History and Anthropology.
Quotes from Native Americans.

   The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of the forests, plains, pueblos or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the hand that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers; he belongs just as the buffalo belonged. 

(Luther Standing Bear- Oglala Lakota.)

   You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. The sky is round and I have heard that the Earth is round like a ball and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles for theirs is the same religion as ours. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing and always comeback again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood and so it is in everything where power moves. 

(Black Elk - Oglala Lakota.)

   In the beginning of all things wisdom and knowledge were with the animals for Tirawa, the one above did not speak directly to man. He sent certain animals to tell men that he showed himself through the beasts, and that from them and from the stars and the sun and the moon should man learn. Al things tell of Tirawa.

 (Eagle Chief - Pawnee.)

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

 (Mourning Dove - Salish.)

   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 to 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.

(Flat Iron - Oglala Lakota.)

   Although wrongs have been done me I live in hope. I have not got two hearts… Now we are together again to make peace. My shame is as big as the earth, although I will do what my friends advise me to do. I once thought that I was the only man that persevered to be the friend of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned out our lodges, horses, and everything else, it is hard for me to believe white men anymore. 

(Black Kettle - Southern Cheyenne.)

   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. 

(Big Thunder - Algonquin.)

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

 (Shooter - Hunkpapa Lakota.)

   Conversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause, giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation. Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of silence to the speechmaker and his own moment of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness and regard for the rule that "thought comes before speech". 

(Luther Standing Bear.)

   To "make medicine" is to engage upon a special period of fasting, thanksgiving, prayer and self-denial even of self-torture. The procedure is entirely a devotional exercise. The purpose is to subdue the passions of the flesh and to improve the spiritual self. The bodily abstinence and the mental concentration upon lofty thoughts cleanses both the body and the soul and puts them into or keeps them in health. Then the individual mind gets closer towards conformity with the mind of the Great Medicine above us.

 (Wooden Leg - Tsististas.)

The soil you see is not ordinary soil - it is the dust of the blood, the flesh and bones of our ancestors. You will have to dig down through the surface before you can fund nature's earth, as the upper portion is Crow. The land, as it is, is my blood and my dead; it is consecrated. 

(Shes-His - Absaroka.)

   The old Indian teaching was that it is wrong to tear loose from it's place on the earth anything that may be growing there. It may be cut off, but it should not be uprooted. The trees and the grass have spirits. Whatever one of such growths may be destroyed by some good Indian, his act is done in sadness and with a prayer for forgiveness because of his necessities.

(Wooden Leg - Tsististas.)

   The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backwards as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. 

(Chief Joseph - Nez Perce.)

   One does not sell the land upon which the people walk. 

(Crazy Horse - Oglala Lakota.)

   There is no death. Only a change of worlds. 

(Seattle - Suquamish.)

   One does not go to the top of a mountain for water or to a white man for the truth. 

(Tradition.)

   The Earth is our mother, one does not sell one's Mother. 

(Lakota tradition.)

   The idea of full dress in preparation for a battle comes not from a belief that it will add to the fighting ability. The preparation is for death, in case that should be the result of the conflict. Every Indian wants to look his best when he goes to meet the Great Spirit, so the dressing up is done whether the imminent danger is an oncoming battle or a sickness or injury in time of peace. 

(Wooden Leg - Tsististas.)

   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!” 

(Tecumseh – Shawnees.)

   When our fathers lived they heard that the Americans were coming across the great river westward… We heard of guns and powder and lead – first flintlocks, then procession caps, and now repeating rifles. We first saw the Americans at Cottonwood Wash. We had wars with the Mexicans and the Pueblos. We captured mules from the Mexicans, and had many mules. The Americans came to trade with us. When the Americans first came we had a big dance, and they danced with our women. We also traded. 

(Manuelito – Navahos.)

   The whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live like white men – go to farming, work hard and do as they did – and the Indians did not know how to do that, and did not want to anyway… If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have resisted, and it was the same way with many Indians. 

(Big Eagle – Santee Sioux.)

   Whose voice was first sounded on this land? The voice of the red people who had bows and arrows… What has been done in my country I did not want, did not ask for it; white people going through my country… When the white man comes in my country he leaves a trail of blood behind him… I have two mountains in that country – the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains. I want the Great Father to make no roads through them.  I have told these things three times; now I have come to tell them the fourth time. 

(Red Cloud – Oglala Sioux.)

   We never did the white man any harm; we don’t intend to… We are willing to be friends with the white man… The buffalo are diminishing fast. The antelope, that were plenty a few years ago, they are now thin. When they shall all die we shall be hungry; we shall want something to eat, and we will be compelled to come into the fort. Your young men must not fire at us; whenever they see us they fire, and we fire at them. 

