Subject: Forwarded: N/A HERITAGE MONTH
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Comments:
From: Dave Iverson:R04A
Date: Dec 12,91 1:53 PM
**** Winds of the Past -- A old perspective ****
In an age when most of what we do is too often reduced to dollars and
cents (or targets and accomplishments) it is sometimes necessary to
step back and take a fresh look. In 1854 President Franklin Pierce
made an offer to Chief Seattle to buy a large area of tribal lands
and promised, in addition to money, a "reservation" for the Indian
people. In reply the Chief left us with a very moving portrayal of
his ethics--ethics toward land, sky, water, and all the inhabitants
of earth. Two pages follow...d.
Previous comments:
From: LOUANNE COLLINS:S24L04A
Date: Dec 11,91 9:24 AM
Chief Seattle's reply to Pres. Franklin Pierce's offer for a large
area of Indian land - his statement of ecology made in 1854.
Previous comments:
From: FS Womens Network:WO
Date: Nov 14,91 9:31 AM
Chief Seattle's "Statement on Ecology" made in 1854.
Must read and share.
Previous comments:
From: Woody Hesselbarth:
Date: Nov 13,91 5:49 PM
a 2 pager for reflection. Did you have anything even remotely like
this in your head and heart as you did field work this season...and
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CHIEF SEATTLE'S
STATEMENT ON ECOLOGY
[Editor's note: In 1854, President Franklin Pierce made an
offer for a large area of Indian land and promised a
"reservation" for the Indian People. This is Chief Seattle's
reply, published here in full.]
How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of 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 this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine
needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and
humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which
courses through the tree carries the memory of the red man.
The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go walk
among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the
mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The
perfumed flowers are our sisters, the dead, the horse, the great eagle, these
are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat
of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.
So when the great chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy
our land, he asks much of us. The great chief sends word he will reserve us a
place so we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we
will be his children. So we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it
will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us.
This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just
water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you land, you must remember
it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that 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.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry
our canoes and feed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember
to teach your children that the rivers are our brothers, and yours, and you
must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of
the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the
night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother,
but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his
fathers' graves behind, and he does not care. His fathers' graves and his
children's birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his
brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold, like sheep or bright
beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only desert.
There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the
unfurling of leaves in the spring, or the rustle of an insect's wings. But
perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand. The clatter only
seems to insult the ears. And what is there to like if man cannot hear the
lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at
night? I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound
of wind darting over the face of the pond, and the small of the wind itself
cleansed by a midday rain, or scented with pinyon pine.
The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath
- the beast, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not
seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb
to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is
precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all life it supports. The
wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh.
And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred as a place where
even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's
flowers.
So we consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I
will make one condition: the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his
brothers.
I am a savage and do not understand any other way. I have seen a
thousand rotting buffalos on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them
from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron
horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.
What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts are gone, man would
die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon
happens to man. All things are connected.
You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the
ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your
children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children
what we have taught our children - that the earth is our mother. Whatever
befalls the earth soon befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit on the
ground, they spit on themselves.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons 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.
Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to
friend, cannot be exempt from common destiny. We may be brothers after all.
We shall see. One thing we know, which the white man may someday discover, our
God is the same God. You may think that you own Him, as you wish to own our
land, but you cannot. He is the God of man, and his compassion is equal for the
red man and the white. This earth is precious to him, and to harm the earth is
to heap contempt on its Creator. The whites, too shall pass, perhaps sooner
than all other tribes. Contaminate your own bed and you will one night
suffocate in your own waste.
But in perishing, you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of God,
who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over
this land and over the red man. That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not
understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the
sacred corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of
the hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the
eagle? Gone. The end of living and the beginning of survival.