But how can you buy or sell the sky? 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 the earth is sacred to my people.
Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect.
All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins.
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. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and people all belong to the same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors.
If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters 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, my mother’s mother.
The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. …
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children?
That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the children of the earth.
This we know: Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. We did not weave the web of life.
We are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
One thing we know: our God is also your God. …
One thing we know, which white people may one day discover –
Our God is the same God.
You may think that you own God as you wish to own our land; but you cannot.
God’s compassion is equal for red people and white.
The earth is precious to God and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed?
What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many people and the view of the ripe hills is blotted with talking wires?
Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt?
The end of living and the beginning of survival.
When the last red people have vanished with this wilderness, and their memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?
We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you 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. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.
As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you.
One thing we know – there is only one God.
No one, either Red or White, can be apart.
We ARE all brothers and sisters after all.”
-- transcribed from remarks made by Chief Si'ahl (Seattle; baptismal name Noah Sealth; ca 1780-1866), to Governor Isaac Stevens of Washington in 1854. Si'ahl was a great Suquamish and Duwamish leader. The image above is the only known photograph of this great man.
Located from https://www.dominicancenter.org/indigenous-peoples-day-liturgy/
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