Native Quotes

To lose your own language was like forgetting your mother, and as sad, in a way.

Like a good Indian, he knew when to talk and when to remain silent. Like a good Indian, he knew there was never a good time to talk.

Whatever you do to the animals, you do to yourself.

There is a falling from the skyThe sacred hoop is brokenBut different hands with different voiceHear the ancient songsAnd soonAll men will seeThat truth and justiceMustPrevail.

It's striking that Native Americans evolved no devastating epidemic diseases to give to Europeans in return for the many devastating epidemic diseases that Indians received from the Old World.

No matter how hard I try to forget you, you always come back to my thoughts When you hear me singing I am really crying for you.

We need help from above if we are to make progress in our journeys.

To understand American Indians is to understand America. This is the story of the paradoxically least and most American place in the twenty-first century. Welcome to the Rez.

He who runs with the platypus is no more a man than he who swallows chesnuts

Stolen bodies working stolen land. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood.

Their disappearance from the human family would be no great loss to the world.

I could hear my abandoned dreams making a racket in my soul.

One of the maxims of the new field of conservation biological control is that to control insect herbivores, you must maintain populations of insect herbivores.

There is no man who is enterprising and keeps well up with the times but confesses that the women of to-day are in every respect, except political liberty, equal to the men.

And why have you burnt our Gods, when others are brought from other Regions by the Spaniards? Are the Gods of other Provinces more sacred than ours?

We who lose our footing have lost our way.

Kingdom laws are inherent to the native of mankind

Obviously the raven with the unquenchable itch was at it again, playing tricks on the world and its creatures. Once by air, he thought, and now by water.

I decided to write the book I wanted to read

The white folks like for us to be religious, then they can do what they want to with us.

The rancid odor mixed with the dust, death, and confusion as they awaited those who could clean up the mess and make death official.

There is not one Indian in the whole of this country who does not cringe in anguish and frustration because of these textbooks. There is not one Indian child who has not come home in shame and tears.

What a strange sort of love, to be entirely free from that quality of selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion, and sometimes it's only one!

The land is always there...it is you who has to return

Pulling back, like a savage carnivore at its prey, it tore a large chunk of meat rendering his left arm useless...regardless he did not require it for long.

I could see the bay in the distance and where the ship should have been. Instead we found a burnt mast protruding from the waves.

You got what you deserved. Now be a man and confess to what most of us already know.

No, no, my friend. You are kind, and you mean well, but you can never understand these things as I do. You've never been oppressed.

The home ownership process for Native Americans has been hobbled by bureaucratic delays and regulations.