The great chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. We will consider your offer. For we know that if we do not sell, the white people may come with guns and take our land.
How can you buy and sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine-needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing, and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers.
If we sell you land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred. We know that the white people do not understand our ways. The earth is not their mother but their enemy, and when they have conquered it, they move on. They treat mother earth, and brother sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like bright beads.
There is no quiet place in your cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of insects’ wings. We prefer the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleansed by a midday rain, or scented with pine. The air is precious to us, for all things share the same breath – the beast, the tree, the humans, we all share the same breath.
If we decide to accept your offer to buy our land, I will make one condition: the white people must treat the beasts of this land as their brothers. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white people who shot them from a passing train. What is human life without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, people would die from a great loneliness of spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to us. All things are connected.
This we know. The earth does not belong to people; people belong to the earth. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth. We did not weave the web of life; we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
One thing we know, which the white people may one day discover – our God is the same God. This earth is precious to God, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its Creator. When the buffaloes are all slaughtered, the wild horses tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with human scent, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires, the end of the human race is near.
Even if the tribes of my people vanish from this earth, these shores and forests will still hold the spirits of my people. For they love this earth as the newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So if we sell you our land, love it as we’ve loved it. Care for it as we’ve cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you take it. And with all your strength, with all your mind, with all your heart, preserve it for your children, and love it as God loves us all.