Native American Wisdom E-Book

Gustav Almlöf

• Herausgeber: Gustav Almlöfs bokförlag zoferos
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 208

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

A book in which various well-known and lesser-known Native Americans talk about life from the indigenous perspective, their views on white people, and the problems of not respecting nature and other people in an ever-changing world. The most essential part of the book is presentations of quotes by Geronimo, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Gertrude S. Bonnin, Tecumseh and many others. The common denominator is a temperate view on life that can inspire people nowadays as the quotes are simply timeless. Again, the key part of the book is the quotes - or their own words. To make the reading experience more interesting there is also a short introductory essay, maps, biographies and many photographs and images. All this combined probably makes it the most thorough book of its kind. And finally some food for thought: "When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you cannot eat money."

Leseprobe

My sincerest gratitude to Sara Greensfelder, Marlise Wabun Wind, Niklas Almlöf, Anders Mathlein, Ingela Andersson and John Webb, as well as all those kind and accommodating people on the other side of the globe who have been instrumental with the portraits and some information regarding individuals and quotes. Thank you.

A special thank you to my father for linguistic discussions, guidance concerning images and encouragement.

A few words on the topic

They are timeless, these sapient thoughts from a variety of Native Americans.* A lot of us are in awe of nature and her many wonders, and also show her due respect and a soothing place where we can replenish our energy and strength.

In the following quotes a vast number of Native Americans from different tribes and centuries share their thoughts and reflections regarding their way of life, chilling encounters with the ‘white man’ and ravings for nature and animals.

The quotes can be experienced as slightly rugged, but still they are imbued with a beautiful, poetic and essential simplicity that may inspire even the most conflicted personage.

The selection span from the 17th century up until the 21st century.

G. Almlöf

* There is disagreement concerning how to denominate the Native Americans in a correct and non-condescending manner.

American Indians? Well…

Many consider ’Native Americans’ or the tribe affiliations to be the safest route, for example, Apache, Cherokee, Mohawk, Sioux, Huron et cetera.

Regarding the denomination ‘Indian Nation’ which is kind of an abstract concept in this case, since to the best of my knowledge, they have never been adjudged self-law or considered independent nations, despite being a people of their own, will pop up here and there in the quotes. ‘Indian Nation’ is something on a larger scale than a ‘tribe’ and not to be mistaken for being the same thing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

The New World –

A short introduction to America in the shaping

The End of the Trail

MAPS

I HAVE SPOKEN

Geronimo

Sitting Bull

Gertrude S. Bonnin

Chief Luther Standing Bear

White Parfleche

Chief Joseph

Chief White Eagle

Tecumseh

Cochise

Vincent LaDuke

Simon Pokagon

Christine Quintasket

Eagle Chief

Chief Dan George

Chased-by-Bears

Joseph Brant

Crazy Horse

Red Jacket

John Fire Lame Deer

Chief Edward Moody

Black Elk

Charles A. Eastman

Curly Chief

Maquinna

Four Guns

Chief Seattle

Jack Wilson

King Powhatan

Red Cloud

Ten Bears

Wooden Leg

Ely S. Parker

Teedyuscung

Lone Man

Peter Jones

Brave Buffalo

Corn Tassel

George Copway

Shingwaukonse

Black Hawk

Sarah Winnemucca

Peter Blue Cloud

Satanta

Canassatego

Sharitahrish

Francis Assikinack

Tomochichi

Chief Plenty Coups

Robert Higheagle

Many Horses

Flat-Iron

Dan Katchongva

Spotted Tail

James Paytiamo

Toohoolhoolzote

Buffalo-Bird-Woman

ANONYMOUS QUOTES, REMINISCENCES AND PROVERBS

GUIDANCE

SPIRITUAL MATTERS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

– Introductory essay

– End of the Trail

– Biographies

– Quotes

– Images

– The Portraits in the Book

GLOSSARY

AH-BADT-DADT-DEAH – THE CROW PEOPLES WORD FOR GOD

HOGAN – A HUT COVERED IN MUD AND DIRT (NAVAJO PEOPLE)

