Great Chief Seattle (1855) Here is the answer of a great Indian chief to the proposal made by Franklin Pierce, President of the United States to buy the land where he lived with his tribe.
E 'for almost a month since I find the time to write something ... but I thought that this letter is the best way to wish you happy holidays!
"How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the earth? The idea is strange to us.
If we do not own the freshness of the air, the shimmer of water, how can you buy them? Every part of this land 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 .
runny sap in the trees carries the memory of the red man.
Dead white man forget their native country when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget our wonderful land, because it is the mother of the red man.
The perfumed flowers are our sisters, the deer a horse, the great eagle are our brothers, rocky shores, lush green meadows, the heat of the pony and man all belong to the same family.
So when the great white chief in Washington sends word that wants to buy our land, he asks a big part of us.
He says it will reserve a space to move, so that we can live comfortably in our midst.
thus takes into account your offer, but will not be easy to accept.
This land is sacred to us, this water sparkling flowing in streams and rivers is not just water for us is something infinitely more significant: the longer the blood of our fathers.
Each reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories of the life of my people.
The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers, they quench thirst when we argue our canoes. We know that the white man does not understand our customs: for him a part of the earth are alike, and when he has conquered it goes further.
Give up the tomb of his ancestors, and this does not trouble him.
take the land to his children and this does not trouble him.
The tomb of his ancestors, the patrimony of her children fall into oblivion.
He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as if they were simply things to buy, sell and take as you do with sheep and with precious stones.
His greed will devour the earth and he will only have the desert.
I do not know. Our customs are different from yours.
The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man.
But perhaps it is because the red man is wild and can not understand!
There is no quiet place in the city of man. There is no place to hear the buds unfold in the spring or hear the rustle of an insect's wings. But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not seem to understand the mood only offend the ears.
What good is living if the man can not hear the sweet sound of the wind or the rustling of the branches of the pine scented?
The air is precious to the red man, as all things share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes.
But if we sell you our land, I will make one condition: The white man must respect animals living in this land as if they were her brothers.
I am a savage and do not know any other way of life. I've seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white after they were killed by a train.
I'm wild and do not understand how the "iron horse" smoking may be more important than the buffalo, when we kill them just to survive. What is man without the beasts?
If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness.
Because what happens to the beasts soon happens to man.
All things are connected together. We know at least this: it is the land that belong to man, but man belongs to earth.
This we know.
All things are connected as members of a family are connected by the same blood. It is not the man who wove the web of life: he has only
the wire. Everything he does to the earth, he does to himself. The same white man who speaks with God as his two friends together, it can not escape the common destiny. After all, perhaps, we are brothers.
We'll see. One thing we know, and maybe the white man will soon discover: our God is his own.
He is the god of men and piety is the same for everyone: so much for the white man so much for the red one.
This earth is precious to him, harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator as. The whites will disappear, perhaps sooner than all other tribes.
Contaminate your bed and a night you will be stifled by your waste. Where is the forest? It disappeared.
Where is the eagle? E 'disappearance.
's the end of life and the beginning of survival "
Happy holidays to all!