WE WILL BE KNOWN BY THE TRACKS WE LEAVE BEHIND

HUMANKIND HAS NOT WOVEN THE WEB OF LIFE.

WE ARE BUT ONE THREAD WITHIN IT.

WHATEVER WE DO TO THE WEB WE DO TO OURSELVES.

ALL THINGS ARE BOUND TOGETHER.
ALL THINGS CONNECT.

The sight of your cities pains the eye of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is savage and does not understand. There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring, or the rustle of an insect's wings.

But perhaps it is 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 lonely cry of the whip-poor-will or the arguments of the frogs around a pond, and the smell of the wind itself, cleansed by rain or scented with the pine cone. The air is precious to the red man, for all things share the same breath; the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath.

The white men , they all share the 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 life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also received 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 and taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.

So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept I will make one condition. The white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers. I am 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 savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be 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 spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon 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 that 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 earth. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself. Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as a friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny.

We may be brothers after all.
We shall see.

One thing we know, which the white man may one day discover -- "our God is the same God".



You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot. He is the God of man and his compassion is equal for the red man and the white. The earth is precious to him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt upon its Creator.

The Whites, too, shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in your own waste. But in your perishing, you will shine brightly, fired by the strength of God who brought you to this land and, for some special purpose, gave you dominion over this land and over the red man. That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted out by talking wires.


CHIEF SEATTLE