In today's post we want to reflect on the consequences of losing sight of our origins. Returning to origin is not going back.
We spend our lives collecting and looking for the tools to focus and limit the path we have considered correct to reach a point that, by the way, in most cases we have nothing clear. A little absurd, right?
We live in a world that turns faster every day, in which the great questions that always occupied humanity, who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? ... they have been held to the backpack , that backpack that we all carry behind the back, to the background, we do not have time, we cannot afford to waste time with this.
(video extracted from human)And how important is where you are going if you don't know where you come from, you don't know your roots, who are you ...? Based on what you build a path that takes you somewhere?
We want to rescue from the drawer a text that seems vital to understand many things, the letter with which the Indian Chief Seattle responded to the president of the United States in 1854 when he intended to buy their lands.
And what is it for? Well, to remember what we are made, so that we empty backpacks and stop to contemplate the way before traveling, because this path is life is something sublime and we are missing it.
Seattle Chief Letter
The Great White Chief of Wáshington has ordered us to know what the lands wants to buy us. The great white boss has also sent us words of friendship and goodwill. We appreciate this kindness, because we know that little makes our friendship. We are going to consider its offer because we know that, of not doing so, the white man can come with his firearms to take our lands. The Great White Chief of Wáshington will be able to trust the word of the Seattle Chief with the same certainty that awaits the return of the stations. As the immutable stars are my words.
How can you buy or sell the sky or heat of the earth? That is a weird idea for us.
If no one can possess the freshness of the wind or the water glow, how is it possible that you intend to buy them?
Every piece of this land is sacred to my people. Each bright branch of a pine, each handful of sand of the beaches, the gloom of the dense jungle, every ray of light and the buzz of insects are sacred in the memory and life of my people. The sap that runs through the body of the trees carries with it the history of red skin.
The dead of the white man forget his land of origin when they are going to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, because she is the mother of red leather man. We are part of the earth and she is part of us. The scented flowers are our sisters; The deer, the horse, the great eagle, are our brothers. The rocky peaks, the wet grooves of the countryside, the heat of the body of the foal and the man, all belong to the same family.
Therefore, when the great white boss in Wáshington commands to say that he wishes to buy our land, he asks a lot of us. The great white boss says that we will reserve a place where we can live satisfied. He will be our father and we will be his children. Therefore, we are going to consider your offer to buy our land. But that will not be easy. This land is sacred for us. This bright water that drains through the streams and runs through the rivers is not hardly water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you the earth, you must remember that she is sacred, and you must teach her children that she is sacred and that each reflection on the clean waters of the lakes speak of events and memories of the life of my people. The murmur of the rivers is the voice of my ancestors.
Rivers are our brothers, they satisfy our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes and feed our children. If we sell our lands, you must remember and teach your children that rivers are our brothers, and yours too. Therefore, you must give the rivers the goodness that would dedicate to any brother.
We know that the white man does not understand our customs. For him a portion of earth has the same meaning as any other, because it is an outsider that arrives at night and extracts from the earth what he needs. The earth is not his sister but his enemy, and when he already conquered it, he continues his way. Leave behind the tombs of their ancestors and don't care. He steals from the earth what would be of his children and does not care.
The burial of his father and the rights of his children are forgotten. Treat their mother, earth, their brother and heaven as things that can be bought, looted, sold such as rams or colorful ornaments. His appetite will devour the earth, leaving only a desert behind.
I do not understand, our customs are different from yours. Maybe it's because I'm a savage and I don't understand.
There is no still place in the cities of the white man. No place where you can hear the flourish of the leaves in the spring or beat the wings of an insect. Maybe it's because I am a wild man and I don't understand. The noise seems to only insult the ears.
What is the subtraction of life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of a bird or the nocturnal croar of frogs around a lake? I'm a red skin man and I do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft murmur of the wind curling the surface of the lake, and the wind itself, clean by a daytime rain or perfumed by the pines.
The air is very value for the red leather man, because all things share the same air - the animal, the tree, the man - all share the same breath. It seems that the white man does not feel the air that breathes. As a dying person is numb to the stench. But if we sell our land to the white man, he must remember that the air is valuable for us, that the air shares its spirit with the life it maintains. The wind that gave our grandparents his first respite, also received his last sigh. If we sell our land, you must keep it intact and sacred, as a place where even the white man can savor the wind sugar by the flowers of the meadows.
Therefore, we are going to meditate on the offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will impose a condition: the white man must treat the animals of this land as his brothers.
I am a wild man and I do not understand any other way of acting. I saw a thousand buffalo rotting in the plain, abandoned by the white man who fought them from a train when passing. I am a wild man and I do not understand how the steaming iron horse can be more important than the buffalo, that we sacrifice only to survive.
What is the man without animals? If all animals were, man would die of a great loneliness of spirit, because what happens with animals will soon occur to men. There is a union in everything.
You must teach your children that the ground under your feet is the ash of your grandparents. To respect the earth, tell her children that she was enriched with the lives of our people. Teach your children what we teach ours, that the earth is our mother. Everything that happens to earth will happen to the children of the earth. If men spit on the ground, they are spitting in themselves.
This is what we know: the earth does not belong to man; It is the man who belongs to the earth. This is what we know: all things are related as the blood that joins a family. There is a union in everything.
What happens with the earth will fall on the children of the earth. The man did not wove the fabric of life; He is simply one of his threads. Everything that does to the fabric will do it to yourself.
Even the white man, whose God walks and speaks like him, from friend to friend, cannot be exempt from common destiny. It's possible that we're siblings, in spite of everything. We will see. From one thing we are sure that the white man will discover one day: our God is the same God.
You may think that you possess it, as our land wishes; But it is not possible, he is the god of man, and his compassion is the same for the red leather man as for the white leather man.
The earth is precious, and despising it is to despise its creator. White will also pass; Maybe faster than all other tribes. They contaminate their beds and one night will be suffocated by their own waste.
When you strip us of this earth, you will shine intensely illuminated by the force of the God that brought them to these lands and for some special reason he gave dominion over the earth and the red leather man.
This destination is a mystery to us, because we do not understand that the buffalo are exterminated, the brave horses are all tamed, the secret corners of the dense forest are impregnated with the smell of many men and the vision of the mountains obstructed by threads of speaking.
What has happened to the thick forest? He disappeared.
What happened to the eagle? He disappeared.
Life is over. Now survival begins.
The images belong to Project 562 of the photographer Matika Wilbur, abort of the Tulatip tribe established in the state of Washington. He wants portray the faces of the last aboriginal societies scattered throughout the geography of the United States.
http://www.matikawilbur.com/#!/page/428074/home
