Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men,
we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents.
Without a prison, there can be no delinquents.
We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves.
When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket,
he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift.
We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property.
We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being
was not determined by his wealth.
We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians,
therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another.
We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know
how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things
that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.

John (Fire) Lame Deer
Sioux Lakota - 1903-1976

http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/quotes.html


Mourning Dove Salish


1888-1936

...... everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence.

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Children were encouraged to develop strict discipline and a high regard for sharing. When a girl picked her first berries and dug her first roots, they were given away to an elder so she would share her future success. When a child carried water for the home, an elder would give compliments, pretending to taste meat in water carried by a boy or berries in that of a girl. The child was encouraged not to be lazy and to grow straight like a sapling.

For Abracadabra



Flat-Iron (Maza Blaska Oglala Sioux Chief

From Wakan-Tanka, the Great Mystery, comes all power. It is from Wakan-Tanka that the holy man has wisdom and the power to heal and make holy charms. Man knows that all healing plants are given by Wakan-Tanka, therefore they are holy. So too is the buffalo holy, because it is the gift of Wakan-Tanka.

Sarah Winnemucca Paiute


(1844-1891)

The traditions of our people are handed down from father to son. The Chief is considered to be the most learned, and the leader of the tribe. The Doctor, however, is thought to have more inspiration. He is supposed to be in communion with spirits... He cures the sick by the laying of hands, and payers and incantations and heavenly songs. He infuses new life into the patient, and performs most wonderful feats of skill in his practice.... He clothes himself in the skins of young innocent animals, such as the fawn, and decorated himself with the plumage of harmless birds, such as the dove and hummingbird ...

Big Thunder (Bedagi) Wabanaki Algonquin

The Great Spirit is in all things, he is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the Earth is our Mother. She nourishes us, that which we put into the ground she returns to us....

Lone Man (Isna-la-wica) Teton Sioux

... I have seen that in any great undertaking,
it is not enough for a man to depend simply upon himself.

Shooter Teton Sioux

All birds, even those of the same species, are not alike, and it is the same with animals and with human beings. The reason WakanTanka does not make two birds, or animals, or human beings exactly alike is because each is placed here by WakanTanka to be an independent individuality and to rely upon itself.

George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-bowh) Ojibwa Chief


1818-1863

Among the Indians there have been no written laws. Customs handed down from generation to generation have been the only laws to guide them. Every one might act different from what was considered right did he choose to do so, but such acts would bring upon him the censure of the Nation.... This fear of the Nation's censure acted as a mighty band, binding all in one social, honorable compact.

Tecumseh Shawnee
"Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun.

"Will we let ourselves be destroyed in our turn without a struggle, give up our homes,
our country bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit,
the graves of our dead
and everything that is dear and sacred to us?
I know you will cry with me, 'Never! Never!'"

From the 1927 Grand Council of American Indians

"The white people, who are trying to make us over into their image, they want us to be what they call "assimilated," bringing the Indians into the mainstream and destroying our own way of life and our own cultural patterns. They believe we should be contented like those whose concept of happiness is materialistic and greedy, which is very different from our way.
We want freedom from the white man rather than to be intergrated. We don't want any part of the establishment, we want to be free to raise our children in our religion, in our ways, to be able to hunt and fish and live in peace. We don't want power, we don't want to be congressmen, or bankers....we want to be ourselves. We want to have our heritage, because we are the owners of this land and because we belong here.

The white man says, there is freedom and justice for all. We have had "freedom and justice," and that is why we have been almost exterminated. We shall not forget this."

From Chief Plenty Coups, Crow

"The ground on which we stand is sacred ground.
It is the blood of our ancestors."

From Black Hawk, Sauk

"How smooth must be the language of the whites,
when they can make right look like wrong,
and wrong like right."









sounds like our politicians

Shinguaconse ("Little Pine")

"My father, you have made promises to me and to my children. If the promises had been made by a person of no standing, I should not be surprised to see his promises fail. But you, who are so great in riches and power; I am astonished that I do not see your promises fulfilled!
"I would have been better pleased if you had never made such promises than that you should have made them and not performed them. . ."

Resolution of the Fifth Annual Meetings
of the Traditional Elders Circle, 1980

"There are many things to be shared with the Four Colors of humanity in our common destiny as one with our Mother the Earth. It is this sharing that must be considered with great care by the Elders and the medicine people who carry the Sacred Trusts, so that no harm may come to people through ignorance and misuse of these powerful forces."

Canassatego

"We know our lands have now become more valuable. The white people think we do not know their value; but we know that the land is everlasting, and the few goods we receive for it are soon worn out and gone."

Tom Brown, Jr., The Tracker

"If today I had a young mind to direct, to start on the journey of life, and I was faced with the duty of choosing between the natural way of my forefathers and that of the... present way of civilization, I would, for its welfare, unhesitatingly set that child's feet in the path of my forefathers. I would raise him to be an Indian!"
"We learned to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow, and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee because of its indomitable spirit."

Wintu Woman, 19th Century

"When we Indians kill meat, we eat it all up.
When we dig roots, we make little holes. When we build houses,
we make little holes. When we burn grass for grasshoppers,
we don't ruin things. We shake down acorns and pine nuts.
We don't chop down the trees. We only use dead wood.
But the white people plow up the ground,
pull down the trees, kill everything. ...
the White people pay no attention. ...

How can the spirit of the earth like the White man? ...
everywhere the White man has touched it, it is sore."

William Commanda, Mamiwinini, Canada, 1991

"Traditional people of Indian nations have interpreted
the two roads that face the light-skinned race
as the road to technology and the road to spirituality.
We feel that the road to technology....
has led modern society to a damaged and seared earth.

Could it be that the road to technology
represents a rush to destruction,
and that the road to spirituality
represents the slower path
that the traditional native people
have traveled and are now seeking again?
The earth is not scorched on this trail.
The grass is still growing there."

Zitkala-Sa

"A wee child toddling in a wonder world, I prefer to their dogma my excursions into the natural gardens where the voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan."

Lady Ness,,,