
and the white.
This earth is precious to him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt
on its Creator.
The whites too shall pass, perhaps sooner than all other tribes.
Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of
the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you
dominion over this land and over the red man.
That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo
are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the
forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills
blotted by talking wires.
Where is the thicket ? Gone.
Where is the eagle ? Gone.
The end of living and beginning of survival.
-- Chief Sealth (Seattle)
