Native Wisdom - Part Two Back to Wisdom 1
You white folk you’re always asking questions. You never just watch and listen.
You can usually learn what you need to know by watching and listening.
The body is full of stuffed tears. Tears of grief and tears of rage and the steam makes the body cry. Then the body is ready to receive love.
The center of the universe is everywhere.
A man’s soul can only travel as fast as his feet can carry him.
Earth, water and sea belong to the gods and people are here to enhance them, not deplete them.
=============================================================
Everyone needs to be corrected sometime, even when they’re right.
The man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.
We must respect our Mother, the Earth, or we can never grow as human beings, her children.
I believe much trouble and blood would be saved if we opened our hearts more.
Old people are highly respected, honored and loved. They are regarded as the living links with the ancestors.
“We” overrides” me.”
We cannot depend on governments to heal our wounds. We have to help each other.
Other people can rape and damage my body. Only I can damage my soul.
The creator designed us to learn by trial and error. The path of life we walk is very wide. Everything on the path is sacred—what we do right is sacred—but our mistakes are also sacred. This is the Creator’s way of teaching spiritual people. To criticize ourselves when we make mistakes is not the Indian way. To learn from our mistakes is the Indian way. The definition of a spiritual person is someone is someone who makes 30-50 mistakes each day and talks to the Creator after each one to see what to do next time. This is the way of the warrior.
A lot of tribes don’t have a word for “art” in their language because it is so much a part of their culture.
I want to thank the Creator for all His gifts. I don’t always understand the gifts of those who say negative things about me and who attack me, and I do trust that the Creator has given me these gifts so that I can learn and grow spiritually.
Whenever we pray we always pray “mitakuye oyasin,” for all our relations. We pray for all of the black people, all the yellow people, all the white people, and all the red people. We pray for all our relations.
What God has established, man cannot annul.
I started drinking more seriously, seeking refuge, seeking death actually, from a world that was feeling more and more unnatural to me. Following a painful accident related to drinking, I finally realized that I must decide whether I want to follow my grandparents or to truly take up this life. Circumstances that followed led me to choose life.
BARNEY BUSH, SHAWNEE ELDER
Even though a person may work for a living, they must also devote time and effort to the care of their home and family. This is the true measure of an industrious person.
Perhaps only when people can enjoy their differences as a resource of cultural enrichment do they become truly civilized.
Our white relatives say the Indian is stoic. This is not necessarily true. We just wait to see the true person. Given time, he will show his true self, so we wait and time will provide the proof.
PHIL LANE, SR., YANKTON LAKOTA ELDER
If spirit becomes off balance in the white man’s world, they call it sin. Traditional medicine is with the whole being. Most of the sickness today is of the spirit.
GEORGE GOODSTRIKER, KAINAI (BLACKFOOT) ELDER
When you are ready, come to me. I will take you into nature. In nature you will learn everything you need to know.
ROLLING THUNDER CHEROKEE MEDICINE MAN
I should seek a wise teacher only when I am ready to learn with my entire being.
Remember and think about the closeness of Wakan-Tanka (the Creator, the Great Spirit). If they believe in this wisdom, it will give them endless strength and hope.
FRANK FOOLS CROW LAKOTA CHIEF AND SPIRITUAL LEADER
Wakan-Tanka is not an abstraction our lives. Wakan-Tanka is our lives.
A long time ago the Creator came to Turtle island and said to the Red People, “you will be the keepers of the Mother Earth. Among you I will give you wisdom about Nature, about the interconnectedness of all things, about balance and about living in harmony. You Red people will see the secrets of Nature. You will live in hardship and the blessing of this is you will stay close to the Creator. The day will come when you will need to share the secrets with other people of the earth because they will stray from their spiritual ways. The time to start sharing is today.
Christmas trees are cut without prayers. We need to respect Mother Earth and care for the planet.
FRANKLIN KAHN, NAVAJO ELDER
There is much to learn. We need the elders from many places and many races to teach us!
Long time ago people live by these things because that’s the only way people can get along. By looking at things the right way. We live close together… the way I was brought up has nothing to do with no Whiteman way. Absolutely. What I learned is the Indian way.
PETER JOHN, ATHABASKAN ELDER AND CHIEF MINTO ALASKA
Talk is cheep. Cons are easy. Action requires a commitment.
Humor is the WD-40 of healing.
=============================================================
I’m the spirit’s janitor. All I do is wipe the windows a little bit so you can see out for yourself.
