Native American Wisdom: Speech Of Chief Seattle

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has called on us all to cooperate to avert the worsening effects of climate change. Here are far-seeing words from Chief Seattle in a speech delivered in the century before last reminding us of the interconnectedness of life of on earth. We are all in this together

Background Music: Enlightenment by Chris Collins
Photo by Simon Berger

Transcript

Dear friends,

Each year we celebrate Earth Day and so we should.

The earth is our home and we need to take more care of it.

We have exploited our planetary home as if there was no limit to what it might provide for us.

We have acted as if there is no limit to growth.

We have never had so much information at our disposal and yet there is so much ancient wisdom that we still need to take on board.

Isn't it amazing to hear the words of the Native American Chief Seattle?

The great chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land.

The great chief also sends us words of friendship and goodwill.

This is kind of him since we know he has little need of our friendship in return.

But we will consider your offer for we know that if we do not do so the white man may come with guns and take our land.

What Chief Seattle says you can count on as truly as our white brothers can count on the return of the seasons.

My words are like the stars they do not set.

How can you buy or sell the sky?

The warmth of the land.

The earth is strange to us yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water.

How can you buy them from us?

We will decide in our time.

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people.

Every shining pine needle,

Every sandy shore,

Every mist in the dark woods,

Every clearing and every humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people.

The sap that runs through the trees carries the memories of the red-skinned man.

The dead among the white man forget their birthplace when they leave to walk among the stars.

Our dead never forget this beautiful earth because she is the red man's mother.

We are part of the earth and she is part of us.

The scented flowers are our sisters,

The horned beasts,

The horse and the majestic eagle are our brothers,

The fields,

The warm body of the foal and man all belong to the same family.

Thus when the great chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our lands he is asking for a great deal.

The great chief sends word that he will reserve a space for us to live comfortably with each other.

He will be our father and we will be his children.

Because of this we will consider his offer to buy our lands but this will not be easy because these lands are sacred to us.

The sparkling water that runs in the rivers and streams is not only water it is the blood of our ancestors.

If we sell you these lands you must remember that they are sacred and teach your children that they are and that every ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lakes speaks of the lives and memories of the life of my people.

The murmur of the stream is the voice of my father's father.

The rivers are our sisters and calm our thirst.

The rivers carry our canoes and feed our children.

If we sell you our lands you must remember and teach your children that the rivers are our kin and your kin.

You must henceforth treat the rivers as kindly as you would your brothers and sisters.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways.

One portion of land is the same to him as the next for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs.

The earth is not his brother but his enemy and when he has conquered it he moves on.

He leaves his father's graves and his children's birthright is forgotten.

He strips the earth from his children and cares not.

He forgets his father's tomb and the rights of his children.

He treats his mother the earth and his brother the heavens as if they were things that could be bought,

Plundered and sold as though they were lambs and glass beads.

His insatiable hunger will devour the earth and leave behind a desert.

I do not understand.

Our ways are different to yours.

The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man but perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.

There is no quiet place in the white man's cities.

No place to listen to the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect wings but perhaps because I am a savage and do not understand the latter only seems to insult the ears and what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lovely cry of the whipperwill or the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night.

I am a red man and I do not understand.

The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind itself cleansed by a midday rain or scented by a pinon pie.

The air is precious to the red man for all things share the same breath,

The beasts,

The trees and the man.

The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes.

Like a man dying for many days he is numb to the stench.

If we sell you our lands you must remember that the air is precious to us,

That the air shares its spirit with all the life it sustains and if we sell you our lands you must set them aside and keep them sacred as a place that even the white man may go to,

To taste the wind sweetened by the flowers in the grasslands.

If I decide to accept your offer I will make one condition.

The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.

I am a savage and I do not understand any other way.

I have seen thousands of rotting buffaloes on the prairie left by the white man who shot them from a passing train.

I am a savage and I do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.

What is man without the beasts?

