Yakima Quotes

“I do not envy those whose introduction to nature was lush meadows, lakes, and swamps where life abounds. The desert hills of Yakima had a poverty that sharpened perception.”
― William O. Douglas, Of Men and Mountains

“We wish to be left alone in the lands of our forefathers, whose bones lie in the sand hills and along the trails, but a pale-face stranger has come from a distant land and sends word to us that we must give up our country, as he wants it for the white man. Where can we go? There is no place left. Only a single mountain now separates us from the big salt water of the setting sun. Our fathers from the hunting grounds of the other world are looking down on us today. Let us not make them ashamed! My people, the Great Spirit has his eyes upon us. He will be angry if, like cowardly dogs, we give up our lands to the whites. Better to die like brave warriors on the battlefield, than live among our vanquishers, despised. Our young men and women would speedily become debauched by their fire water and we should perish as a race.”
― A J Splawn, Ka-Mi-Akin, the Last Hero of the Yakimas

“The feeling of the Indian towards the earth was a part of his religion which makes still more understandable his reluctance to give up his lands. In his belief, the earth is the mother; light the father. He must not disrupt the mother's bosom by plowing, nor cut her hair (the grass). When he dies, his body returns to his mother earth, while his breath, or spirit, goes in a vapor to the father. The Indians felt that calamity would come upon them, if they should sell their mother.”
― A J Splawn, Ka-Mi-Akin, the Last Hero of the Yakimas

“Everything seems dead. The rushing waters speak our doom. I have now enough. The word of a pale face shall pass by my ears as the idle wind. In my poverty and humiliation I blush. I have been a bold man, born of a race of warriors who never turned their back on a foe. My father was the bravest of the brave. His name struck terror to his enemies. I have always been a free man, and shall be again. I will disgrace his name no longer by keeping this false peace. - Quil-ten-e-nock”
― A J Splawn, Ka-Mi-Akin, the Last Hero of the Yakimas

“I asked Saf. “How do you do that?”

Saf smirked. “He has you on punishment, he thinks you are hurting and wasting your time morosing over him while he lives his life”
“He is exacting punishment and he is enjoying it!”
“He probably not thinking of you any at all”
“His hope is to come back and see you same place he left you!”
“And ready to take him back and take you out of your suffering!”

Saf chuckled.
“Waste his time!” Saf half shouted.

I leaned in conspiratorially. “Me no understand!”
Saf always spoke in colloguish manner.

“Change the ending, the outcome!”
“Let when he checks in back, he has lost the compass!”
“You can’t be found!”
“That’s how you get back control!”
“Right now he has all the control in the world!”
“And you have none!”
“You start to get back your control!”
“Remember when i told you about that rope!”
“The one people tug every now and then to see if you still at the end of it!”
“We move pass that now…!”
“You come tie the rope to a stump of a tree!”
“Or on a stick or staple it to the ground!”
“And you gone run…!”
“You gone play the same game he is playing…!”
“Play it his way but still play against him”

Saf sucked her teeth.
“Precognitive!”
She pressed her index finger against her forehead.
“Same story as the Tortoise and the Hare”


Yakima II
Crystal Evans
Copyright ©️ 2023”
― Crystal Evans, Yakima II