Chief Seattle's letter

Chief's Seattle’s letter:


If we sell you our land, you must

remember that it is sacred.

Each glossy 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 the rivers the kindness

that you would give any brother.
If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us,

that the air shares its spirit

with all the life that it supports.

The wind that gave our grandfather

his first breath also received his last sigh.

The wind also gives our

children the spirit of life.

So if we sell 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?

he 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 with talking wires?

Where will the thicket be? Gone!

Where will the eagle be? Gone!

And what is to say goodbye

to the swift pony and then hunt?

The end of living and the beginning of survival.

When the last red man has

vanished with this wilderness,

and his memory is only the shadow of a

cloud moving across the prairie,

will these shores and forests still be here?

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 us.
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 all brothers after all.”