Native Quotes

• August used to be a sad month for me. As the days went on, the thought of school starting weighed heavily upon my young frame. That, coupled with the oppressive heat and humidity of my native Washington, D.C., only seemed to heighten the misery.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • School
  • Misery
  • August

• My son, you are now flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. By the ceremony performed this day, every drop of white blood was washed from your veins; you were taken into the Shawnee Nation.

  

  Chief Blackfish
  • Son
  • Blood
  • Flesh

• Do you think we care about the feelings of Native Americans when we celebrate Columbus Day? That's the day that the white man discovered a land where Indians had been living for a few thousand years.

  

  Carlos Mencia
  • Care
  • Feelings
  • Celebrate

• My look is 'Poly'n'Asian' - part Polynesian native, part Asian warrior.

  

  Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
  • Warrior
  • Asian
  • Polynesian

• The creative core of New York has never been native New Yorkers; it's people from all over the world.

  

  Steve Earle
  • World
  • Creative
  • Native

• Our native language is like a second skin, so much a part of us we resist the idea that it is constantly changing, constantly being renewed.

  

  Casey Miller
  • Ideas
  • Language
  • Skins

• It's interesting to think about the history of Israel in relation to the history of the U.S.. There were Native Americans living here that U.S. settlers totally displaced, and that narrative is not connected with the Isreal-Palestinian struggle at all.

  

  Jill Soloway
  • Interesting
  • Struggle
  • Relation

• Organisms are starting to move in response to climate change all over the place. Bees are disappearing and we don't have many of the native pollinators left to replace them. We're in deep trouble; there's no question about it. But ecologists tend to think of something that's going to be bad in ten years as very fast, and of course, politicians only think of things in a two-, four-, six-year cycle.

  

  Paul R. Ehrlich
  • Thinking
  • Moving
  • Trouble

• Five hundred years later we're still doing it. This is a moment where we're either going to reaffirm that's what we do with Native Americans , that's who we are, or we're going to start moving toward change. A change won't come easy, because there's a lot of big money that doesn't care about any of this.

  

  Neil Young Buffalo Springfield
  • Moments
  • Care
  • Easy

• I look at a stream and I see myself: a native South African, flowing irresistibly over hard obstacles until they become smooth and, one day, disappear - flowing from an origin that has been forgotten toward an end that will never be.

  

  Miriam Makeba
  • Obstacles
  • Forgotten
  • Disappear

• Music is a performing art, as any Native American will tell you. It isn't there in the score.

  

  Michael Tippett
  • American
  • Performing
  • Score

• A lot of native culture has been destroyed. So you already feel lost inside your culture. And then you add up feeling lost and insignificant inside the larger culture. So you end up feeling lost squared. And to never be recognized, to never have any power, you know, other minority communities actually have a lot of economic, cultural power.

  

  Sherman Alexie
  • Culture
  • Community
  • Feelings

• My wife was the first romantic partner who understood both American and native parts of me - not so much the positive stuff, but the damage.

  

  Sherman Alexie
  • Wife
  • Positive
  • Stuff

• As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I became civilized.

  

  Charles Alexander Eastman
  • Children
  • Grace
  • Forgotten

• We know our lands have now become more valuable. The white people think we do not know their value; but we know that the land is everlasting, and the few goods we receive for it are soon worn out and gone.

  

  Canasatego
  • People
  • Values
  • Valuable

• Most of my younger Native American friends are not in any way looking for sympathy, and they're not looking to lay guilt on anybody. They have their dignity, and they do what they do.

  

  Robbie Robertson
  • Friends
  • American
  • Guilt

• I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.

  

  Miriam Makeba
  • Nature
  • Spirit
  • Racism

• One thing to remember is to talk to the animals. If you do, they will talk back to you. But if you don't talk to the animals, they won't talk back to you, then you won't understand, and when you don't understand you will fear, and when you fear you will destroy the animals, and if you destroy the animals, you will destroy yourself.

  

  Chief Dan George
  • Remember
  • Animal
  • Native

• One of the things that's so striking about shamanism in the native context is the absence of mental illness.

  

  Terence McKenna
  • Illness
  • Absence
  • Shamanism

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