Before we came into contact with the white emigrants, we were a peaceful people. We didn't fight in order to kill the enemy: for us it was sufficient to touch him with a stick. To touch him, but not to hit him. This is what we call "counting a blow" and it was in this way that one humiliated the enemy. You're not a Lakota if you don't practice the seven virtues: courage, generosity, tolerance, strength of character, patience, humility, and wisdom. They were men driven by these virtues who came up against the white men more than 300 years ago, and in exchange for offered friendship, they received rifles, blankets infected with small pox, thefts and massacres. The newcomers were not motivated by generosity, but rather by need: they were emigrants from their land, some of them were being hunted. What was laid out before their eyes was a world already in existence, that didn't need to be "discovered" and that already had a Religion: a world of peaceful men, with a culture based on generosity, on friendship and on respect for nature.

from "Il Tuo Cuore per Wounded Knee" (Your Heart for Wounded Knee"), a book of the Lakota people for the Italian people

 

There is a lot of insanity within your so-called "civilization". You white men run after money until you have so much you cannot live long enough to spend it all. You ransack the woods and the earth, wasting all of your natural resources as if there were no other generations coming after you that are also in need of all of these. You always speak about a better world while you build ever more powerful bombs in order to destroy that world that you have now.

Tatanga Mani

 

Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. Without a prison, there can be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.

Lame Deer

 

When the Earth was created with all of its living beings, the intention of the Great Spirit was not to make it livable for men only. We were placed in the world together with our brothers and sisters, with those that have four legs, with those that fly and with those that swim. All of these forms of life, even the tiniest blade of grass and the largest of the trees, form with us a big family. We are all brothers and are equally important on this Earth.

from the Thank-you of the Iroquois

Which treaty did the red man break that the white men respected? None. When I was young this land belonged to the Sioux. The sun rose and set on their land and they sent 10,000 men to battle. Where are our warriors today? Who killed them? Where is our land? Who amongst the white people can say that I stole from him his land or one cent of his money? And yet, they call me thief. What white woman even if she were alone, was ever made a prisoner or was hurt? Yet they define me as a bad indian. Who has ever come to me hungry that didn't get satiated? Who has seen me beat my wife or mistreat my children? Which law have I broken? Is it an injustice if I love my own? Am I bad because the color of my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I am ready to die for my people and my land?

Sitting Bull

INGLESE Brothers! We have heard the speech of our great white father, he is very friendly. He says that he loves his red children. When the first white man arrived by the Great Water, he was a small man, very small. His legs were tired from having been seated so long in his great ship and he begged us for a little piece of land. When he arrived on this coast, the Indians gave him land, and lit fires for him, so he would feel well. But after warming himself by the Indians' fire, and satiating himself on their cream of corn, he became very large. He climbed the mountains and his feet crossed over plains and valleys. His hands, after the sea, touched the east and the west. Then he became our great white father. He loved his red children, but he said to us: "Go a little bit further on, so that we don't crush you by mistake." Brothers! I have heard many speeches of the great white father. They begin and end always with these words: "Go a little bit further on, you are too close to us."

from the speech of Spotted Serpent, Cree Chief, when the president of the USA, Andrew Jackson, ordered five tribes (Cree, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Chocktaw, and Seminole) to abandon their region in the Southwest and move to the West, in the Mississippi State.

 

In your school books, you teach your children that we Indians were murderers: he who defends himself is, perhaps, a murderer? We killed white men because they were taking away our land, they were burning down our forests, wiping out the bison of which we were living. Next they confined us to reservations and then they even took those away from us. You call the white men that defended their land "patriots", while the Indians that did the same are "murderers".The whites call us "thieves", we who lived in tents made of animal skins and who used neither locks nor keys. They call us "savages". But what is civilization? It is distinguished by a noble vision of life and of religion, by remarkable art and music, by a rich heritage of legends and stories. We have always had all of this. We sing songs in which nature speaks to us: the murmur of the water, the sighing of the wind, the calls of the animals. Teach these songs to your children so that they will learn to love nature as we do. Tell them that we loved and valued all that was beautiful, that we never killed animals for fun, but only to feed ourselves. The white men, that kill animals for fun, in our eyes, are the murderers.

Resolution of the "Grand Council Fire of American Indians" - Chicago 1927

In my Language, no specific word exists that indicates the concept of "nature". In other Languages, this term is synonymous with "environment", "setting"; something cut off from human life. It is, therefore, a matter of limited importance, which for us Indians, doesn't make any sense.

Audrey Shenandoah

 

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