To Walk in the Sacred Way

GRANDFATHER,
Look at our brokenness,

We know that in all creation
only the human family
has strayed from the sacred way.

We know that we are the ones
who are divided
and we are the ones
who must come back together
to walk in the sacred way.

Grandfather,
sacred one,
teach us love, compassion, honor
that we may heal the earth
and heal each other.

Ojibway prayer

Grandfather says that when your friends
die you must not cry. You must not hurt
anyone or do harm to anybody. You must not
fight. Do right always. It will give you
satisfaction in life.

Wovoka (Piaute)

No tribe has the right to sell, even to
each other, much less to strangers....
Sell a country! Why not sell the air,
the great sea, as well as the earth!
Didn't the Great Spirit make them all
for the use of his children!

Tecumseh (Shawnee)

The path to glory is rough, and many
gloomy hours obscure it. May the Great
Spirit shed light on your path, so that
you may never experience the humility that
the power of the American government has
reduced me to. This is the wish of a man
who, in his native forests, was once as proud
and bold as yourself.

Black Hawk (Sauk)

Can we talk of integration until there
is integration of hearts and minds? Unless
you have this, you have only a physical
presence, and the walls between us are as
high as the mountain range.

Chief Dan George (Coast Salish)

The red man has ever fled the approach
of the white man, as the morning mist flees
before the morning sun... It matters little
where we pass the remnants of our days. They
will not be many. But why should I mourn the
untimely fate of my people? Your time of decay
may be distant, but it will surely come, for even
the white man, whos God walked and talked with
him as friend with friend, cannot be exempt from
the common destiny. We may be brothers, after all.
We will see...

Chief Seattle (Seqwamish & Duwamish)