This We Know. All Things Are Connected

Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

To us, the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground.

All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on.

The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful Earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the Earth and it is part of us.

If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.