Isabelle' s little corner

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 a 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.

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 ghastly 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 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, 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 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 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
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.
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 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 life if a 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 the wind
darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself,
cleansed by rain or scented with the pine cone.

I am savage and I 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 I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more
important that the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.

What
is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were 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 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 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. The earth is precious to him, and to harm
the earth is to heap contempt upon 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.