SQUAW – WOMAN

TIPI – TENT

TIRAWA – THE PAWNEE PEOPLES WORD FOR GOD

TOMAHAWK – AXE

USEN – THE APACHE WORD FOR GOD

WAKAN TANKA – THE LAKOTA PEOPLES WORD FOR GOD

WAKANDA – THE PLAINS’ PEOPLES WORD FOR GOD

WASICHUS – WHITE PEOPLE

WIGWAM – HUT

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY

The New World

A short introduction to America in the shaping

Before America came to be the United States it was an uncharted continent that first came to be called The New World from circa 1492 and onwards, often North and South America, but also Oceania and Antarctica can be added to the label.* It was not until 1776 with the Declaration of Independence that America started to form into the United States we know today.

The explorer Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) set sail towards India in 1492, but instead ended up in the New World, and today he is attributed with the discovery of this new continent – despite him probably not being the first white man to set foot there. The designation Indian is also inaccurate when in fact Columbus thought he had reached India, but the expression has been with us ever since and many times people talked of ‘American Indians’.

Long before white Europeans began the colonization of the New World there were already natives living there.** At the time of Columbus discovery it is estimated that there were about 10-12 million natives on the continent.

Several European nations hurried to claim land and make war against each other. Great Britain, France and Spain ought to have been the nations with the biggest desire to conquer and grab vast areas of land in their capacity as colonizers.

Now we are moving ahead of the events though, for how did the country look like before 1492?

There seems to be a sort of consensus that a land bridge was formed during the last Ice Age, which connected Northeast Asia with Northwestern America (Siberia and Alaska). This land bridge is known as Beringia or the Bering land bridge, today known as the Bering Strait. People likely walked over this land bridge from Siberia and into America where they settled down.

As the ice cover melted away they scattered in all directions inland. It is said that there have been people in America circa 5-8000 years before the ice melted in Beringia. These people are usually referred to as Paleo-Indians, which are divided into Clovis and Folsom.* It has long been argued that Clovis are the true natives of the continent, but later research during the 1990s has proved that there have been other people in present North America as far back as circa 11.000 B.C, which is 1500 years before Clovis.

The quotes/words of wisdom that are presented in this book come from a time when the white man had already made his spiteful entrance. It is easy to say this was when the problems began for the natives. America was a country and a nation in the making, with all that entails.

In the 16th century, the Spanish colonial power stumbled upon villages surrounded by piles and people of agriculture. It was not until the late 17th century that the nomadic and buffalo-hunting horse cultures came into existence, but it was during the late 18th century that the Sioux for example – the most famous tribe of the prairies – began a nomadic life on the plains. Something that most people ought to associate with the Wild West.

The Native American on horseback was from the French-Indian War between 1754-1763 an impressive sight on the prairie.

There were horses on the continent about 35-56 million years ago and 60 million-year-old fossils from Eohippus (the ancestor of the modern horse), but these became extinct approximately 11.700 years ago during the pleistocene** with extensive Ice Ages. Thru Beringia, the horses could journey over to Asia and then continue westward and in doing so they managed to escape total extinction. With Columbus and the conquistadors Spanish horses*** were re-introduced on the continent in 1492. However, there are people that dispute the correctness in these statements, and instead say that living horses were there long before the arrival of the Spanish.

”[…] the Indigenous horses of the Americas would have certainly had time to notice the impending environmental shifts, migrate, and find appropriate safe havens, or ”refugia.”1

It was in close proximity to the place we know today as Mexico City where it took off in 1519. Many horses that were brought in for breeding and which did not make the cut were set free whilst others escaped. These undomesticated herds lived on the prairies and steppes.

It is said that Native Americans at first were scared of them since they had never before seen a horse, but eventually, they learned from the settlers how to handle the horses. Native Americans came to be known as recognized people of horses and excelled when it came to breeding. Different breeds such as the tigrine appaloosa, the paint horse and the Nez Percé horse, can all be said to be products of their industrious work of breeding.

These colorful horses are sometimes referred to as ‘Indian Horses’.

Between the 16th and the 20th century, the various indigenous people were pushed aside, and their numbers were heavily decimated in a horrifying and industrial manner. Severe hardships in the form of disease, war and starvation came to be everyday life for the Native Americans.

