FROM RESPECT TO WISDOM
What have we to learn from the Indian? Perhaps modesty, that we can be wrong, and that the earliest Americans sacrificed, without justice, thousands of human beings. Perhaps patience, for the Native Americans have shown great patience in waiting for justice.
Perhaps respect, for the Indians have taught us all how to respect the environment and the earth. Perhaps compassion, for the Native Americans have shown compassion to others, even under the most difficult of circumstances.
Perhaps bravery, for the Native American warrior had to prepare himself to fight against an encroaching culture with sophisticated weapons far more powerful than any the Indian tribes had. Perhaps justice, for the speeches of Indian chiefs reached for the very soul of justice while they pled their cases (their words often falling on deaf and unsympathetic ears).
Perhaps loyalty, honor, and trust: for they have remained loyal to their beliefs, have shown honor for those who were bravest, and have shown trust when addressed by sincere men of honest word, like William Penn. Perhaps wisdom and humor, for the Indians do not practice deception or tell lies in the manner of their conquerors; there is much wisdom in the lined faces of their chiefs.
IMPERISHABLE QUALITIES
They still have humor, despite all that has happened: they are still able to laugh and create folk tales and poetry with gentle messages to pass on from ancestors to posterity as they have done for centuries past. However we define the best virtues of human beings, we see them many times over in Native Americans.
However one selects the very best qualities in people, we find these same qualities in Native Americans: honesty, loyalty, compassion, moral conviction, and personal courage. These are all qualities reflecting strength of character and are perhaps so highly developed because Native Americans put the well-being of their community first.
They are strong in the three R’s of Respect: respect for others, respect for Nature, and respect for wisdom. They respect their elders and teach their children with love and kindness.
ADDRESSING PAST INJUSTICES
Since we live on the land taken from them by conquest, perhaps there is still more we can learn from them if we give them, and ourselves, new chances to understand each other. Until we seek remedies for old insults and evil practices, we will have learned nothing. We will be like small seed pods blowing in the wind, but too light in weight to be of consequence. We cannot land and take root if we do not admit and correct the injustices we, and earlier Americans, have committed in the name of “progress”.
This notion sounds complicated to some, but I find it to contain a simple truth. It is easy to escape responsibility by saying: “I did not commit these terrible acts against the Native Americans. These tragic events were perpetrated by others, long ago.” But if we do not take responsibility, who will? If we are not a new generation brave enough to help Native Americans, then who is left?
All men and women are human beings and belong to the same family of man. The Native American is my brother and I need no other reason to set my mind on the goal of befriending the Indian and improving his life in every way possible. In good conscience, we must at least try! There are those in our country who wish to forget our Native Americans. Have they no shame? Haven’t enough crimes already been omitted against the Indians?
Must we add the crimes of neglect and forgetfulness as well? You, who smile smugly with such uncouth insolence, with such self-congratulatory glee, on land that never belonged to your ancestors!
LIES ARE NOT VIRTUES
The universally prevalent statement “Columbus discovered America”, found in every history textbook, is itself a fine example of European bias. When “Europe” was still in its infancy, when Rome was not yet built, when the Greeks were primitive, and long before the ancient societies of the Sumerians and Babylonians arose–there were Native Americans living on this land.
Today’s “enlightened Americans” still have one trait in common with their Indian-killing ancestors: they preach one thing but do another: their actions reveal many lies and deceptions. How can we expect Native Americans to believe the white man when white men lie in order to deceive and conquer? How can we expect Native Americans to trust the white man when they lie without compunction–when they even accuse, betray, and deceive one another?
You wish to teach us what is right and how to live in modern America. I say we have lived here for thousands of years and we will continue to live the way we choose, not the way you dictate to us. This land is our home.
MOTHER EARTH IS OUR HOME
This earth is like a mother to us. There is room enough for all to share and enjoy for the Creator has been generous to the Indians, giving them plenty of good land with beautiful streams and rivers to enjoy, mountains for wildlife, and open prairies for the buffalo. We do not need your lessons in right and wrong or be told by you how to live.
The land has shown us the natural way of all things for a long time now. We wonder how others get so lost! They cannot find their own souls. How does a person lose the trail of nature that beats within our hearts? How can the conquering white man be so wrong and still insist he is always right?
Such conceit and evil doing is not the good way. We must show respect for all living things. That is the good way, the way our fathers taught us and their fathers’ fathers before them. Does the white man have no eyes with which to see, no ears with which to hear? Is this land less beautiful to the eyes of an Indian than to the eyes of a white man?
Are not our two races perfectly equal in all respects? There is no superior or inferior race. Each is unique and true to its own customs, language, and ways of living. The Red Man had much to teach the white man but his ears were closed. He did not wish to hear our message.
He chased the prizes of greed more than he sought wisdom. He cheated himself while thinking he was cheating others. A man with no no compassion in his heart can never be made happy or whole by material things!
The white people name places after Indian tribes but they do not remember the Native American ways. The descendants of the warlike conquering Europeans live in America today and boast of all they have but they do not remember to make amends for their sins.
They do not remember the first peoples of this land nor the 10,000 years of their history. But as long as truth exists, the voices of the chiefs and the Native American people will be heard even when the silences arising from the Valleys of Death appear to stalk the landscape everywhere.
One cannot silence truth. One cannot replace truth with lies. The lies will destroy themselves and the people who tell them. Always it has been this way; always truth returns from the ashes of the fire. Truth is indestructible.
This the Native American people know. Our truths last long because they come from Mother Earth. Our wise chiefs know this and have asked the white man to listen to his heart.
The white man loves to read but in studying so many small details, he forgets to look at larger truths. For one cannot study or teach truth without coming in time to the words of the Wise Ones.
If the old ones have this much wisdom, would we not be wise to listen?
-Prof. Rosenberg
Started April 30, 1993;
Finished March 10, 2015
At home: San Jose, CA.
