100 Quotes About Native American

To the untutored sage, the concentration of population was the prolific mother of all evils, moral no less than physical. He argued that food is good, while surfeit kills; that love is good, but lust destroys; and not less dreaded than the pestilence following upon crowded and unsanitary dwellings was the loss of spiritual power inseparable from too close contact with one's fellow-men. Charles Alexander Eastman

The true Indian sets no price upon either his property or his labor. His generosity is limited only by his strength and ability. He regards it as an honor to be selected for difficult or dangerous service and would think it shameful to ask for any reward, saying rather: "Let the person I serve express his thanks according to his own bringing up and his sense of honor. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone! . What is Silence? It is the Great Mystery! The Holy Silence is His voice! . Charles Alexander Eastman

Unfortunately, modern man has become so focused on harnessing nature's resources that he has forgotten how to learn from them. If you let them, however, the elements of nature will teach you as they have taught me. Anasazi Foundation

WEST SALEM ~ October 2011A sudden vision, fraught with malevolence and darkness, obscured her sight. The face of a menacing figure turned from the shadows of his grisly handiwork and stared at Sorcha.Her muscles tensed. By the Goddess, could he see her? Please! No! She wanted to scream, to run, but the vision ensnared her into the horrific moment like a fly in a spider's web. Unknown

The Holy Land is everywhere Black Elk

Consider how textbooks treat Native religions as a unitary whole.. "These Native Americans .. believed that nature was filled with spirits. Each form of life, such as plants and animals, had a spirit. Earth and air held spirits too. People were never alone. They shared their lives with the spirits of nature." .. Stated flatly like this, the beliefs seem like make-believe, not the sophisticated theology of a higher civilization. Let us try a similarly succinct summary of the beliefs of many Christians today: "These Americans believed that one great male god ruled the world. Sometimes they divided him into three parts, which they called father, son, and holy ghost. They ate crackers and wine or grape juice, believing that they were eating the son's body and drinking his blood. If they believed strongly enough, they would live on forever after they died." describe Christianity this way. It's offensive. Believers would immediately argue that such a depiction fails to convey the symbolic meaning or the spiritual satisfaction of communion. James W. Loewen

Never has America lost a war .. But name, if you can, the last peace the United States won. Victory yes, but this country has never made a successful peace because peace requires exchanging ideas, concepts, thoughts, and recognizing the fact that two distinct systems of life can exist together without conflict. Consider how quickly America seems to be facing its allies of one war as new enemies. . Vine Deloria Jr.

But nobody wanted to speak on the true disposition of the world. And no one wanted to hear it.. The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the Freeman had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others. Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but created equal was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if all men did not truly mean all men. Not if they snatched away what belonged to other people, whether it was something you could hold in your hand, like dirt, or something you could not, like freedom. Colson Whitehead

But, my dear friend Wildfire, " said Carl Peterson laying his hand on the Indian's shoulder, "this is not a policy to live by." "Then let it be a policy to die by, " defiantly spoke the Indian. "If we cannot be free, let us die. What is life to a caged bird, threatened with death on all sides? S. Alice Callahan

Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. The sky is round and I have heard the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind in its greatest power whirls, birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds. And they were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop. Chief Black Elk

Consider how textbooks treat Native religions as a unitary whole.. "These Native Americans .. believed that nature was filled with spirits. Each form of life, such as plants and animals, had a spirit. Earth and air held spirits too. People were never alone. They shared their lives with the spirits of nature." .. Stated flatly like this, the beliefs seem like make-believe, not the sophisticated theology of a higher civilization. Let us try a similarly succinct summary of the beliefs of many Christians today: "These Americans believed that one great male god ruled the world. Sometimes they divided him into three parts, which they called father, son, and holy ghost. They ate crackers and wine or grape juice, believing that they were eating the son's body and drinking his blood. If they believed strongly enough, they would live on forever after they . James W. Loewen

Modern man has lost the sense of wonderabout the unknown and he treats it asan enemy. Unknown

Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations. Unknown

We gathered up the kids and sat up on the hill. We had no time to get our chickens and no time to get our horses out of the corral. The water came in and smacked against the corral and broke the horses' legs. The drowned, and the chickens drowned. We sat on the hill and we cried. These are the stories we tell about the river, " said [Ladona] Brave Bull Allard. The granddaughter of Chief Brave Bull, she told her story at a Missouri River symposium in Bismark, North Dakota, in the fall of 2003.Before The Flood, her Standing Rock Sioux Tribe lived in a Garden of Eden, where nature provided all their needs. "In the summer, we would plant huge gardens because the land was fertile, " she recalled. We had all our potatoes and squash. We canned all the berries that grew along the river. Now we don't have the plants and the medicine they used to make. Bill Lambrecht

You and I have to rejoice that we have not to answer for our fathers’ crimes, neither shall we do right to charge them one to another. We can only regret it, and flee from it, and from henceforth, let peace and righteousness be written upon our hearts and hands forever. William Apess

We want trumpets that sound like thunder, and men to act as though they were going to war with those corrupt and degrading principles that rob one of all rights, merely because he is ignorant, and of a little different color. Let us have principles that will give every one his due; and then shall wars cease, and the weary find rest. William Apess

Minnie Spotted Wolf from Butte, Montana, was the first Native American to enlist in the Marine Corps Womens' Reserve. Spotted Wolf joined in 1943. She commented that Marine Corps boot camp was "hard, but not that hard. Tom Holm

Before Sutter, native people had heeded the cycle of the seasons, time was infinite, and life's rhythms were unchanging. Now, for at least part of their lives, some Indians were wedded to a concept that proclaimed that time was limited and that it had economic value. The clang of Sutter's bell announced that time was money, that it marched onward, and that it waited for no man, including Indians in the 1840s. Albert L. Hurtado

In our hurry of utilitarian progress, we have either forgotten the Indian altogether, or looked upon him only in a business point of view, as we do almost everything else; as a thriftless, treacherous, drunken fellow, who knows just enough to be troublesome, and who must be cajoled or forced into leaving his hunting-grounds for the occupation of very orderly and virtuous white people, who sell him gunpowder and whiskey, but send him now and then a missionary to teach him that it is wrong to get drunk and murder his neighbor. Mary H. Eastman

Wherever forests have not been mowed down, wherever the animal is recessed in their quiet protection, wherever the earth is not bereft of four-footed life - that to the white man is an 'unbroken wilderness.' But for us there was no wilderness, nature was not dangerous but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly. Our faith sought the harmony of man with his surroundings; the other sought the dominance of surroundings. For us, the world was full of beauty; for the other, it was a place to be endured until he went to another world. But we were wise. We knew that man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard. Unknown

We did not think of the great open plains, the beautiful rolling hills and the winding streams with tangled growth, as 'wild'. Only to the white man was nature a 'wilderness' and only to him was the land 'infested' with 'wild' animals and 'savage' people. To us it was home. Earth was beautiful and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great Mystery." - Chief Standing River of the Lakota Paul Goble

It's not about Indians, it's about people... the overall philosophy is to reconnect all people to nature and inevitably themselves. - Larry Stillday Michael Meuers

For every inch of skin, there is memory. Devils are so made. Saints, too, if you believe in them. His humanity has been broken as an old walking stick that once held up a crippled man named Thomas. He realizes the stick and the man are one thing and he can fall. He has violated the laws beneath the laws of men and countries, something deeper, the earth and the sea, the explosions of trees. He has to care again. He has to be water again, rock, earth with its new spring wildflowers and its beautiful, complex mosses. Linda Hogan

We travel only as far and as high as our hearts will take us. Anasazi Foundation

The success of my journey depended on whether my heart walked forward–toward my people–instead of backward, away from them. Anasazi Foundation

Mother Earth reintroduced me to my people. Anasazi Foundation

I have learned that the point of life's walk is not where or how far I move my feet but how I am moved in my heart. If I walk far but am angry toward others as I journey, I walk nowhere. If I conquer mountains but hold grudges against others as I climb, I conquer nothing. If I see much but regard others as enemies, I see no one. Anasazi Foundation

The most beautiful thing in the world is a heart that is changing. Anasazi Foundation

No man is as wise as Mother Earth. She has witnessed every human day, every human struggle, every human pain, and every human joy. For maladies of both body and spirit, the wise ones of old pointed man to the hills. For man too is of the dust and Mother Earth stands ready to nurture and heal her children. Anasazi Foundation