A BALANCE DOES NOT EXIST AT THIS TIME AS THERE IS NO INPUT BY NATIVE PEOPLE INTO THIS WORLD.
We can no longer steal to survive. We need to share to evolve.
You are always welcome to the circle of my campfire. You are family.
The power lies in the wisdom and understanding of ones role in the Great Mystery, and in honoring every living thing as a teacher.
When we understand that animals have something we need to learn, we have started upon the path of humility.
Generosity of the soul shows in all our doings.
=============================================================
Control does not support growth. We need to find ways to give our children freedom and safety.
All life is ceremony. Every act is a ceremony creating a result in our lives. Every ceremony we do always brings results to our lives. If we do bad medicine to others, we do bad medicine to ourselves. If we keep on doing bad ceremonies, we will eventually destroy ourselves. Any time we live out of harmony, we are doing bad ceremonies. Any time we treat anything with disrespect, whether it is another human being or a plant or an animal, we are performing bad ceremonies. These ceremonies not only have an effect on our ourselves but will simultaneously affect everything. We need to use our power well, only do good ceremonies.
Death takes on to much importance when one is not participating in life.
Whenever the Creator gives you something, don’t hesitate. Grab it.
O Great Spirit, who made all races, look kindly upon the whole human family, and take away the arrogance and hatred which separates us from our brothers.
CHEROKEE PRAYER
Wealth is having many relations.
In the old days all these Native people were interested in was making a living. They just took what they needed. They knew that if they left fur animals, they were going to be there next year. It was healthy for the animal population that way because they took the older, bigger animals and the new ones could keep coming.
Greed is very costly, spiritually. Can the planet afford it?
Try to understand water, minerals, vegetation, animal behavior, and then it is easy to understand human behavior.
GEORGE GOODSTRIKER, KAINAI (BLACKFOOT) ELDER
=============================================================
When I understand that humans are just part of the created universe, I have a better understanding of my place.
Participating in change is much different from trying to impose it.
Open hearts have a way of soothing closed minds.
Look behind you. See your sons and your daughters. They are your future. Look farther and see your sons’ and daughters’ children and their children’s children even unto the seventh generation. That’s the way we were taught. Think about it—you yourself are a seventh generation.
LEON SHENANDOAH, ONONDAGAN ELDER
I ask the Great Spirit to give me knowledge and awareness so that the choices I make will honor the Creator and serve the generations that follow.
God has given us many gifts, one of which is our bodies.
Freedom is the right to exercise diversity and live our truth.
I’m just glad that now the sun does rise and the days are warm, so that I can listen to the birds singing happily, and the animals munching away at their food.
When I get too busy to stop and be grateful, I probably need to reexamine my priorities.
Being “poor in spirit” is what makes me discontent, not the lack of material things.
Nature is the storehouse of potential life of future generations and is sacred.
=============================================================
When I respect all of Creation, I benefit, as I am part of Creation.
GOD TAKES CARE. I DON’T CARE WHOSE GOD IT IS.
We need as broad a spiritual base as possible if we are to live spiritual lives.
We need to respect and love for all things and for all people.
Respect is the key to living.
Everyone has to find the right path. You can’t see it so it’s hard to find. No one can show you. Each person has to find the path by himself.
CHARLIE KNIGHT, UTE ELDER
=============================================================
An unpleasing truth is better than a pleasing falsehood.
For every problem solved by
the mind, it creates ten more. We need to get to heart or soul!
=============================================================
When my thinking is not balanced by my heart and soul, I get into a heap of trouble.
How can people say one skin is colored when each has its own coloration? What should it matter that one bowl is dark and the other pale, if each is of good design and serves its purpose well? We who are clay blended by the Master Potter come from the kiln of Creation in many hues.
POLINGAYSI QOYAWAYMA, POTTER AND HOPI ELDER
Education is much more than a learning a body of knowledge. It is living wisdom.
=============================================================
How much we miss when we don’t know the presence of things unseen.
Sometimes, what we learn from Native people is how to be ourselves.
=============================================================
Our greatest wealth is in the number of elders and children.
I translate the teaching and compare it with other religions. A lot of them know the same things Hopi Elders know; we’re going to have big problems in the world, We are children of Mother Earth and we were sent to different area to take care of, to use our language, our ceremonies, whatever we develop to help keep this land life in balance. We have no business going around disturbing other people’s land and life. We can help them with every invention we have, but not use that to try and control them.
