In
1854, the “Great White Chief” in Washington made an offer for a large area of
Indian land and promised a “reservation” for the Indian people. Chief Seattle’s
reply,published here in full, has been described as the most beautiful and
profound statement on the environment ever made.
How
can you buy or sell 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?
ALL
SACRED
Every
part of the 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,
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.
NOT
EASY
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 just not 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 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 waters murmur is the voice of my father’s father.
KINDNESS
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 same kindness that you would give any brother.
We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is
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 father’s graves behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the
earth from his children, and he does not care.
His fathers’ grave, and his children’s birthright, is 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 only behind a desert.
I do not know. Our ways are different than your ways.
The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is
because the red man is a savage and does not understand.
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 incest’s wings.
But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand.
The clatter only seems to insults the ears. And what is there to life if a man
cannot hear the lonely cry of the whip-poor-will or the arguments of the frogs
around a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a midday rain, or
scented with the pinion pine.
PRECIOUS
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,
that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that
gave our grand father 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
meadows flowers.
ONE
CONDITION
So
we will 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 buffaloes 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 a man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die
from a great loneliness of spirit.
For what ever happens to the beast, soon happens to man. All things are
connected.
THE
ASHES
You
must teach your children the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of your
grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children 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 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. This
we know.
All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are
connected.
Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of 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.
Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend,
cannot be exempt from the common destiny.
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 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 reap contempt on its
Creator.
The whites to 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 the red man.
That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are
all slaughtered, the wild horses tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy
with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills are blotted by
talking wires.
Where
is the thicket? Gone.
Where
is the eagle? Gone.
The
end of living and the beginning of survival.
By Jocelyn Daher
