🚀 go-pugleaf

> We are doing research on Native Americans and their views on the environment.

Even if your research focuses on present-day attitudes, some historical
material might prove interesting as a baseline, from the times when
traditional cultures were (arguably) in sustainable equilibrium
with their ancestral lands (ie, before being removed to reservations
having significantly lower carrying capacities).

The most striking historical evidence I know of is the speech
by Chief Sealth of the Suquamish in the Puget Sound region:

12. Seattle, Chief, 1790-1866.
      Speech of Chief Seattle delivered at Seattle, Washington, in the fall of
    1854 in response to address of Hon. Isaac Stevens, commissioner of Indian
    affairs for Washington Territory ... translation by Dr. H.A. Smith ...
    [Seattle? 1951?].
        UCB   Bancroft  m F900.I5S41

I'm curious how many on this list were already familiar with this material.
If you're so inclined, send brief email to me (*not* to the list),
and I will post the results of this informal survey later.

-rick    crawford@cs.ucdavis.edu

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                        THE EARTH IS PRECIOUS

In 1854, the "Great White Chief" in Washington made an offer for a large
area of Indian land and promised a "reservation" for the Indian people.
Chief Sealth's reply, published here in full, has been described as the
most beautiful and profound statement on the environment ever made.

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     How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of 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 we buy them?

                           ALL SACRED

     Every part of the earth 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.  The sap which courses through
the trees carries the memories of the red man.
     The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they
go to walk among the stars.  Our dead never forget this beautiful earth
for it is the mother of the red man.
     We are part of the earth and it is part of us.
The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle,
these are our brothers.
     The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony,
and man --- all belong to the same family.

                            NOT EASY

     So when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes
to buy our land, he asks much of us.  The Great Chief sends word he will
reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves.
     He will be our father and we will be his children.  So we will
consider your offer to buy our land.
     But it will not be easy.  For this land is sacred to us.
The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just
water but the blood of our ancestors.
     If we sell our land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you
must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection
in the clear water 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.

                            KINDNESS

     The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst.  The rivers carry
our canoes, and feed our children.  If we sell you our land, you must
remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers and
yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would
give any brother.
     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 grave behind, and he does not care.
He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care.
     His father's grave, and his children's birthright, are forgotten.
He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things
to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads.
     His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.
     I do not know.  Our ways are different from your ways.
     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 hear
the unfurling of leaves in the spring, or the rustle of an insect's wings.
     But perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand.
     The clatter only seems to insult the ears.  And what is there to life
if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments
of the frog around the pond at night?  I am a red man and do not understand.
     The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face
of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a midday rain,
or scented with the pinion pine.


                             PRECIOUS

     The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same
breath --- the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath.
     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.
     But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is
precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh.
     And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred,
as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is
sweetened by the meadow's flowers.

                          ONE CONDITION

     So we will consider your offer to buy our land.  If we decide to
accept, 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.
     What is man without the beasts?  If all the beasts were gone,
man would die from a great loneliness of spirit.
     For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man.
All things are connected.

                           THE ASHES

     You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet
is the ashes of your grandfathers.  So that they will respect the land,
tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin.
     Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the
earth is our mother.
     Whatsoever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth.
If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.
     I have seen a thousand buffaloes rotting 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.
     This we know:  The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to
the earth.  This we know.
     All things are connected like the blood which unites one family.
All things are connected.
     Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of the earth.
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.
     Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend
to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny.
     We may be brothers after all.  We shall see.
     One thing we know, which the white man may one day discover ---
our God is the same God.
     You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land;
but you cannot.  He is the God 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 all other tribes.
Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.
      But in your perishing you will shine brightly, fired by the strength
of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose
gave you domination over this land and over the red man.

     That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the
buffalo are all slaughtered; the horses are tamed; the secret corners of the
forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of ripe hills blotted
by talking wires.

     Where is the thicket?  Gone.
     Where is the eagle?  Gone.
     The ending of living and the beginning of survival.