Native America Quotes

“And why have you burnt our Gods, when others are brought from other Regions by the Spaniards? Are the Gods of other Provinces more sacred than ours?”
― Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies

“By the sandy water I breathe in the odor of the sea,
From there the wind comes and blows over the world,
By the sandy water I breathe in the odor of the sea,
From there the clouds come and rain falls over the world.”
― Jane Bierhorst, In the Trail of the Wind: American Indian Poems and Ritual Orations

“I will say it again and again; forgiving others will set you free.”
― Leon Blunt Horn Matthews, Rez Ramblings: Living on the Pine Ridge as 21st Century as an "Injun"

“[T]he Church is apathetic when it comes to Injustice; it is worried about quarters and has become a business based on income; it believes a political party represents its views; it has bought into the American Dream, it does not care about poverty issues; it is apathetic when it comes to injustice because they do not care about the treaties that have been broken.”
― Leon Blunt Horn Matthews, Rez Ramblings: Living on the Pine Ridge as 21st Century as an "Injun"

“The scientific descriptions of ethnology that we find in books are inevitably dry and do not give the least impression of the mysterious world of the Achumawi, whose life is so inextricably mixed in with the animals, the trees, the plants.
But without forming some mental picture of that life, it is, I believe, almost impossible to understand how and to what extent the Achumawi Indian finds himself in a state of direct mystical connection with the universe that surrounds him.
Now that is precisely his religion, and his entire religion.” — Jaime de Angulo
from
"Tracks Along the Left Coast"
by Andrew Schelling”
― Jaime de Angulo

“The scientific descriptions of ethnology that we find in books are inevitably dry and do not give the least impression of the mysterious world of the Achumawi, whose life is so inextricably mixed in with the animals, the trees, the plants. But without forming some mental picture of that life, it is, I believe, almost impossible to understand how and to what extent the Achumawi Indian finds himself in a state of direct mystical connection with the universe that surrounds him. Now that is precisely his religion, and his entire religion.”
— Jaime de Angulo

Appears in the introduction of "Tracks Along the Left Coast" by Andrew Schelling”
― Jaime de Angulo