There is no social-change fairy. There is only change made by the hands of individuals.
The difference between a white man and an Indian is this- A white man wants to leave money to his children. An Indian wants to leave forests.
Our forests are not for toilet paper. They are worth more standing than cut. That deserves to be defended, not only by native peoples but also by environmentalists.
Mother Earth needs us to keep our covenant. We will do this in courts, we will do this on our radio station, and we will commit to our descendants to work hard to protect this land and water for them. Whether you have feet, wings, fins, or roots, we are all in it together.
The essence of the problem is about consumption, recognizing that a society that consumes one-third of the world’s resources is unsustainable. This level of consumption requires constant intervention into other people’s lands. That’s what’s going on.
Ojibwe prophecy speaks of a time during the seventh fire when our people will have a choice between two paths. The first path is well worn and scorched. The second path is new and green. It is our choice as communities and as individuals how we will proceed.
What we all need to do is find the wellspring that keeps us going, that gives us the strength and patience to keep up this struggle for a long time.
What our Seventh Generation will have is a consequence of our actions today.
Native people – about two-thirds of the uranium in the United States is on indigenous lands. On a worldwide scale, about 70 percent of the uranium is either in Aboriginal lands in Australia or up in the Subarctic of Canada, where native people are still fighting uranium mining.
The aboriginal peoples of Australia illustrate the conflict between technology and the natural world succinctly, by asking, ‘What will you do when the clever men destroy your water?’ That, in truth, is what the world is coming to.
I would like to see as many people patriotic to a land as I have seen patriotic to a flag.
In the time of the sacred sites and the crashing of ecosystems and worlds, it may be worth not making a commodity out of all that is revered.
Native communities are focal points for the excrement of industrial society.
I see a lot of damage to Mother Earth. I see water being taken from creeks where water belongs to animals, not to oil companies.
I’m not a patriot to a flag, I’m a patriot to a land.
Another thing is, people lose perspective. It is a cultural trait in America to think in terms of very short time periods. My advice is: learn history. Take responsibility for history. Recognise that sometimes things take a long time to change. If you look at your history in this country, you find that for most rights, people had to struggle. People in this era forget that and quite often think they are entitled, and are weary of struggling over any period of time.
I don’t understand all the nuances of the women’s movement. But I do understand that there are feminists who want to challenge the dominant paradigm, not only of patriarchy, but of where the original wealth came from and the relationship of that wealth to other peoples and the earth. That is the only way that that I think you can really get to the depth of the problem.
By snowshoe, canoe, or dog team, they moved through those woods, rivers, and lakes. It was not a life circumscribed by a clock, stamp, fence, or road.
The Anishinaabeg world undulated between material and spiritual shadows, never clear which was more prominent at any time. It was as if the world rested in those periods rather than in the light of day. Dawn and dusk, biidaaban, mooka’ang. The gray of sky and earth was just the same, and the distinction between the worlds was barely discernible.
I would argue yes. In fact, I would question the inverse. Can men of privilege... who do not feel the impact of policies on forests, children or their ability to breastfeed children... actually have the compassion to make policy that is reflection of the interests of others. At this point, I think not.