Chief Seattle
Chief Seattle
Chief Seattlewas a Dkhw'Duw'Abshchief. A prominent figure among his people, he pursued a path of accommodation to white settlers, forming a personal relationship with "Doc" Maynard. The city of Seattle, in the U.S. state of Washington, was named after him. A widely publicized speech arguing in favor of ecological responsibility and respect of Native Americans' land rights had been attributed to him. However, what he actually said has been lost through translation and rewriting...
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native-american web-of-life earth-day
All things are bound together. All things connect.
brother decay may
I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.
regret destiny men
Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man ... cannot be exempt from the common destiny.
men doe earth
Man belongs to the Earth, Earth does not belong to man
dream native-american heart
Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors - the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
mother son men
The earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.
god dream greatness
How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness?
regret native-american sea
Tribe follows tribe, nations follow nations like the tides of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless.
earth man merely son spirit-and-spirituality strand weave web whatever
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the son of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
angry black cruel faces grow hearts imaginary men thus unable women
Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been.
alone among dead deal earth invisible kindly last man men red shall shores white
When the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among the white men shall have become a myth, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless.
die great man
What is man without the beasts? For if all the beast were gone, man would die of a great loneliness of the spirit.
people resemble
My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain.
considered cost home men mothers revenge sons stay war
Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.