Life is a walking, a journey. So, if life upon Mother Earth is a journey, there are two ways to walk. We can choose to walk forward or we can choose to walk backward. Forward Walking choices are rewarded with consequences that light the way to peace, happiness, joy, comfort, knowledge, and wisdom. Backward Walking choices bring to the Two-Legged beings consequences of misery despair, and darkness. Anasazi Foundation

Man's obsession with his own wants is taking him further from those without whom happiness cannot be found. It is taking him from his people. Anasazi Foundation

Mother Earth has never been more crowded, yet her inhabitants have never been more lonely. Anasazi Foundation

Don't believe the dark whisperings that invite you to walk backward. At any time in your life, you have the power to turn forward. Anasazi Foundation

There is much to be learned from the world around us–far more than we normally comprehend. The Ancient Ones knew this well–most particularly the wise teachers among them–those who, in the Navajo tongue, were called "Anasazi. Anasazi Foundation

Would it surprise you to hear that man's unhappiness is due in large measure to the way he is seeking after happiness? You know this already from your own life. For when you have been unhappy, you have been unhappy with others–with your father or mother, your sister or brother, your spouse, your son, your daughter. If unhappiness is with others, wouldn't it stand to reason that happiness must be with others as well? . Anasazi Foundation

We have found that no modern prescriptions heal the human heart so fully or so well as the prescription of the Ancient Ones. "To the hills, " they would say. To which we would add, "To the trees, the valleys, and the streams, as well." For there is a power in nature that man has ignored. And the result has been heartache and pain. Anasazi Foundation

Would it surprise you to hear that man's unhappiness is due in large measure to the way he is seeking after happiness? Anasazi Foundation

At the end of our lives, when our bodies are about to be laid in Mother Earth, we will know for ourselves whether we are a Two-Legged being full of light or a Two-Legged being full of darkness. Anasazi Foundation

Who can declare that money is not a power which rulers of the world cannot withstand? S. Alice Callahan

A brusque whisper coaxed Phillip from slumber. Someone had called his name. The cot squeaked as he sat up and squinted at a featureless silhouette. “Who is it?”“ Rise. Quick. Bring your medicine maker.” The ragged voice belonged to True Seeker.Tasked with keeping a watchful eye on Milly, the young man would come to Phillip at this hour for only one reason. He swung his legs to the ground. With one foot going into his trousers, he took a wide step across the narrow barracks and jostled Buck’s shoulder. His friend was on his feet and half-dressed before Phillip left the building, alarm urging his feet to a gallop. No one need tell him which direction to go. He buckled his sword belt as he went. The scabbard slapped his leg with each footfall, bringing to mind a similar night not long enough ago. His stride lengthened. This time, he would run Collins clean through. April W. Gardner

Was there anything he wouldn’t give for an isolated cabin and one night with her? No, he didn’t imagine there was–not that he had anything left to give. The last two things Phillip possessed he’d already bequeathed–to Milly, his heart, and to the Almighty, his vow to that he’d marry her if He would simply rearrange their circumstances to make it possible. April W. Gardner

Captain Bailey’s face went rigid as he stepped aside, revealing another bicorne-crowned officer just behind him. The gentleman joined their circle, probing Milly with his gaze. He was handsome, more so than the other two. The upward tilt of his chin, confident set to his shoulders, and seductive smile lifting one corner of his mouth sent a wave of disquiet through her middle. She’d met this sort before. The silver tassels on his epaulettes glimmered in the firelight and spoke of power, and she lowered her eyes, pointedly aware she didn’t belong here, surrounded by such important men, addressing them as if anything she said were worthy of their consideration. She sucked in a deliberate breath and drew back ever so slightly. Captain Bailey matched her move and slipped a hand to the back of her elbow. She suspected the touch was meant to be one of support. Instead, she felt trapped.“ Miss Milly Wilkins, may I present Captain Jameson Collins?” Captain Bailey’s voice was clipped, and Milly feared he was beginning to see through the ruse. The sound of rattling chains stemmed from the shadows and her eyes darted toward it. Any minute these officers would realize she should be shackled as well. Could they see through the shadows of her hood to the pulse pounding in her neck?. April W. Gardner