Fairly ordinary diseases such as chickenpox, measles, smallpox, cholera, and typhus caused great mortality. The white people also distributed large quantities of liquor to practice unilateral and favorable trade and contract writing. Abuse of alcohol was a fact that came to influence many tribes. Native Americans also started getting used to white peoples’ commodities and got stuck in a dependence that led to a depletion of their traditional ways of living.

President Andrew Jackson’s (1767-1845) Indian Removal Act in 1830 was all about systematically expelling and moving people from their homes to other and specially selected and allotted places called reservations. The barren and malaria-ridden ’Indian Territory’ in Oklahoma is a famous example.

During the latter part of the 19th century the remaining indigenous people were sent away to different reservations and the buffalo – the traditional game of the Native American – was almost completely extinct. By using prohibition they also tried to suppress their language, culture, and religion. In addition, Christianity was forced upon them.

It is by no means wrong to say that these actions against the Native Americans are some of the most insensitive and irrational in the history of the world.

Native Americans could surely be strikingly cruel, taking scalping for example (scalping is to remove a piece of skin with hair from the top of the head using a knife on a fallen enemy, which was considered a kind of trophy) and they also fought amongst themselves – tribe against tribe – because they could not agree, but it is the way in which the white man treated the indigenous people that have made it into the poorest and most marginalized ethnic group in the country today.

This forms the center stage (the age, setting and context) where the following quotes have been formulated.

PAINTING: Frederic Remington

“Looking through the Telescope”

SCULPTURE: James Earle Fraser

“The End of the Trail”

* Please compare with the Old World, which was constituted by Europe, Africa and Asia.

** For a long time faulty rumours flourished that the first people who lived there were the The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel or refugees from the lost and sunken island of Atlantis.

* Clovis complex was an ancient hunter and gathering culture that have been named after the first archaeological site found in 1929, near Clovis, New Mexico. Folsom complex is said to have originated from the Clovis complex. They are distinguished by using a sort of leaf shaped spearhead, which are called ’Folsom Points’.

** Pleistocene is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2.580.000 to 11.700 years ago. The northern hemisphere had multiple periods of icing that are usually called Ice ages. Many species were extinct, for example the mammoth and the saber-toothed tiger.

*** These Spanish horses originated from the oriental arab and berber hoses.

1 Collin, Yvette Running Horse, [The Relationship between the Indigenous peoples of the Americas and the horse: deconstructing a Eurocentric Myth], (Alaska 2017), p. 100.

THE END OF THE TRAIL

The magnificent and iconic statue in the photograph is James Earle Fraser’s (1876-1953) work End of the Trail from 1915. The statue is exhibited at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The large piece displays a rider weary in body and spirit who along with his horse reaches the coast where the mainland touches the Pacific. The statue is said to have a symbolic value by commenting on the harm which the Euro-American colonizers made to the indigenous people.

Fraser created the first draft back in 1894, as a young boy in Dakota. He is supposed to have heard an old trapper saying:

”[…] The Indians will someday be pushed into the Pacific Ocean.”2

Later on, he remarked to himself that: ”[…] the idea occured to me of making an Indian which represented his race reaching the end of the trail, at the edge of the Pacific.”3

The original 1915 statue was exhibited at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition that same year. Three years later two copies were made in bronze. The original statue was placed in Mooney Grove Park close to Visalia, California in 1919, but was to be moved to the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma in 1968. In Visalia, they got one of the bronze copies instead and the other one is in Waupun, Wisconsin.

The Museum describes the work as:

”[…] The End of the Trail statue is one of the most recognizable images in the United States. Many people are familiar with the image, but few know its history.”4

2 Vittoria, Shannon, [End of the Trail, Then and Now], New York Metropolition Museum of Modern Art, (February 19, 2014).

3 Vittoria, [End of the Trail, Then and Now].

4 [The End of the Trail as an American Icon], National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

MAPS

THE DIFFERENT INDIGENOUS CULTURAL AREAS IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE TIME IT WENT DOWN (AND THE LARGEST TRIBES):

Northwest Coast – Salish, Bella Coola

California – Pomo, Chumash

Plateau – Nez Percé, Duwamish

Great Basin – Paiute, Ute, Shoshone

Southwest – Apache, Hopi

Great Plains – Sioux, Crow, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa

Eastern Woodlands – Iroquois, Huron, Ojibwe, Mohican

Southern Woodlands – Cree, Cherokee

On the next page you will find a more detailed map, that show the tribes that are of relevance for the contents of this book. For limiting reasons only these are shown.

