Chief Seattle

Chief of the Duwamish, Squamish and allied Indian tribes, born about 1784, died in 1866.

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. -from a supposed letter to President Franklin Pierce, 1854.

 

Teach your children
what we have taught
our children,
that the earth
is our mother. Ibid.

 

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. Ibid.

 

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. Ibid.

 

 

We do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, 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. Ibid.

 

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. Ibid.

 

This we know: the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to earth. This we know. Ibid.