Earth; "I am a Savage and do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be made more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive. What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, happens to man. All things are connected." "You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children what the Earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children what we have taught our children, that the Earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth. If men spit on the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know - the Earth does not belong to men - man belongs to the Earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected." Air; "The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man, they all share same breath. the white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life its supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetenend by the meadow's flowers. (...) That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffaloes are slaughtered, the wild horses tamed, the corners of the forest heavy with scent of many men, and view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the Eagle? Gone. The end of living and the biginning of survival." These words were spoken in a reply from Chef Seattle's to the american governement, which, in 1854, proposed that he leaves his land to the whites and promised the indian people a "revervation".
i which other people could see the way that you do the earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth
