Chief Seattle's 1854 Oration

[Xipe Totec]

"...Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land..."

Full text:

http://www.halcyon.com/arborhts/chiefsea.html

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. It's a hoax.

The real Chief Seattle never actually wrote that. It's a nice read though.

[Xipe Totec]

3. Prove it.

Although, since Chief Seattle didn't know how to read or write, you are technically correct.

That is why it is called an oration.

[depakid]

8. It's attributed to Sealthe (Si'ahl) of the Duwamish -a coastal Salish people

and since he spoke in the Lushootseed language (which is strange to listen to), translated into Chinook jargon and then to English, it's hard to know what he said with any accuracy.

Nevertheless- as you note- it's a fine read and the sentiments both true and timeless.

[BlooInBloo]

2. Posting in a Seattle thread.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

4. That is beautiful, my dear Xipe Totec...

Thank you for reminding us...

:hug:

[Xipe Totec]

11. It seemed appropriate

considering the MFU developing in the Gulf.

I'm glad you're on the West coast and not immediately on the path of this unbelievable fuck up.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

12. Thank you; I'm glad too...

It still hurts, though...

[hyphenate]

5. Snopes

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/seattle.asp

[Xipe Totec]

9. Interesting, and surprising

Thanks for the heads up, I'll endeavor to research further before posting.

[hyphenate]

13. A lot of people don't know it's just a tale

invented by a Hollywood screenwriter in 1971. The first time I read it, was on a painted college mural.

On the other hand, one quote which you can also seriously enjoy is from author Henry Beston, who wrote "The Outermost House" of the year he spent on Cape Cod at what is now Nauset Beach. Not overly sentimental (IMO) about the animals he came in contact with, but a beautiful tribute instead:

“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”

[AlinPA]

6. The last paragraph of Chief Sealth's letter to President Pierce is starting to come true now:

"The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. How can you buy or sell the sky-the warmth of the land?
The idea is strange to us. Yet we do not own the freshness of the air or the sparkle of the water. How can you buy them from us? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shiny 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 know that white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother but his enemy, and when he has conquered it he moves on. He leaves his father's graves and his children's birthright is forgotten.

"There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insect wings. But perhaps because I am savage and do not understand-the clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lovely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frog around the pond at night.

"The whites too, shall pass-perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the heavy forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. And what is it to say goodbye to the swift and the hunt, the end of living and the beginning of survival."


Chief Sealth of the Duwanish Tribe in Washington wrote these words in a letter sent to President Franklin Pierce in 1855.

[rsmith6621]

7. And Then The Chief Went To Starbucks....

.....END OF STORY!

[Xipe Totec]

10. At least it wasn't in New Orleans

Have another cup of crude oil, laced with sea water...

[RagAss]

14. Thank you.