Famous Quotations by Native North Americans

Compiled by Cheewa James from her book

What is life?

It is the flash of a firefly
in the night.

It is the breath of a buffalo
in the winter time.

It is the little shadow
which runs across the grass
and loses itself in the Sunset.

—Crowfoot, Blackfoot

My heart is filled with joy
when I see you here,
as the brooks fill with water
when the snow melts
in the spring;

And I feel glad as the ponies do
when the fresh grass starts
in the beginning of the year...

I was born upon the prairie
where the wind blew free
and there was nothing to break the light of the sun...

Do not ask us
to give up the buffalo
for the sheep.

—Ten Bears, Comanche

We are part fire, and part dream.
We are the physical mirroring
of Miaheyyun, the Total Universe, upon
this earth, our Mother.

We are here to experience.
We are a movement of a hand within millions of seasons,
a wink of touching within millions and millions of
sun fires. And we speak with the mirroring of the sun.

—Firedog, Cheyenne

When legends die,
there are no more dreams.
When there are no more dreams,
there is no more greatness.

—Anonymous

Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round
like a ball and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls.

Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.
The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle.
The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great
circle in their changing and always come back where they were.

The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and
so it is in everything where power moves.

—Black Elk , Oglala Sioux

Look at your
neighbor and make him sparkle.

Your eyes
are the mirror of your soul.

When you sparkle your eyes,
whether you think
you are beautiful or not,
you are.

—Twylah Nitsch, Seneca

Wars are fought to see
who owns the land, but in
the end it possesses man. Who
dares say he owns it is he
not buried beneath it?

—Cochise, Chiricahua Apache

We live, we die, and like the grass and trees,
renew ourselves from the soft clods of the grave.
Stones crumble and decay, faiths grow old
and they are forgotten, but new beliefs are born.

The faith of the villages is dust now,
but it will grow again like the trees.

—Old One, Wanapum

A few more passing suns will see us here no more,
and our dust and bones will mingle with these same prairies.
I see as in a vision the dying spark of our council fires, the ashes cold and white.
I see no longer the curling smoke rising from our lodge poles.
I hear no longer the songs of the women as they prepare the meal.

The antelope have gone; the buffalo wallows are empty. Only the wail of the coyote is heard.
The white man's medicine is stronger than ours;
His iron horse rushes over the buffalo trail.
He talks to us through his 'whispering spirit' (the telephone).

We are like birds with a broken wing.
My heart is cold within me.
My eyes are growing dim.

—Chief Plenty-Coups, Crow

A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong.
Someday I will embrace our brother tribes and draw them into a bundle
and together we will win our country back from the whites.

—Tecumseh, Shawnee

We respected our old people above all others in the tribe.
To live to be so old they must have been brave
and strong, and good fighters, and we aspired to be like them.

We never allowed our old people to want for anything...
We looked upon our old people as demigods of a kind,
and we loved them deeply. They were all our fathers.

—Buffalo Child Long Lance, Sioux

Mother Corn has fed you, as she has fed all Hopi people, since long, long ago
when she was no larger than my thumb.
Mother Corn is a promise of food and life. I grind with gratitude
for the richness of our harvest, not with cross feelings of working too hard.

As I kneel at my grinding stone, I bow my head in prayer, thanking
the great forces for provision.

I have received much.

I am willing to give much in return...there must be a giving back
for what one receives.

—Sevenka Qoyawayma, Hopi

Old age was simply a delightful time,
when the old people sat on the sunny doorsteps,
playing in the sun with the children until they fell asleep.

At last, they failed to wake up.

—Jaytiamo, Acoma

May serenity circle on silent wings and
catch the whisper of the wind.

—Cheewa James, Modoc