THOMAS BANYACYA, HOPI ELDER
The Okanagan word for ourselves is sqilw. Which in a literal translation means, ‘the dream in the spiral.’ We recognize our individual lives as the continuance of human dreams. We know our lives to be the tools of the vast human dream mind which is continuing on into the future.
Tashi would remind me that knowledge and understanding were not sufficient in themselves. In fact they could be dangerous, he would say, if not accompanied by compassion.
HELA NORBERG-HODGE
Did you know that trees talk? Well, they do. They talk to each other, and they’ll talk to you if you listen… I have learned a lot from trees; sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit.
TATANGA MANI (WALKING BUFFALO), STONEY TRIBE
SPIRITUALITY IS EASY. IT’S RELIGIONS THAT CAUSE PROBLEMS.
Life is circular.
We Lakotas have a term, Okolakicye . When translated in English, it means a league, fellowship, community, or society, without which, unity cannot thrive. In looking at life, we realize the brevity. Life is like the breath of a buffalo in the winter time. So what does that tell us? “Live with purpose and concern for the people. It’s brief, my friends!’
PHIL LANE, SR., YANKTON LAKOTA ELDER
There’s many ways to meditate. Some of us go to the mountains, some go beside a river, some go on a hill. There are many places to be by yourself a little bit, to get away from the noisy world. Give yourself a chance.
HORACE AXTELL, NEZ PERCE ELDER
=============================================================
The love of possessions is a disease among them.
SITTING BULL, HUNKPAPA TETON SIOUX
We knew this is the wealthiest part of the continent, because here the Great Spirit lives. We knew that the White Man will search for the things that look good to him, that he will use many good ideas in order to obtain his heart’s desire, and we knew that if he had strayed from the Great Spirit he would use any means to get what he wants. These things we were warned to watch, and we today know that those prophecies were true because we can see how many new and selfish ideas and plans are being put before us. We know that if we accept these things we will lose our land and give up our lives.
DAN KATCHONGVA, HOPI
The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard.
STANDING BEAR, LAKOTA SIOUX
We Indians have a more human philosophy of life. We Indians will show this country how to act human. Someday this country will revise it’s Constitution, its laws, in terms of human beings instead of property. If Red Power is to be a power in this country it is because it is ideological… What is the ultimate value of a man’s life? That is the question.
VINE DELORIA, JR., SIOUX WRITER
(Being a warrior) It is a willingness to sacrifice everything except your truth, your way of being, your commitment. The ultimate stand is to is to your commitment to do something with your life that will make a difference.
DOUGLAS CARDINAL
We grow up knowing that the land is our Mother. We know that there can be no monetary value for our Mother.
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 losses itself in the Sunset.
CROWFOOT, BLACKFOOT ELDER
Centuries ago you white people chose the path of science and technology. That path will destroy the planet. Our role is to protect the planet. We are hoping that you discover this before it’s too late.
REUBEN KELLY
It’s happening all over the country and the same thing is coming about a new life, a new reconnection, and a new relationship, trying to understand what the Creator meant for us to do.
GEORGE GOODSTRIKER, BLACKFOOT ELDER
I know that our people possessed remarkable powers of concentration and abstraction, and I sometimes fancy that such nearness to nature as I have described keeps the spirit sensitive to impressions not commonly felt, and in touch with the unseen powers.
OHIYESA (CHARLES EASTMAN), SANTEE DAKOTA
The conception of reality is circular, one of a constant returning. There is not the sense that this life is the only opportunity. Death is as much a beginning as an end, a passing from one birth to the next, not a final dissolution.
IN THE ABSENCE OF THE SACRED—NOTHING IS SACRED—EVERYTHING IS FOR SALE.
The woman was considered the equal if not the most important because she was the basis of the family.
ALEX PUA, HAWAIIAN ELDER
When you lie to a person you hurt his soul.
Just because I don’t have a degree, I don’t know anything… They (college graduates who work for the Fish and Game) tell me all about what’s going on with the animals and they think they’ve got it wired, but they don’t know one lousy thing except what they read out of a book. And half the stuff they read in a book is wrong because the guy who wrote it didn’t know nothing about it. But it’s gospel once it’s in writing.
AL WRIGHT, ARTHABASKAN-ANGLO ELDER MINTO ALASKA
“If you’re going to break the branches off, talk to it. They’re your friends.” Grandma told them what to do. Exactly what to do and how to do it. “Don’t rush. That’s your friend,” she said. “If you’re gonna break it off or chop on it, you talk to it before you hurt it. They used to be people. Those trees used to be people long, long time ago. And they became a tree. Good people. That’s why they live today. Still here.”
