WHAT DEFINES ME IS NOT WHAT DEFINES YOU.
WHAT DRIVES ME IS NOT WHAT DRIVES YOU.
I LOVE WHAT YOU DO NOT LOVE.
I AM ME, AND YOU ARE YOU.
YOU CAN'T BE ME, AND I CAN'T BE YOU.
WHAT OTHERS THINK ABOUT ME IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS.
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Is it wicked for me because my skin is red?
Quotes from the Great Chief Sitting Bull~~
"If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, and in my heart he put other and different desires. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows." "I am here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by his will I am chief.
I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say..." "The earth has received the embrace of the sun and we shall see the results of that love. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart, he put other different desires. "In my early days, I was eager to learn and to do things, and therefore I learned quickly.
Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit." "Now that we are poor, we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights." "What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief.
What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian." "What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?"
"Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country? God made me an Indian."
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White man; Let him first understand who I am and what I know, then and only then they will stop being afraid of me. Then we can all get along.
THE ANISHINAAPE VALUES OF THE TROUT LAKE FOREST:
Every part of this Earth, this forest, is Sacred to our People.
Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods,
Every clearing and every humming insect is holy
In the memory and experience of our People.
The sap which courses through every tree in Trout Lake
carries the memories of the NamekosipiiwAnishinaapek.
Our dead and our living never forget this beautiful land,
For it is our Mother.
We are a part of this Earth and she is part of us.
The flowers, the grass, the trees are our sisters;
The deer, the moose, the caribou, the eagle, the turtle,
These are our brothers.
The rocky crests, the marshes and the fields,
The body heat of the wolf pup
And the Anishinaape People
All belong to the same family of Life.
This land is Sacred to us.
The forest is Sacred to us.
The shining water that moves in streams and rivers
Is not just water,
But the blood of our ancestors.
Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters
Of Namekosipiink tell of events and memories
In the Life of our People.
The water's murmur is the voice of our mother and our father,
And their mothers and fathers,
Of their grandmothers and grandfathers.
Namekosipiink is our brother
And it quenches our thirst and appeases our hunger.
It feeds our children and our grandchildren.
The forest feeds us and nurtures our souls.
We will tell our children that the waters and the trees
Are their family, too,
And teach them to give to the water and the trees,
To give them the kindness
They would give to any of their brothers.
We are having a hard time
Trying to understand the ways of the white man.
One portion of the land is the same as the next,
For he is a stranger who comes in the night
And takes from the land whatever he thinks he needs.
The earth is not his Brother, not his Mother,
But his enemy,
And when he has conquered it, he moves on.
He leaves his father's grave behind,
And his children's graves,
And he does not see.
The children's birthright is forgotten.
Our Mother, the Earth, and her brother, the Sky,
Are things to be bought, plundered,
Sold like sheep or shiny beads.
Voracious appetites will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.
We do not know. White man's ways are different from ours.
The sight of his cities pain
The eyes of the Anishinaape
His cities which displace our People,
And turn us into homeless wanderers,
Heads down and feet shuffling along,
We were taken from the land in many ways,
To his values and his blindness.
But his cities still draw us to them and devour us,
Like moths to a flame.
No quiet place.
Where would we hear the unfurling of leaves in the spring,
The rustle of an insect's wing,
The clicking of the caribou's ankle, far out on the ice?
When would we hear the soft sound of the wind
Darting over the face of Namekosipiink,
The wind with its own smell,
Cleaned by the midday rain,
Scented with balsam fir,
Invigorating us, rejuvenating our spirit?
The wind that gave us our first breath
Will also receive our last sigh....
The air is so precious to us, for all things share the same breath
The beast, the tree, the man;
We all share the same breath;
We are all one.
We do not know.
Perhaps it is because we are savage
That we do not understand.
We do not understand how profit
And power and possessions can be more important
Than the pain of the rivers and the hills blasted apart,
The tears of the trees as they are uprooted,
The silent cries of our Mother, the Earth,
As her bones are scraped bare and left to bleach in the sun.
This we know:
The Earth does not belong to man;
Man belongs to the Earth.
This we know:
All things are connected.
All things are connected like the blood
Which connects one family.
Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.
If men spit upon the Earth, they spit upon themselves.
Contaminate your bed and you will suffocate in your own waste.
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.
To harm the Earth is to heap contempt upon its Creator.
We want to keep the land Sacred for our children
To teach them that the ground beneath their feet
Is the ashes of their grandfathers.
So that they will respect the land,
We tell them that the Earth is rich with the lives of all our kin.
We teach our children, and your children, that the earth is their Mother, too.
We teach your children that our Creator is the same God as yours,
That she is the God of all Creation,
And that her compassion and justice is equal,
For us Anishinaapek and for you.
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