with an ear to eternity

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.
Then  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.
Ever 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 altogether powerless.
















                                                   Chief Seattle


























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