With unsteady hands, Phillip yanked on the mare’s bridle straps while trying to loosen one of the stubborn buckles. She snorted at his rough handling. Totka appeared beside him. “Let me.” Phillip gratefully released the task, an unexpected sense of brotherhood filling him. If anyone knew the heartache of separation, it was the man whose deft brown hands readied Phillip’s mount for the long road ahead. Totka’s own road had been lengthy. And yet, after two years, he somehow managed to continue to place one foot in front of the other. His breath still entered and left his body in the same monotonous pattern. How? When already several times over the half-day since Grayson had ridden out with Milly, Phillip had wondered if his chest might explode with the effort of expanding and contracting without her. April W. Gardner

Phillip hardened his grip on Totka’s. “For all our manipulations, God always manages to get His way.”“ A beautiful woman once told me our Jesus Creator is a good and wise chief, worthy of obedience without question. His plan is perfect. Wait, and you will see. April W. Gardner

He came back to her lips and tasted them briefly before settling his forehead against hers. “I don’t care what Grayson or his legal document says, ” he muttered between catches of wind. “God’s given you to me, and as soon as He allows, I’ll claim you as my own.” He spoke with such confidence that if she allowed herself, she could almost believe him. But with belief came hope, and with hope, the inevitability of pain. The knocking at the door resumed, more urgently this time. Along her throat, splotches of cool marked where he’d sampled her. Milly lamented that it was already warming. In heartbeats, all she would have was memories. And anguish. Could God truly fill the hollow Phillip would leave? Last night, His promise had filled her to the depths of her soul. It was enough. It would have to be. With his eyes locked on hers, Phillip’s hand trailed her cheek and throat. It brushed over her shoulder and down her arm. Then, in one blink, he wiped every emotion from his face, stunning her with the callous glaze of his eyes. He gripped her by the elbow, whisked her through the kitchen, and opened the door to her wretched future. . April W. Gardner

For being so straight and sure, God’s path held quite the assortment of twists. April W. Gardner

Darkness within clouds the world without. Anasazi Foundation

If a child hasn't been given spiritual values within the family setting, they have no familiarity with the values that are necessary for the just and peaceful functioning in society. Unknown

When you turn around, you'll see something I bet you've never seen before. If it takes your breath away, then you'll fit in nicely. If you don't feel anything, then maybe you don't belong here. Veronica Randolph Batterson

Stallions, " Frank said, "they're fightin' over a girl. - DANIEL'S ESPERANZA Veronica Randolph Batterson

The yard consisted of grass and a Russian Olive tree, which was about the only kind of tree able to survive on the high prairies. Its thin, grey leaves made it look as though it were on the verge of dying, thereby fooling the elements and the bad weather into thinking that they didn't have to bother with something so spindly and bent, something so obviously on its last legs. Thomas King

Next time! " In what calendar are kept the records of those next times which never come? Helen Hunt Jackson

Attending to your own words and ideas as well as those of others is an admirable trait in any person, but a necessity in a leader. Jennifer FrickRuppert

A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When bay is a noun, it is defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb wiikwegamaa–to be a bay–releases the water from bondage and lets it live. “To be a bay” holds the wonder that, for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers. Because it could do otherwise–become a stream or an ocean or a waterfall, and there are verbs for that, too. To be a hill, to be a sandy beach, to be a Saturday, all are possible verbs in a world where everything is alive. Water, land, and even a day, the language a mirror for seeing the animacy of the world, the life that pulses through all things, through pines and nuthatches and mushrooms. This is the language I hear in the woods; this is the language that lets us speak of what wells up all around us.[…] This is the grammar of animacy. Robin Wall Kimmerer

In Indian Country, ” he says, “we have a different sense of time. I’m learning and you’re learning–and more will. Gloria Steinem

The outward light is but a reflection of the inner. Anasazi Foundation

I speak of the Creator. He has walked with me often in my journeys, and it has been by learning to walk with Him that I have learned to walk forward. Anasazi Foundation

As great as is the light above us, greater by far is the light within. Anasazi Foundation

Do you and I allow light to chase darkness from our souls as well? Anasazi Foundation

Light chases away darkness. Anasazi Foundation

In our weeks of talk, movies and friendship, I watched as Wilma turned a medical ordeal into one more event in her life, but not its definition. I believe she was teaching me an intimate form of The Way. In her words: "Every day is a good day - because we are part of everything alive. Gloria Steinem

