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The Words of Chief Seattle
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. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, all are holy in memory and experience of my people. 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. Each ghostly reflection in the clear water 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. If we sell our land, you must never forget that it is sacred.
We know that for the white man the earth is either a slave or an enemy. One corner of the land is like another. He comes in the night and takes what he needs from the earth, then he leaves. Thus, he deprives his children of the real riches, but to him it does not matter. He treats the earth, his mother, and the sky, his father, as things that can be looted or sold, just like coloured beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave it a desert. I really don't know. Our customs are so different from yours. The sight of a city makes us Indians sick. Perhaps it is because we are savages and we do not understand. There is no peace in the white man's cities. Nowhere can you hear the leaves growing in the spring or the rubbing of the wings of insects. In the cities, the noise is an outrage to man's ears. What is there left in life if one cannot hear the cry of the nightjar and the croaking of the frogs all night near the pond? The indian prefers the sweet sound of the wind and its smell, cleansed by the mid-morning rain or perfumed by the pines. The white man never seems to notice the air he breathes like a dying man, he cannot recognise smells. If we sell our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. If we sell our land, you must keep it intact and sacred. A place where man can still recognise the taste of the wind. I will consider your offer. But on one condition:
The white man must treat the animals who live on the land like his brothers and sisters. I am a savage and I do not know any other way of life. I have seen millions of buffalo lying rotting in the prairie, left there by the white man who killed them from a passing train. I am a savage but I do not understand why a iron horse that blows smoke is more important than the buffalo which we only kill for reasons of survival. Our survival. What is man without animals?
All that happens to animals will happen to man. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Teach your children that the earth is our mother, and all that happens to her also happens to us and to all the earth's children. If a man spits on the earth he spits on himself. This we know, the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to 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. The white man has a God who walks with him and speaks to him as a friend does to another friend. But that does not exempt him from our common destiny. When the last human has vanished with his wilderness and his memory only the shadow of the cloud moving across the prairie, will the shores and the forest still be here? Will there be any spirit of my people left? We love this earth as a newborn loves his mother's heartbeat. Preserve the land for all children and love it as God loves us all. So if we sell 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. Treat the animals as if they were your brothers. Because if everything were to disappear...man would die from a great spiritual loneliness. One thing we know, there is only one God. No man be he red man or white man can be apart. We are brothers after all. You think God belongs to you, as you wish the earth belonged to you also but that is impossible! He is the God of all men, and shows the same compassion toward all men, white or red. The earth is precious to him. To treat her badly is to treat him badly. The white men will also pass. Maybe even faster than the tribes. as we die out, you shine, illuminated by the strength of the God who brought you on this earth and who, for some special purpose, has permitted you to dominate the indians. Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when all the buffalo are slaughtered? What will happen when the wild horses are all 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 bloated by talking wires? What happens to out thickets? They have disappeared. What happened to the Great Eagle? He too has disappeared. We are at the end of living and the beginning of survival.
