First Peoples Quotes

“Native peoples do not look for salvation from worlds beyond. They need no alternate reality, because the mortal world and the spirit world are the same. This Earth is heaven, hell and purgatory; but most importantly, it is home. The greatest of spiritual mysteries may be revealed just beyond the front door, in the life of a community.”
― Israel Morrow, Gods of the Flesh: A Skeptic's Journey Through Sex, Politics and Religion

“Schoolteachers teach what they and others know. Forest teachers - bear, wolf, lynx, beaver, bird, every flower and tree - teach us how to live, love, and grow.”
― Frederic M. Perrin, Rella Two Trees - The Money Chiefs

“Teach them a spider does not spin a web. Spiders spin meaning. Cut one strand and the web holds. Cut many, the web falls. With the web's fall, so too falls the spider. Break the web. Break the spider. So breaks the circle of life.”
― Frederic M. Perrin, Rella Two Trees - The Money Chiefs

“Destroy us, land and forest takes forever from your children. Walk the circle of life. Have no fear. Together, let us love and protect our children, respect the land and forest, giving back what we have taken.”
― Frederic M. Perrin, Rella Two Trees - The Money Chiefs

“Teach them that rainbows appear after a storm to remind them that light begins and ends with all colors.”
― Frederic M. Perrin, Rella Two Trees - The Money Chiefs

“Teach them to love Earth and Spirits in the right ways so they will treat and care for Earth and Spirits in the right ways. No Spirit should live without love, food, or a home, for without love, what Spirit can live?”
― Frederic M. Perrin, Rella Two Trees - The Money Chiefs

“The time has come for you, your Tribe, and all First Peoples. Together, you must learn, remember, and teach the languages, songs, and stories of your ancestors so you may rise once again as true Shepherds of Earth. Teach your quiet light and wisdom to all that they may know, love, and honor all Spirits and the circle of life.”
― Frederic M. Perrin, Rella Two Trees - The Money Chiefs

“Long I have known and feared this day would come. Like the circle of Earth, the circle of life is changing. Here in the north, there are those who can still feel, see, and smell the changes wrought in and around Earth by Money Chiefs. The air is no longer clean, winter grows warmer, rivers flood without a sign, and the soil, once dark and rich, lies pale and weak. Bears, wolves, and other forest Spirits will soon go the way of the buffalo, for their food dwindles like birds that once ruled the skies.”
― Frederic M. Perrin, Rella Two Trees - The Money Chiefs

“May your footsteps leave only friends behind.”
― Frederic M. Perrin, Rella Two Trees - The Money Chiefs

“We were born naked and have been taught to hunt and live on the game. You tell us that we must learn to farm, live in one house, and take on your ways. Suppose the people living beyond the great sea should come and tell you that you must stop farming and kill your cattle, and take your houses and lands, what would you do? Would you not fight them?”
― Gall

“The bullets will not go toward you. The prairie is large and the bullets will not go toward you.”
― Yellow Bird

“You have driven me from the East to this place, and I have been here two thousand years or more. [...] My friends, if you took me away from this land it would be very hard for me. I wish to die in this land, I wish to be an old man here. [...] I have not wished to give even a part of it to the Great Father [the President]. Though he were to give me a million dollars I would not give him this land. [...] When people want to slaughter cattle they drive them along until they get them to a corral, and then they slaughter them. So it was with us. [...] My children have been exterminated; my brother has been killed.”
― Standing Bear

“The white men in the East are like birds. They are hatching out their eggs every year, and there is not room enough in the East and they must go elsewhere; and they come west, as you have seen them coming for the last few years. And they are still coming, and will come until they overrun all of this country; and you can't prevent it. [...] Everything is decided in Washington by the majority, and these people come out west and see that the Indians have a big body of land they are not using, and they say we want the land.”
― George Crook

“Money Chiefs, loud and long notes are not songs. Silent snow wets Earth, seeds grow, flowers' honey purses seek neither wealth nor power, and the forest's quiet wisdom needs no wind to blow.”
― Frederic M. Perrin, Rella Two Trees - The Money Chiefs

“Our land here is the dearest thing on earth to us. Men take up land and get rich on it, and it is very important for us Indians to keep it.”
― White Thunder

“We have been south and suffered a great deal down there. Many have died of diseases which we have no name for. Our hearts looked and longed for this country where we were born. There are only a few of us left, and we only wanted a little ground, where we could live. We left our lodges standing, and ran away in the night. The troops followed us. I rode out and told the troops we did not want to fight; we only wanted to go north, and if they would let us alone we would kill no one. The only reply we got was a volley. After that we had to fight our way, but we killed none who did not fire at us first. My brother, Dull Knife, took one-half of the band and surrendered near Fort Robinson. [...] They gave up their guns, and then the whites killed them all.”
― Little Wolf