Human beings need to belong to a tradition and equally need to know about the world in which they find themselves.

The hoop dancer dances within what encircles him, demonstrating how the people live in motion within the circling spirals of time and space. They are no more limited than water and sky. At green corn dance time, water and sky come together, in Indian time, to make rain.

We are the land. To the best of my understanding, that is the fundamental idea that permeates American Indian life.

America does not seem to remember that it derived its wealth, its values, its food, much of its medicine, and a large part of its "dream" from Native Americans.

Truth, acceptance of the truth, is a shattering experience. It shatters the binding shroud of culture trance. It rips apart smugness, arrogance, superiority, and self-importance. It requires acknowledgment of responsibility for the nature and quality of each of our own lives, our own inner lives as well as the life of the world. Truth, inwardly accepted, humbling truth, makes one vulnerable. You can't be right, self-righteous, and truthful at the same time.

Idealization of a group is a natural consequence of separation from the group; in other words, it is a by-product of alienation.

Indians think it is important to remember, while Americans believe it is important to forget.