Chief Seattle Speech
Every now and again, I very much enjoy revisiting Chief Seattle’s extraordinary speech given in 1854. I’ve excerpted a small portion - if you’d like to read the speech in its entirety (rather brief), THIS LINK will take you to it.
+++
Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.
+++
Tags: environment, Profiles, Ruminations
Is this the same chief that saw the white man shooting buffalo from a train more than a decade before the rails reached those areas?
Seattle never left the Puget Sound area, so far as most historians know, so he likely never saw a buffalo or a train, though he no doubt saw many white men and guns, as the two went hand in hand. Err. . .barrel in hand. The “speech” by Seattle was most likely written much later by another man, but regardless of the source, there are passages within that strike my fancy.