Oglala Sioux on the map also includes Lakota, Teton and Hunkpapa Santee Sioux on the map also includes Dakota

I HAVE SPOKEN

PHOTO: A.B. Canady

GERONIMO

Goyathlay

BIOGRAPHY

Geronimo [Goyathlay], born in 1829 in No-Doyohn Canyon, Mexico, and passed away in 1909 in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, was Apache and became chief after Cochise’s (c.1815-1874) demise. His name is said to have the meaning ”One who Yawns”.

He was one of the most notorious leaders of his time who along with a small band of warriors practiced guerilla warfare against superior forces and performed numerous raids in both Arizona and Mexico. He was very resentful that his mother, wife and children were killed by Mexicans in 1858.

He surrendered in 1884 but fled from the San Carlo reservation in 1885 together with 35 men, 8 boys and 101 women. Ten months later, in 1886, he surrendered in Sonora, but close to the border, he feared that they would be killed on American soil, which made him flee along with approximately thirty brethren. Five months later he eventually surrendered.

In 1894 he moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in an attempt to follow the ways of the white man and he also joined the Dutch Reformed Church, who eventually excluded him since he couldn’t stay away from gambling. He was never to see Arizona again.

Geronimo told his story to S.M. Barrett (1865-1948) who published the book Geronimo’s Story of His Life (1906).

On his deathbed, Geronimo is said to have called for his nephew and uttered: ”I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive.”5

PHOTO: Camillus S. Fly

”General Crook and Geronimo”

When a child my mother taught me the legends of our people; taught me of the sun and sky, the moon and stars, the clouds and storms. She also taught me to kneel and pray to Usen for strength, health, wisdom, and protection.

We never prayed against any person, but if we had aught against any individual we ourselves took vengeance. We were taught that Usen does not care for the petty quarrels of men.

We had no churches, no religious organizations, no sabbath day, no holidays, and yet we worshiped.

Sometimes the whole tribe would assemble and sing and pray; sometimes a smaller number, perhaps only two or three. The songs had a few words, but were not formal. The singer would occasionally put in such words as he wished instead of the usual tone sound. Sometimes we prayed in silence; sometimes each prayed aloud; sometimes an aged person prayed for all of us. At other times one would rise and speak to us of our duties to each other and to Usen. Our services were short.

5 Craig Dustinn, Colt Sarah, [The American Experience: We Shall Remain Episode 4 – Geronimo], PBS – Transcript, 2009, p. 16.

PHOTO: David Francis Barry

SITTING BULL

Tatanka lyotake

BIOGRAPHY

Sitting Bull [Tatanka lyotake], born c.1831 at Grand River, South Dakota, and passed away in 1890 in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, South Dakota, was a Hunkpapa Lakota chief who opposed the advancement of the white man. He was a persistent resistance fighter under which the Sioux people united in the struggle against the white man.

Among other things he was the leader of a powerful band of warriors called ”Strong Heart” and later a part of ”The Silent Eaters”, who worked for the wellbeing of tribes. His first skirmish with the whites’ was in 1863.

In 1866 he became chief over all the northern Sioux with Crazy Horse (c.1840-1877) as his second in command. Sitting Bull was respected for his courage and his wisdom and was named chief over the Sioux nation in 1867.

The most renowned battle of Sitting Bull was at Little Bighorn in 1876 where all American soldiers were killed. After that event the presence of American troops increased and even though the Sioux won battle after battle, they would never win the war as a whole.

In 1877 he led his remaining brethren into Canada. After four years Sitting Bull was forced to surrender due to famine. From 1883 he lived at the Standing Rock Agency. He was allowed to participate in the Buffalo Bill’s Western Show in 1885, which made him world-famous.

In 1889 the Ghost Dance movement (a circle dance and religious ceremony established by Wovoka (c.1856-1932) in order to, among other things, put an end to colonial rule) and so they feared that Sitting Bull would take advantage of the movement to create a revolt.

