Food for Thought still Relevant for Today

You must speak straight so that your words may go as sunlight into our hearts.
Chief Cochise
Ciricahua Apache

When we talk about the environment, we have to talk about spirituality…even things like food and spirituality go together. Why did God make this world? Are we going to spoil His gifts-trees, animals, water? Spirituality has to take the place of greed.
Joe Cardinal
Cree

Only a radical reversal of our attitudes towards nature can help us. While it is comforting to see the nations of the world meet and begin to deal with our environmental catastrophe, we may even mow be too late to change the conditions we have created.
Vine Deloris, Jr.
Nakota Sioux

All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the Mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.
Chief Joseph
Nez Perce

We were on pretty good terms with the Great Spirit, Creator and Ruler of All…We saw the Great Spirit’s work in almost everything: sun, moon, trees, wind, and mountains.
Sometimes we approached Him through these things. Was that so bad? Indians living close to nature and nature’s ruler are not living in darkness.
Tatanga Mani (Walking Buffalo)
Stoney

I believe the Earth will renew herself and things will go back to the old way of the Indian. You will not see it, but I will.
Albert Lightning
Plains Cree

The Creator put us here with so much for our use and gives us a route to go by, but our own self-will is strong….we are always being tested as we prepare for the next world….harmonious, healthy, societies find it natural to help each other, because its members have peace of mind knowing that they are a single expression of the Creator.
Wallace Mountain Horse
Blood

The Indian needs no writings; words that are true sink deep into his heart where they remain.
Four Guns
Oglala Sioux

Teach your Children what we have taught our Children; that the Earth is our Mother. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the Sons of Earth….We are a part of the Earth and it is a part of us. We belong to the Earth. There is no death only a change of worlds.
Chief Seatle,
Squamish

Do not misunderstand me, but understand me fully with reference to my affection for the land. I never said the land was mine to do with as I choose. The One who has the right to dispose of it is the One who created it. I claim a right to live on my land, and accord you the privilege to live on yours.
Chief Joseph,
Nez Perce

It was good for the skin to touch the Earth and the old people liked to remove their moccasins and walk with bare feet on the Sacred Earth.
Chief Luther Bear
Sioux

Our basic reason for being here as Indians, as whites, as any race, is to recognize our responsibilities to our Creator; to raise our children in His image, according to the laws He gave us, and to relate to all people and to all things around us within the framework of those laws.
Harold Cardinal
Cree

Good words do not last long unless they amount to something.
Chief Joseph,
Nez Perce

In the life of the Indian there was only one inevitable duty-the duty of prayer, the daily recognition of the Unseen and Eternal. His daily devotions were more necessary to him than daily food.
Charles Alexander Eastman
Santee Sioux

Although a lot of people think that the Grandfathers have abandoned us, what with all the bad things that have been going on in the Indian World, these Spirits have always been with us. It is we who would have forgotten about them.
Chief John Snow
Stoney

If the Great Spirit wanted men to stay in one place he would make the world stand still…
Chief Flying Hawk,
Oglala Sioux