ALTONA BROWN, ATHABASKASKAN ELDER
Do no wrong nor hate your neighbor; for it is not he that you wrong; you wrong yourself.
SHAWNEE CHANT
Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness and regardful of the rule that “thought comes before speech.”
CHIEF LUTHER STANDING BEAR, OGALA (TETON) SIOUX ELDER
Listen to the serenade of nature singing the Song of God. The voice that floats on the wings of the wind, to those who are able to hear, is Love’s celestial Song of Love that will drive away all fears.
The welfare of the people was what was important. In ceremonies held early in their lives, children were taught to think of what was best for the tribe as a whole. Being selfish or thinking only of oneself was unheard of.
The Indian was a natural conservationist . He destroyed nothing, great or small. Destruction was not a part of Indian thought and action; if it had been, and had the man been ruthless savage he has been accredited with being, he would have long ago preceded the European in the labor of destroying the natural life of this continent. The Indian was frugal in the midst of plenty. When the buffalo roamed the plains in multitudes he slaughtered only what he could eat and these he used to the hair and bones.
I know of no species of plant, bird or animal that were exterminated until the coming of the white man.
CHIEF LUTHER STANDING BEAR
During the first year a newly married couple discovers whether they can agree with each other and can be happy—if not, they part, and look for other partners. If we were to live together and disagree, we should be foolish as the Whites.
BLACK HAWK, SAUK ELDER
The real true self—the real pure heart—we can come together.
AND I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY SOME PEOPLE HAVE MORE THAN OTHERS. PEOPLE SHOULD SHARE WHAT THEY HAVE. GREED IS GOING TO DESTROY EVERYBODY.
A QUIESTIONING MAN IS HALFWAY TO BEING WISE.
You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that this because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round. The Wind, in its greatest power whirls. Birds make their nest in circles… the sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The Moon does the same, and both are round. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood and so it is in everything where power moves.
BLACK ELK, OGALA (TETON) DAKOTA ELDER
Our Planet is being destroyed. When we came to this Planet, our role was to protect her. We are not doing our job.
Listen! Or your tongue will make you deaf.
CHEROKEE SAYING
The land was created by God. Therefore, it belongs to God.
Many religions have been brought to this land. And the way my religion is, they teach me and taught me and told me to respect all religions. When someone else believes what his Creator is, we can stand and pray together.
HORACE AXTELL, NEZ PERCE ELDER
=============================================================
Without heritage… without lands… without nations… You’ll just be another millionaire.
They always told us to share food, even if it’s our last. Never let anyone leave our home without a meal. Never make bad feelings over food, because food comes along every day.
I want all my children and grandchildren to experience some part of the spiritual, Indian spiritual beliefs.
=============================================================
Observation was certain to have its rewards. Interest, wonder, admiration grew, and the fact was appreciated that life was more than mere human manifestation; it was expressed in a multitude of forms.
It was our belief that love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome. Its appeal is to the material part, and if allowed its way, it will in time disturb one’s spiritual balance. Therefore, children must early learn the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving.
So, I would say right off the bat, that if we’re going to change, make changes, the first thing that we have to is understand discipline. Then being able to apply it to ourselves individually. Because only individually can we change things. We can’t go out and tell somebody else what to do. But, first we have to do it ourselves.
The Elders once told me that the Indian people were spared so that we can be the driving force to save Mother Earth. The ashes of our ancestors have been intermingled with the earth on this continent for millennia.
BILLY REDWING TOYAC, PISCATAWAY CHIEF
It takes every blade of grass to make the meadow green.
While living I want to live well. I know I have to die sometime, but even if the heavens were to fall on me, I want to do what is right. There is one God looking down on us all. We are all children of the one God. God is listening to me. The sun, the darkness, the winds, are listening to what we now say.
GERONIMO, CHIRICAHUA APACHE WARRIOR
The wisdom of Native people can open many new doors to spirituality. I am grateful for whatever Native people have to share with me.
TWO WOLVES
An elder was teaching his grandchildren about life.
He said to them,” A fight is going on inside of me…
It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.
One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret,
Greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority,
Lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.
The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity,
Humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity,
Truth, compassion, and faith.
The same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person too.”
They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “which wolf will win?’
The old Elder simply replied….
“The one you feed.’
Back to Wisdom 1