Papago Quotes

“Where the mountain crosses.
On top of the mountain, I do not myself know where.
I wandered where my mind and my heart seemed to be lost.
I wandered away.”
― Jane Bierhorst, In the Trail of the Wind: American Indian Poems and Ritual Orations

“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

“This is a song the Papago Indians like to sing when they go traveling around somewhere:

They have gone,
The birds of the sky.
They have gone,
The animals of the earth,
They have returned
Along their own trail.

On a white rock under the Moon,
On a red rock under the Sun,
On a black rock they sat,
On a yellow rock they rested
And looked back and saw butterflies,
They looked behind them and saw
A whirlwind,
And they watched the whirlwind
And it was a tree
Standing in a cool shadow.

They sit under the tree in the shadow,
They sit under the still tree.
(page 68, The Great Wheat Harvest)”
― George Webb, A Pima Remembers