There had been no crises of incident, or marked movements of experience such as in Felipe's imaginations of love were essential to the fulness of its growth. This is a common mistake on the part of those who have never felt love's true bonds. Once in those chains, one perceives that they are not of the sort full forged in a day. They are made as the great iron cables are made, on which bridges are swung across the widest water-channels, --not of single huge rods, or bars, which would be stronger, perhaps, to look at; but myriads of the finest wires, each one by itself so fine, so frail, it would barely hold a child's kite in the wind: by hundreds, hundreds of thousands of such, twisted, re-twisted together, are made the mighty cables, which do not any more swerve from their place in the air, under the weight and jar of the ceaseless traffic and tread of two cities, than the solid earth swerves under the same ceaseless weight and jar. Such cables do not break. Helen Hunt Jackson

But undying memories stood like sentinels in her breast. When the notes of doves, calling to each other, fell on her ear, her eyes sought the sky, and she heard a voice saying, "Majella! Helen Hunt Jackson

We weep, tears of blood, we weep, In despair, crying, we weep;the sun forever has stolenthe light from his eyes. No more his face do we see, no more his voice do we hear, nor will his affectionate gazewatch over his people. Jane Bierhorst

I want them to see the magic of how everything is related: To walk out into the night and see the Green Corn Moon levitate across the sky. Autumn Morning Star

Last summer we had eight people in the [Christian] congregation who danced four different sun dances. Of course the missionaries have said all along that those ceremonies are pagan and we can't do that. Our people insist that they are free in the gospel, free in Christ Jesus, to participate in Indian religious forms and ceremonies. - George Tinker Jim Wallis (Author)

I’m a reporter, ” Rachel said. “I write about the arts, festivals, new projects in the city. What I’m not is some kind of psychic astral traveler! How did I get here? Planning a trip to another dimension? G.G. Collins

It takes Passion to bring a Vision to Life. Mary Adair

They caught up their horses and turned back. Nothing moved in that high wilderness save the wind. They did not speak. They were men of another time for all that they bore christian names and they had lived all their lives in a wilderness as had their fathers before them. They'd learnt war by warring, the generations driven from the eastern shore across a continent, from the ashes at Gnadenhutten onto the prairies and across the outlet to the bloodlands of the west. If much in the world were mystery the limits of that world were not, for it was without measure or bound and there were contained within it creatures more horrible yet and men of other colors and beings which no man has looked upon and yet not alien none of it more than were their own hearts alien in them, whatever wilderness contained there and whatever beasts. Cormac McCarthy

An old man spoke to his grandson. "My child, " he said. "Inside everyone there is a battle between two wolves. One is Evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, inferiority, lies, and ego. The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth." The boy thought for a moment. Then he asked, "Which wolf wins?" A moment of silence passed before the old man replied. And then he said, "The one you feed." - Native American Folk Tale . Christine Woodward

No, not my spirit, just my ego, and my arms, and my chest, and my back, but luckily they are just bruised.” Squanto responded, “I fear you may not be so lucky. Stacy Buck

Allow the power to flow through you. Don’t try to capture it. You wish only to borrow it. G.G. Collins

The wolf turned to Rachel. She was afraid to run, afraid fleeing would make it chase her. Somewhere in the stored files of her mind, she remembered one should not look directly at a menacing dog, but she couldn’t take her eyes from it. G.G. Collins

There was nothing physical she could do to stop Mario from carrying out whatever he wished. She shivered at the thought of what that sleazy, other world leftover might do should she launch an attack on him. G.G. Collins

Hopis have lived in America longer than anyone. We wanted to explore the concept of Earthly visitation through the eyes of people who have also witnessed the rapid evolution of modern culture. For us, their beliefs ring true on so many levels. Hopi prophecy speaks to the destiny of man...in a universe where we are not alone. T.J. Wolf

Unearth marvels as you walk the path, Stand in awe, Therein is the joy of life. Barbara Neville

Bad and cruel as our people were treated by the whites, not one of themwas hurt or molested by our band. (..) The whites were complaining at the same time that we were intruding upontheir rights. They made it appear that they were the injured party, andwe the intruders. They called loudly to the great war chief to protecttheir property. How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make rightlook like wrong, and wrong like right. Black Hawk