(Tall Bull - to General Winfield Scott Hancock. )

   Are not women and children more timid than men? The Cheyenne warriors are not afraid, but have you ever heard of Sand Creek? Your soldiers look just like those who butchered the women and children there. 

(Roman Nose – to General Winfield Scott Hancock.)

   When I was young I walked all over this country, east and west, and saw no other people than the Apaches. After many summers I walked again and found another race of people had come to take it. How is it? Why is it that the Apaches wait to die – that they carry their lives on their fingernails? They roam over the hills and plains and want the heavens to fall on them. The Apaches were once a great nation; they are now but few, and because of this they want to die and so carry their lives on their fingernails. 

(Cochise – Chiricahua Apaches.)

   I don’t want to run over the mountains anymore; I want to make a big treaty… I will keep my word until the stones melt… God made the white man and God made the Apache, and the Apache has just as much right to the country as the white man. I want to make a treaty that will last, so that both can travel over the country and have no trouble. 

(Delshay – Tonto Apaches.)

   If it had not been for the massacres, there would have been a great many more people here now; but after that massacre who could have stood it? When I made peace with Lieutenant Whitman my heart was very big and happy. The people of Tucson and San Xavier must be crazy. They have acted as though they had neither heads nor hearts… they must have a thirst for our blood… These Tucson people write for the papers and tell their own story. The Apaches have no one to tell their story. 

(Eskiminzin – Aravaipa Apaches.)

   I am but one man. I am the voice of my people. Whatever their hearts are, that I talk. I want no more war. I want to be a man. You deny me the right of a white man. My skin is red; my heart is a white man’s heart; but I am a Modoc. I am not afraid to die. I will not fall on the rocks. When I die, my enemies will be under me. Your soldiers began on me when I was asleep on Lost River. They drove us to these rocks, like a wounded deer…
   I have always told the white man heretofore to come and settle in my country; that it was his country and Captain Jack’s country. That they could come and live there with me and that I was not mad with them. I have never received anything from anybody, only what I bought and paid for myself. I have always lived like a white man, and wanted to live so. I have always tried to live peaceably and never asked any man for anything. I have always lived on what I could kill and shoot with my gun, and catch in my trap. 

(Captain Jack – Modocs.)

   I have heard that intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don’t want to settle. I love to roam over the prairies. There I feel free and happy, but when we settle down we grow pale and die. I have laid aside my lance, bow, and shield, and yet I feel safe in your presence. I have told you the truth. I have no little lies hid about me, but I don’t know how it is with the commissioners. Are they as clear as I am? A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers; but when I go up river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber; they kill my buffalo; and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting; I feel sorry… Has the white man become a child that he should recklessly kill and not eat? When the red men slay game, they do so that they may live and not starve. 

(Satanta – Chief of the Kiowas.)

   We want no white men here. The Black Hills belong to me. If the whites try to take them, I will fight. 

(Tatanka Yotanka – Sitting Bull.)

   The white man is in the Black Hills just like maggots, and I want you to get out as quick as you can. The chief of all thieves (General George Armstrong Custer) made a road into the Black Hills last summer, and I want the Great Father to pay the damages for what Custer has done. 

(Baptiste Good.)

   The land known as the Black Hills is considered by the Indians as the center of their land. The ten nations of Sioux as looking towards that as the center of their land. 

(Tatoke Inyanke – (Running Antelope.)  

   The Great Father’s young men are going to carry gold away from the hills. I expect they will fill a number of houses with it. In consideration of this I want my people to be provided for as long as they shall live. 

(Mato Noupa – Two Bears.)

   The Great Father told the commissioners that all the Indians had rights in the Black Hills, and that whatever conclusions the Indians themselves should come to would be respected… I am an Indian and am looked on by the whites as a foolish man; but it must be because I follow the advice of the white man. 

(Shunka Witko – Fool Dog.)

   Our Great Father has a big safe, and so do we. The hill is our safe… We want seventy million dollars for the Black Hills. Put the money away some place at interest so we can buy livestock. That is the way the white people do. 

(Mato Gleska – Spotted Bear.)

   You have put all our heads together and covered them with a blanket. That hill there is our wealth, but you have been asking it from us… You white people, you have all come in our reservation and helped yourselves to our property, and you are not satisfied, you went beyond to take the whole of our safe. 

(Dead Eyes.)

   I never want to leave this country; all my relations are lying here in the ground, and when I fall to pieces I am going to fall to pieces here. 

(Shunkaha Napin – Wolf Necklace.)

   We have sat and watched them pass here to get gold out and have said nothing… My friends, when I went to Washington I went into your money-house and I had some young men with me, but none of them took any money out of that house while I was with them. At the same time, when your Great Father’s people come into my country, they go into my money-house (the Black Hills) and take money out. 

(Mawatani Hanska – Long Mandan.)  

Copyright © William Purcell 2004
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