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Du er her: Skole > The letter from Chief Seattle to the president

The letter from Chief Seattle to the president

Chief Seattle of the Squamish and the Duwamish, to Washington Governor Stevens, as recorded by Dr. Henry Smith in 1853.

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Språkform
Engelsk
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20.02.2005
Tema
Indianere


Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and, which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. 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. 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 lands 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 pale face 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 first began to push our forefathers 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 during time of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.

 

Our good father at 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 harbours so that our ancient enemies far to the northward -- the Haidas and Tsimpsians -- will cease to frighten our women, children and old men. Then in reality he will be our father and we his children. But can he ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine. He folds His strong protecting arms loving about the pale face and leads him by the hand as a father leads his 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 strong 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 pale faced children. We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for his red children whose teeming multitudes filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little 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 nor remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors -- the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of the 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 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 magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender and fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the Happy Hunting Grounds 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 in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of defence darkness.

 

It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indians' 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 goes he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that heads to approaching footsteps of the hunter.

 

A few more moans. 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 will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

 

We will ponder your propositions 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. Every 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 dumb and dead as they 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 to 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 our little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these sombre solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memories of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, out 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 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 powerless. Dead I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.


 

Chief Seattle of the Squeamish and the Duwamish upon the sale of his land two years later, in 1855:

 

The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? 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 you buy them?

 

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

 

We know the sap which sources through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family. 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. Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters 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.

 

The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give to the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

 

If we sell our land, 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. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

 

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

 

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. 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.

 

One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

 

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living, and the beginning of survival.

 

When the last Red Man has vanished with his wilderness and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be there? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?

 

We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it as God loves you all.

 

As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. One thing we know; there is only one God. No man, be he Red Man or White Man, can be apart. We are brothers after all.

 

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