If all the beasts were gone men would die from great loneliness of spirit for whatever happens to the beast also happens to the man.

All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of their grandparents.

In order that they may respect the earth teach them that the earth is full of the life of our ancestors.

You must teach your children what we have taught ours,

That the earth is our mother.

Everything that affects the earth affects the sons of the earth.

When men spit on the ground they spit on themselves.

We know this.

The earth does not belong to man.

Man belongs to the earth.

Man has not woven the net of life.

He is just a tread in it.

Everything he does to this net he does to himself.

What befalls the earth will befall the sons of the earth.

We know this.

All things are bound up in each other like the blood that binds the family.

Even the white man whose God walks with him and speaks with him cannot be excluded from a common destiny.

We may even be brothers in the end,

We will see.

One thing we know that the white man may one day discover.

Our God is the same God.

You may think that you own him as you wish to own our land but you cannot.

He is the body of man and his compassion is equal for the red man and the white.

This earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

The whites too shall pass,

Perhaps sooner than other tribes.

Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

But even in your last hours you will feel illuminated by the idea that God brought you to these lands and gave you a special purpose and ownership over them and over the red man.

When the buffalo are all slaughtered,

The wild horses all tamed,

The secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by the talking wires,

Where is the thicket?

Gone.

Where is the eagle?

Gone.

And what is it to say goodbye to the swift and the hunt?

The end of living and the beginning of survival.

Words to ponder from Chief Seattle from the century before last.

Namaste.

Reviews

Thank you so much for this talk Tony, it is excellent. Such a shame that we didn’t heed and learn from the wisdom and insights of the First Nations people. We have a lot of work to do to try to fix some of the issues we created. If we all do something each day to help our earth it will make a difference. Take care 🙏

Such powerful, beautiful words still heartbreakingly meaningful for our world today. Than you Tony 💔

Beautiful 💚sad 💚so wise …. why didn’t we listen then 💚 many are listening now and we pray it’s not too late 💚
Thank you Tony for your gentle wisdom 💜

We really need to snap out of our current view of conquer, own, separateness...I crave and long for a more moderate and meaningful way of life and people (the two-legged kind) with whom I may enjoy it.

Powerful humbling reminder to walk lightly and with respect for the earth and all creatures, and that we are all interconnected. Thank you Tony, Namaste 🙏🏿 😊 💚.

There's just something about your guided meditations that reconnect my heart, spirit, and thoughts to a place of peaceful contemplation. Grateful 💗

Moving words, so relevant to today's world. These need sharing with our children.
Thank you Tony 🙏🏻

I love getting in touch with nature and the people around me. This was great for doing that. Thank you.

Such wisdom and insight from ages past. It would seem we are in the time of surviving.

Thank you Tony for passing this ancient wisdom to us. Let us be able to really listen to it and live by it. Namasté

Wonderful, will share on Thanksgiving with my loved ones. 💕

Absolutely wonderful, I deeply appreciate your connection with indegenous people like me. Thank you for this meditation!

Profound wisdom & insight to illuminate a path forward…

Thank you and Thanks to Chief Seattle

There is such logic in Native American spirituality. Wonderfully presented Tony. Happy Earth Day 🌎 to you and to Fran. ☘️💚☘️

Wonderful words! I just came back from a week in the US camping , enjoying the wilderness and hating the cities! Thanks Tony

Trigger warning this is too real and too tragic to listen to before bed. Thanks for sharing, Tony. Somehow my American education skipped this little tidbit in school.

Thank you so very very much Tony for this fabulous gift from The Native American people. Very wise they are. I have ultimate love and respect for The Native American.

Thank you so much for sharing that. Timeless wisdom endures despite hundreds of genocides against hundreds of tribes and ethnicities.

Thank you Tony for your unique work and gentle thoughts. Such a kind gift to us all. This is a deeply sad reminder.
🙏🏻💜

Thank you, Tony. Learning from those who cherish & understand living in harmony.