"Noble Words From A Noble Savage"
Today
I decided to share a great speech by a Native American wise leader.
This speech is maybe one of the best lessons I ever seen. White man
used his power to make a fortune. The "savages" lived in haramony with
nature.
In 1851 Seattle, chief Seattle of
the Suquamish and other Indian tribes around Washington's Puget Sound, delivered what is
considered to be one of the most beautiful and profound environmental
statements ever made.
The city of Seattle is named for the chief, whose speech
was in response to a proposed treaty under which the Indians were persuaded to
sell two million acres of land for $150,000".
"HOW CAN ONE SELL THE AIR"
Click above (Nice Video clip)
CHIEF SEATTLE'S LETTER
TO PRESIDENT FRANKLIN PIERCE
The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land.
But how can you buy or sell the sky? the land? The idea is strange to us. If we
do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you
buy them?
Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine
needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every
humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood
that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us.
The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle,
these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat
of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.
The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just
water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you our land, you must
remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the
lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur
is the voice of my father's father. The rivers are our brothers. They quench
our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the
rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that
the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that
gave our grandfather his first breath also received his last sigh. The wind
also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must
keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is
sweetened by the meadow flowers.
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the
earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the
earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. 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.
One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to
him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are
all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret
corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the
ripe hills is blotted with talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone!
Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is to say goodbye to the swift pony and
then hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
When the last red man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory
is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and
forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?
We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we
sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared
for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it.
Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us.
As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is
precious to us. It is also precious to you.
One thing we know - there is only one God. No man, be he Red man or
White man, can be apart. We are all brothers after all.
Visit PHILOXENIA-NING
* Philoxenia means friendship to foreigners or hospitality to strangers
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Kindly Regards
Georgios