"I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in his sight. It is not necessary for Eagles to be Crows. We are poor..but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die...we die defending our rights."
Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa Sioux
"In 1868, men came out and brought papers. We could not read them and they did not tell us truly what was in them. We thought the treaty was to remove the forts and for us to cease from fighting. But they wanted to send us traders on the Missouri, but we wanted traders where we were. When I reached Washington, the Great Father explained to me that the interpreters had deceived me. All I want is right and just." I am poor and naked, but I am the chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and love.
Red Cloud, Makhpiya-luta, Oglala Sioux
"They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it."
Red Cloud, Makhpiya-luta, Oglala Sioux
"I was hostile to the white man...We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on our reservations. At times we did not get enough to eat and we were not allowed to hunt. All we wanted was peace and to be let alone. Soldiers came...in the winter..and destroyed our villages. Then Long Hair (Custer) came...They said we massacred him, but he would have done the same to us. Our first impulse was to escape...but we were so hemmed in we had to fight. After that I lived in peace, but the government would not let me alone. I was not allowed to remain quiet. I was tired of fighting...They tried to confine me..and a soldier ran his bayonet into me. I have spoken.
Crazy Horse, Oglala Sioux
Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky and water was a real and active principle. And so close did some of the Lakotas come to their feathered and furred friends that in true brotherhood they spoke a common tongue.
The animals had rights...the right of man's protection,the right to live,the right to multiply,
the right to freedom, and the right to man's indebtedness.
Chief Luther Standing Bear, Teton Sioux
"You have noticed that everything an Indian does in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.
In the old days all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished.The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop,and the circle of the four quarters nourished it.The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth,the west gave rain and the north with its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance.This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion.
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 again to where they were.
The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children."
Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
"You took our drum, the heartbeat of the people and called it a war drum.
You took our knowledge bonnets worn by our leaders and called them war bonnets.
You took our sacred horses and belittled them by calling them war ponies.
You ridiculed our death masks and called it war paint. And you refused to understand the power of the sacred pipe but you still called it the peace pipe."
Harry Charger,
Leader of the Lakota/Nakota/Dakota Foot Soldiers
A warrior who had more than he needed would make a feast. He went around and invited the old and needy....The man who would thank the food--some worthy old medicine man or warrior--said: "...look to the old, they are worthy of old age; they have seen their days and proven themselves.
With the help of the Great Spirit, they have attained a ripe old age. At this age the old can predict or give knowledge or wisdom, whatever it is; it is so. At the end is a cane. You and your family shall get to where the cane is."
Black Elk Oglala Sioux Holy Man
They say that at one time we were civilized and educated. My grandfather told me that. They say we could talk to the trees and all the green. They say we could talk to the winged-people, the four-legged, creeping-crawlers, mammals and fish-people.
They say that at one time we could all talk to each other. No matter how many countless languages, forms and shapes, and symbols there were, they say we all spoke the same mind. That is called civilized or educated.
Well, we kind of drifted away from there and drifted over here. Now we call ourselves the civilized, Christianized world, but we just formed a little world all of our own.
Then we got ourselves caught over here without spirit, and we ended up with zero.
Wallace Black Elk, Oglala Sioux
We did not ask you white men to come here. The Great Spirit Gave us this country as a home. You
had yours. We did not interfere with you.
The Great Spirit gave us plenty of land to live on, and buffalo, deer, antelope and other game. But you have come here; you are taking my land from me; you are killing off our game, so it is hard for us to live.
Now, you tell us to work for a living, but the Great Spirit did not make us to work, but to live by hunting. You white men can work if you want to.
We do not interfere with you, and again you say why do you not become civilized? We do not want your civilization! We would live as our fathers did, and their fathers before them.
Crazy Horse, Oglala Sioux
Only to the white man was nature a wilderness, and only to him was the land infested with wild animals and savage people.
To us it was tame.....When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his approach, then it was for us the Wild West began.
Chief Luther Standing Bear, Teton Sioux
I hope the Great Heavenly Father, who will look down upon us, will give all the tribes His blessing, that we may go forth in peace, and live in peace all our days, and that He will look down upon our children and finally lift us far above the earth; and that our Heavenly Father will look upon our children as His children, that all the tribes may be His children, and as we shake hands to-day upon this broad plain, we may forever live in peace.
Red Cloud - Marpiya-Luta Oglala Sioux
The Legend of The White Buffalo
The Lakota Story of The Creation of The Universe
The Lakota Story of The Flute
White Feather The Giant-Killer A Dakota Story
Sioux Prayers
The Ghost Dance
The Sundance
Sioux History
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Guestbook Graphics by_
Sam Silverhawk