The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites one family. 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. The earth is sacred and men and animals are but one part of it. Treat the earth with respect so that it lasts for centuries to come and is a place of wonder and beauty for our children. Unknown

In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top–the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation–and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn–we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out. Robin Wall Kimmerer

I got in a fight with my girlfriend, " I said. "I was just driving around, blowing off steam, you know?" Well, you should be more careful where you drive, " the officer said. "You're making people nervous. You don't fit the profile of the neighborhood." I wanted to tell him that I didn't fit the profile of the country but I knew it would just get me into trouble. Sherman Alexie

There is a falling from the sky The sacred hoop is broken But different hands with different voice Hear the ancient songs And soon All men will see That truth and justice Must Prevail. Laurence Overmire

The forces that we deal with have two sides: one is good and helpful and the other is dark and dangerous. Part of your training is to learn to distinguish between them, and know when to use which.” (Nakoma) Gala.J

Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life–yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammurabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. Michael Shermer

No matter how hard I try to forget you, you always come back to my thoughts When you hear me singing I am really crying for you. Jane Bierhorst

Any story worth telling has been embellished a little bit, Skyco, but the best stories are born from an honest seed that simply grows a little in the retelling of it. Jennifer FrickRuppert

Children, language, lands: almost everything was stripped away, stolen when you weren’t looking because you were trying to stay alive. In the face of such loss, one thing our people could not surrender was the meaning of land. In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us. Our lands were where our responsibility to the world was enacted, sacred ground. It belonged to itself; it was a gift, not a commodity, so it could never be bought or sold. These are the meanings people took with them when they were forced from their ancient homelands to new places. . Robin Wall Kimmerer

Gazing around, looking up at the lofty pinnacles above, which seemed to pierce the sky, looking down upon the world, --it seemed the whole world, so limitless it stretched away at her feet, --feeling that infinite unspeakable sense of nearness to Heaven, remoteness from earth which comes only on mountain heights, she drew in a long breath of delight, and cried: "At last! at last, Alessandro! Here we are safe! This is freedom! This is joy! . Helen Hunt Jackson

Cozy was a fun night by a fireplace with marshmallows. Cozy was a grandmother knitting Christmas sweaters. Cozy was new puppies in a litter. Cozy was not what he had in mind to do in that tent with Tes. Susannah Scott

Hiking is like life... You can spend the whole trip just watching the trail ahead, worrying that you'll twist an ankle or fall. And then you miss all this. Susannah Scott

We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of comparison in matter of blindness, --"blind as a bat, " for instance. It would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the bosoms of their families. Tempers strain and recover, hearts break and heal, strength falters, fails, and comes near to giving way altogether, every day, without being noted by the closest lookers-on. Helen Hunt Jackson

They're all gone, my tribe is gone. Those blankets they gave us, infected with smallpox, have killed us. I'm the last, the very last, and I'm sick, too. So very sick. Hot. My fever burning so hot. I have to take off my clothes, feel the cold air, splash water across my bare skin. And dance. I'll dance a Ghost Dance. I'll bring them back. Can you hear the drums? I can hear them, and it's my grandfather and grandmother singing. Can you hear them? I dance one step and my sister rises from the ash. I dance another and a buffalo crashes down from the sky onto a log cabin in Nebraska. With every step, an Indian rises. With every other step, a buffalo falls. I'm growing, too. My blisters heal, my muscles stretch, expand. My tribe dances behind me. At first they are no bigger than children. Then they begin to grow, larger than me, larger than the trees around us. The buffalo come to join us and their hooves shake the earth, knock all the white people from their beds, send their plates crashing to the floor. We dance in circles growing larger and larger until we are standing on the shore, watching all the ships returning to Europe. All the white hands are waving good-bye and we continue to dance, dance until the ships fall off the horizon, dance until we are so tall and strong that the sun is nearly jealous. We dance that way. Sherman Alexie

To understand American Indians is to understand America. This is the story of the paradoxically least and most American place in the twenty-first century. Welcome to the Rez. David Treuer

He who runs with the platypus is no more a man than he who swallows chesnuts Unknown