Chief Seattle's speech continued
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. The 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 - or He came to his white 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 finmament.No, wea are two distinct races with two separare origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us. To us, the ashes of our ancestors are sacred. andtheir resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of you 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 nor remember it.
Our religion is the tradition of our ancestors--the dreams of our o;d men, given them in the solemn hours of night br the Gret Spirit, and the visions of our sachems--and it is written int the hearts of our people. Your dead cease to love you and the landand of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb asn wander way beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget the 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 Great Betond to visit, guide, console, and comfort them. Day snd night cannot dwell together. The red mad has ever fled the approach of the white man, as the morning mist flees brfore the morning sun. However, your propositions seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation ou offer them. Then we will dwell 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 thw remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indians' night promises to be dark. Not a single star of light hovers above his horizon.
sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the red mans trail, and wherever he goes he will hear the footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom as the wounded doe that hears the footsteps of the appraoching hunter. A few more moon, a few more winters--and not one of my 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 great 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 the order of nature and regret is useless. YOur time of decay is distant, but it surely will come. For even the white man. whose God talked with him as friend with friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall 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 shall not be denied the privekige without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our anscetorr, friends and children. |
