Tuesday, February 07, 2012
By Katherine Madden
I found this very profound and inspiring speech given by
Seattle, Chief of the Suquamish (and other native Indian tribes
around Washington's Puget Sound), in 1851. Although delivered in
response to a proposed treaty to sell 2 million hectares of native
American land for $150,000, this proclamation is as relevant today
as when it was first written. These words have been referenced from
Buckminster Fuller's legendary book Critical Path
[Fuller, R.B.,1981], cataloguing the history behind the
environmental problems of our present time and innovating solutions
for the future.
"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 trees
carries the memories of the red man.
The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when
they go to 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 deer, the horse, the great eagle 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 that 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
that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is
sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the
lake tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The
water's murmur is the voice of my father's fathers.
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, and 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 land is the same to him as the next, for he is a
stranger that 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
father's grave behind and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth
from his children, and he does not care. His father's grave, 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 a desert.
I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways. The
sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. There is no
quiet place m the white man's cities. There no quiet in the white
man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or
the rustle of insect's wings. The clatter only seems to insult the
ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry
of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs
around the pond at night? I am a red man and
do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind
darting over the face of a pond at night and the smell of the wind
itself, cleansed by a midday rain or scented with
pinon pine.
The air is precious to the red man for all things share the
same breath, the beast, the tree, 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, the air shares its spirit with all the life it
supports.
Yje 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
flowers.
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 that we have
taught our children that the earth is our mother. Whatever
befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men spit upon
the ground, they spit upon themselves.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man; man belongs
to the earth. All things are connected. We may be brothers after
all. We shall see. One thing we know which the white man may one
day discover: our God is the same God.
You may think now 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 bed and you
will one night suffocate in your own waste.
But in your perishing you will shine brightly fired by the
strength of the 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 tame, the
secret corners. of the forest heavy with scent of many men and the
view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires.
Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle?
Gone.
The end of living and the beginning of survival."**
** Dr. Glenn T. Olds submitted Chief Seattle's
speech at Alaska's Future Frontiers conference in
1979.