James McLaughlin (1842-1923) was sort of a liaison between Native Americans and the government and he was in Fort Yates at the Standing Rock Agency and demanded Sitting Bull to be arrested. It all ended up with Sitting Bull losing his life in the commotion.

If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart he put other and different desires.

Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows. Now we are poor but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights.

When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle.

Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?

What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money?

Yet they say I am a thief.

What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian.

What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has ever seen me beat up my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?

Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country?

PHOTO: Gertrude Käsebier

GERTRUDE S. BONNIN

Zitkala-Sa

BIOGRAPHY

Gertrude S. Bonnin [Zitkala-Sa], born in 1876 in Yankton Indian Reservation, South Dakota, and passed away in 1938 in Washington, D.C. Her name is said to have the meaning ”Red Bird”.

She belonged to the Dakota people and was also known as Gertrude S. Bonnin. Zitkala-Sa is best known for posterity as a writer of, for example, the libretto to The Sun Dance Opera (1913), a collaboration with the composer William F. Hanson (1887-1969) and this was the first-ever Native American opera. She also wrote the books Old Indian Legends (1901) and American Indian Stories (1921) and studied violin at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston between 1897-1899 where she for a time worked as a music teacher at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania.

She wrote articles on the Native American way of life which were published in the magazine Harper’s Weekly (1857-1916) and she was also an editor between 1918-1919 for the American Indian Magazine.

Zitkala-Sa was co-founder of the National Council of American Indians in 1926.

A crater on Venus was named “Bonnin”.

She married Raymond Talesfase Bonnin (1880-1942) and they had a son together.

PHOTO: William Willard

”Hanson and Zitkala-Sa”

The voice of the Great Spirit is heard in the twittering of birds, the rippling of mighty waters, and the sweet breathing of flowers. If this is Paganism, then at present, at least, I am a Pagan.

We send our little Indian boys and girls to school, and when they come back talking English, they come back swearing. There is no swear word in the Indian languages, and I haven’t yet learned to swear.

I have been trained in the concepts of the Christian religion, but I do not find them more beautiful, more noble, or more true than the religious ideals of the Indian. Indeed if one allows for a change in names, the two sets of concepts are much the same. I should not like to see my people lose their ideals, or have them supplanted by others less fitted to influence their lives for good.

I seem to be in a spiritual unrest. I hate this eternal tug of war between being wild or becoming civilized. The transition is an endless evolution that keeps me in a continual Purgatory.

Among the legends the old warriors used to tell me were many stories of evil spirits. But I was taught to fear them no more than those who stalked about in material guise.

THE INDIAN’S AWAKENING

I snatch at my eagle plumes and long hair.

A hand cut my hair; my robes did deplete.

Left heart all unchanged; the work incomplete.

These favors unsought, I’ve paid since with care.

Dear teacher, you wished so much good to me,

That though I was blind, I strove hard to see.

Had you then, no courage frankly to tell

Old race-problems, Christ e’en failed to expel?

My lights has grown dim, and black the abyss

That yawns at my feet. No bordering shore;

No bottom e’er found by hopes sunk before.

Despair I of good from deeds gone amiss.

My people, may God have pity on you!

The learning I hoped in you to imbue

Turns bitterly vain to meet both our needs.

No sun for the flowers, — vain planting seeds.

I’ve lost my long hair; my eagle plumes too.

From you my own people, I’ve gone astray.

A wanderer now, with no where to stay.

The Will-o-the-wisp learning, it brought me rue.

It brings no admittance. Where I have knocked

Some evil imps, hearts, have bolted and locked.

Alone with the night and fearful Abyss

I stand isolated, life gone amiss.

Intensified hush chills all my proud soul.

Oh, what am I? Whither bound thus and why?

Is there not a God on whom to rely?

A part of His Plan, the atoms enroll?

In answer, there comes a sweet Voice and clear,

My loneliness soothes with sounding so near.

A drink to my thirst, each vibrating note.

My vexing old burdens fall far remote.

“Then close your sad eyes. Your spirit regain.

Behold what fantastic symbols abound,

What wondrous host of cosmos around.

From silvery sand, the tiniest grain