Author:
Publication: Csun.edu
Date: December 1854
URL: http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy00h/seattle.htm
"The President in Washington sends word
that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land?
The 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 the earth is sacred to my people.
Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods,
every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience
of my people.
We know the sap which courses through the
trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of
the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The
bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests,
the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the
same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams
and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you
our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the
clear waters of the lakes tells of 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. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the
rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land, remember that the
air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that
it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received
his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if
we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man
can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.
Will you teach your children what we have
taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth
befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to
man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that
unites us all. 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.
One thing we know: our God is also your God.
The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on
its creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will
happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will
happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many
men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will
the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye
to the swift pony and then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
When the last red man has vanished with this
wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the
prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of
the spirit of my people left?
We love this earth as a newborn loves its
mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved
it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of
the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children,
and love it, as God loves us.
As we are part of the land, you too are part
of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.
One thing we know - there is only one God.
No man, be he Red man or White man, can be apart. We ARE all brothers after
all."