Sierra's
The
New Me
May
1998
Quotes
from Great
Native
American
Chiefs
"Sacred
Bond"
"Defense
of their Homes"
{Excerpts
from book entitled}
"North
American Indians"
by
Bill Wenne & Susan Garratt
"
Spirit Guardian"
"We
have been south and suffered a great deal down there. Many have died of
diseases which we have no name for. Our hearts looked and longed for this
country where we were born. There are only a few of us left, and we only
wanted a little ground, where we could live. We left our lodges standing,
and ran away in the night. The troops followed us. I rode out and
told the troops we did not want to fight; we only wanted to go north, and
if they would let us alone we would kill no one. The only reply we got
was a volley. After that we had to fight out way, but we killed none that
did not fire at us first. My brother, Dull Knife, took one-half of
the band and surrendered near Ft Robinson....they gave up their guns, and
then the whites killed them all.
--Little
Wolf of the Northern Cheyennes {d.1879}
"The
Nighthorse Woman"
No
white person or persons shall be permitted to settle upon or occupy any
portion of the territory, without the consent of the Indians to pass through
the same.
--Treaty
of 1868
All
Indians must dance, everywhere, keep on dancing. Pretty soon in next
spring Great Spirit come. He brings back all game of every kind. All dead
Indians come back an live again. They all be strong just like young men,
be young again. Old blind Indians see again and get young and have fine
time. When Great Spirit comes this way, then all the Indians go to mountains,
high up away from whites. Whites can't hurt Indians then. Then while
Indians go up high, big flood comes like water and all white people die,
get drowned. After that, water go away and nobody then but Indians everywhere
and game all kinds thick. Then the medicine man tells Indians to send word
to all Indians to keep up dancing and the good time will come. Indian who
don't dance, who don't believe in this word, will grow small, just about
a foot high, and stay that way. Some ot them will be turned into wood and
be burned into fire.
---Wovoka,
the Paiute Messiah
{d.1890}
"
Sea tO Shining Sea"
All
we ask is to be allowed to live, and live in peace......We bowed
to the will of the Great Father and went south. There we found a Cheyenne
cannot live. So we came home. Better it was, we thought, to die fighting
then to perish of sickness....You may kill be here; but you cannot make
me go back. We will not go. The only way to get us there is to come
in here with clubs and knock us over the head, and drag us out and
take us down there dead.
---Dull
Knife of the Northern Cheyennes
{d.1879}
Voices
of Indian
Frustration
You
have driven me from the east to this place, and I have been here two thousand
years or more....my friends, if you took me away from this land it would
be very hard for me. I wish to die in this land. I wish to be an old man
here....I have not wished to give even a part of it to the Great Father.
Though he were to give me a million dollars I would not give him this land....When
people want to slaughter cattle then drive them along until they get them
to a corral, and then they slaughter them. So it was with us....My children
have been exterminated; my brother has been killed.
----Standing
Bear of the Poncas
{d.1879}
The
soldiers came to the borders of the village and forced us across the Niobrara
to the other side, just as one would drive a herd of ponis; and the soldiers
pushed us on until we came to the Platte River. They drove us on in advance
just as if we were a herd of ponies, and I said, "If I have to go, I'll
go to that land. Let the soldiers go away, our women are afraid of them".
And So I Reach the Warm Land. We found the land there was bad and we
were going to die one after the other, and we said, "What man will take
pity on us?" And our animals died. Oh, it was very hot. "This land is truly
sickly and will be apt to die here, we hope the Great Father will take
us back again." That is what we said. There were one hundred of us died
there.
----White
Eagle of the Poncas
{d.1879}
I
want to know what you are doing on this road. You scare all the buffalo
away. I want to hunt in this place. I want you to turn back from here.
If you don't, I will fight you again. I want you to leave what you have
got here, and turn back from here. I am your friend.
----Sitting
Bull
{d.1890}
We
want no white men here. The Black Hills belong to me. If the white man
try to take them, I will fight.
----Sitting
Bull
One
does not sell the earth upon which the people walk. ----Crazy
Horse
{d.1877}
The
whites are always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live
like white men---go to farming, work hard and do as they did---and the
Indians did not know how to do that, and did not want to anyway....if the
Indians had tried to make the whites live like them, the whites would have
resisted, and it was the same way with many Indians.
---Big
Eagle of the Santee Sioux
{d.1863}
You
have driven away our game and our means of livelihood out of our country,
until now we have nothing left that is valuable except the hills that you
ask us to give up....The earth is full of minerals of all kinds, and on
the earth the ground is covered with forests heavy pine, and when we give
these up to the Great Father we know that we give up the last thing that
is valuable to either to us or the white people.
----White
Ghost
{d.1876}
Tell
General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before I had in my heart.
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead.Toohoolhoolzote
is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men that say yes or
no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets.
The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have
run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where
they are--perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my
children and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among
the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; My heart is sick and sad. From
where the sun now stands I will fight no more.
--Chief
Joseph the Nez Perce
{d.1877}
The
Nez Perce was forced onto a reservation in Indian Territory and not until
1885 were the survivors permitted to return west. However, they were prohibited
from resettling in the Wallowa Valley and were moved instead to a reservation
in Washington, where Joseph died.
All
Pictures on this page are copyrighted by
Diana
Stanly...........Except for Chief Joseph