Hi there
Chief See-at-la, a hereditary leader of the Squamish Tribe, and native
mystic, was born around 1786 and died on June 7, 1866. He is buried in
the tribal cemetery at Squamish, Washington. (Chief See-at-la's real
name could not be reproduced by English speaking settlers, so when the
the city was named it was smoothed it out by changing it to "Seattle".
)
The speech Chief See-at-la recited during treaty negotiations in 1854
is regarded as one of the greatest statements ever made concerning the
relationship between a people and the earth - the speech, was
published in the Seattle Sunday Star, Seattle, Washington Territory,
October 29, 1887.
The text was produced by one "Dr." Smith, an early settler in Seattle,
who took notes as Cheif Seattle spoke in the Suquamish dialect of
central Puget sound Salish (Lushootseed), and created this text in
English from those notes. Smith insisted that his version "contained
none of the grace and elegance of the original"
There are many versions and excerpts from this text, including a
wholly fraudulent version mentioning buffalo and the
interconnectedness of all life which was penned by Ted Perry, a
screenwriter inspired by some writings unwittingly attributed to the
Chief, for _Home_, a 1972 ABC film about ecology. and which has gained
wide currency. The bogus version has been quoted by individuals as
prominent and diverse as former U.S. President Bush and Joseph
Campbell.
I've included the full text below. You should know though that there
is controvery about this one as well. There are many sites on the net,
both pro and anti as you would expect given the contentiuous nature of
discussions of the environment and Native American Indians. If you
want to follow the arguements, you'll find many links via the google
search below as the Cheif has a whole Google section to himself
Hope this is what you wanted
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Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for
centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may
change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds.
My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says,
the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as
he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons.
The white chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings
of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him for we know he has
little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. They are
like the grass that covers vast prairies. My people are few. They
resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. The great, and I
presume -- good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our
land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This
indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has
rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we
are no longer in need of an extensive country.
There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a
wind- ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long
since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a
mournful memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely
decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too
may have been somewhat to blame.
Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or
imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it
denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and
relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them.
Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push
our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities
between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and
nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the
cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war,
and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.
Our good father in Washington--for I presume he is now our father as
well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further
north--our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do
as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a
bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill
our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward -- the
Haidas and Tsimshians, will cease to frighten our women, children, and
old men. He in reality he will be our father and we his children.
But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your
people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly
about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an
infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are
His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your
God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all
the land.
Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will
never return. The white man's God cannot love our people or He would
protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help.
How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew
our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we
have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial, for He came to His
paleface children.
We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for His red
children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as
stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate
origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us.
To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is
hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and
seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of
stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget.
The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the
traditions of our ancestors -- the dreams of our old men, given them
in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of
our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as
they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars.
They are soon forgotten and never return.
Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They
still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent
mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and
ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living,
and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide,
console, and comfort them.
Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the
approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the
morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my
people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer
them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great
White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out
of dense darkness.
It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not
be many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. Not a single star of
hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance.
Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will
hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare
stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the
approaching footsteps of the hunter.
A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants
of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in
happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over
the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours.
But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe
follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea.
It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay
may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose
God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt
from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.
We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you
know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that
we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at
any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part
of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside,
every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or
happy event in days long vanished.
Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the
sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events
connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which
you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours,
because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet
are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond
mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who
lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these
somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits.
And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my
tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will
swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's
children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop,
upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will
not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to
solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are
silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the
returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful
land. The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not
powerless.
Dead, did I say? - There is no death, only a change of worlds.
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Google Search Strategy
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