"The
Black Hills are where we came out of the Earth, where our ancestors are
buried, where we go for sacred ceremony. They are the birthplace of
the Lakota people. The White Man wants us to take a hundred million
dollars for our Black Hills. But a hundred billion wouldn't be enough!
Not even four hundred billion! That wouldn't even pay for the damages
you've done. You can never pay us for what
you've stolen and destroyed . . . The Black Hills aren't for sale.
What if we offered you a hundred million dollars for the Vatican, for
Jerusalem? . . . You White Men have taken everything and given us
nothing, but worst of all, you have never thanked us! You've got to
change your ways.
"I had a talk with a congressman about why we
won't sell the Black Hills. He asked me, 'King, why do you Indians
need all that land? You don't do anything with the land you've already
got. Why do you need more? We'll give you some money instead of those
hills.' I told him, right there in the halls of Congress, with people
all around listening, I told him: 'You say I don't DO anything with my
land? Well, what do you mean by doing? To the White Man, doing means
changing things, destroying everything, chopping the forests and damming
the rivers and polluting the skies. White Man wants us to be like him
and build factories and motels and hamburger stands. We don't want
those things! You say I don't DO anything with our land? What I do is I
live there by God's Law. That's what I do there.' I told that
congressman, 'I don't want to change or destroy it. It's my land. God
gave me the title. You can't change that no matter how many lies you
tell. No power on Earth can change that. Who do you think you are to
tell me what to do on my own land? Only God tells me that!'
"I
started getting pretty mad. That was my wicked streak coming out, you
know. Finally, I said to him louder than I should have, 'You don't know
what the hell you're talking about!' I shouldn't have said that, I
know. He's a congressman, a bigwig. People were standing right there
listening. There were some ladies among them. I told the ladies,
'Excuse my language, but I feel like cussin'!' Everybody laughed,
except that congressman. I thought I'd offended them. Instead, they
applauded me - right there in the halls of Congress."
Mathew King (Noble Red Man),
Lakota chief and elder
Photo: Shooting Stars blooming under Ponderosa Pines after a fire; Black Hills, SD; May 20, 2011
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