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Indigenous Peoples Quotes

Browse 61 quotes about Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous Peoples Quotes

“Indigenous religious traditions around the world continue to provide an ancient yet living vision of nature as sacred, requiring human respect and entailing human responsibilities. Anymals are understood to be “people” living in community as humans live in community—all of whom are part of a larger community of living beings. Indigenous religious traditions teach people that we owe respect, responsibility, and compassion to our nonhuman kin, and remember a time of great peace, before predation began. Most indigenous peoples believe that all beings are endowed with souls. Anymals are generally thought to hold exceptional abilities and remarkable powers.”

CompassionMythologyVeganismIndigenous PeoplesAnymalsAnimals And ReligionReligion And AnimalsReligion And EthicsRespect For NatureRespect For Animals
Book:Animals and World Religions
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“Now many of us celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day (instead of or along with Thanksgiving, Turkey Day, Family Feud and/or Family Fun and Games). I see it as a day to learn more about the people whose land we stole (yes, even we whose forebearers came more recently, because we continue to benefit from the theft), and to sit in the complexity that is the building and continuation of our civilization.”

LearningCivilizationComplexityThanksgivingTheftBuildIndigenous PeoplesIndigenous Peoples Day
Author:Shellen Lubin
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“Of all of society's institutions, education has brought us to the current state of poor relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples; but if it is education that created this mess, it will be education that will get us out of it. We know that making things better will not happen overnight. It will take generations. That's how the damage was created and that's how the damage will be fixed. But if we agree on the objective of reconciliation, and agree to work together, the work we do today will immeasurably strengthen the social fabric of Canada tomorrow.”

EducationGenerationsPatienceDamageCanadaCooperationReconciliationIndigenous PeoplesRepairSocietal Progress
Book:Who We Are: Four Questions For a Life and a Nation
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“Whatever the intentions behind land acknowledgments, I am intrigued that otherwise well-educated listeners (especially university audiences) require continuous reminders that they occupy stolen land. Settler colonialism not only erases, it feeds on its own forgetfulness.”

Native AmericanAcademiaNorth CarolinaIndigenous PeoplesAmerican IndiansLumbee IndiansIndigenous Peoples DayLand Back
Book:On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice
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“These are the ancestral lands of. . . .' The phrase carries both truth and trauma that can slip past uneducated ears. Indigenous homelands on the Coastal Plain are places of deep connection and remembrance, but they are also places where horrific colonial experiences befell our ancestors. The trauma of those experiences still flows through our communities today. The pain of racial oppression and cultural loss combines with the radical transformation of our homelands, and it haunts us from generation to generation.”

EducationUniversityNorth CarolinaNative AmericansIndigenous PeoplesPresentationsAmerican IndiansLumbee IndiansLand AcknowledgementsSoutheast Us
Book:On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice
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“And afterward, I stopped at Red Cloud's grave to pay my respects to the old chief. Some Oglalas had left him tobacco ties, little sacred bundles in all the colors of the four directions. I asked him to take care of my woman out there, where she was new and maybe lost. I asked him to take her into his lodge and protect her until I could come for her. That's all I remember.”

DeathLossGriefProtectionAfterlifeIndigenousNative AmericansIndigenous PeoplesOglalaRed Cloud
Book:Six Kinds of Sky: A Collection of Short Fiction
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“Imagine if we natives went to the cemeteries in your cities and dug up your beloved relatives, pulled off rings, watches, and clothes, and called them "artifacts," then carried the bones over to the university for study so we could understand you. Consider that there are more bones of native people in universities and museums for study, than there are those of us living.”

MuseumsArtifactsNative AmericansIndigenous PeoplesUniversitiesExhumation
Book:Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems
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“Ghost Dancers Rise: At the 500th anniversary of Columbus's landing, tribal leaders gathered in Washington, DC, for a ceremony in front of the Capitol. They could have dwelt on the catastrophes that were Columbus's legacy, but instead they closed the ceremony with these words: We stand young warriors In the circle At dawn all storm clouds disappear The future brings all hope and glory, Ghost dancers rise Five-hundred years.”

HealingHistoryFutureEducationalNative AmericanIndigenousIndigenous PeoplesTurtle IslandGhost DancersYoung Warriors
Author:Eldon Yellowhorn, Kathy Lowinger
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“My children tell stories of the ancient world, the old world. They search for Little People on the tundra, little beings not taller than a human hand. They tell stories of strong men who stayed underwater for days. The strong men cupped their hands against the ocean floor, breathing with pockets of air made by their cupped hands. My children try to forget death by telling these old stories. They’ve carried dead bodies to the graveyard with their own youthful hands.”

DeathHealingIndigenousArcticIndigenous PeoplesInupiaqLittle Peoples
Book:Sivulliq: Ancestor
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“Four kids in T-shirts and jeans jam on a powwow stage. They’re grinning, bouncing, fully engaged with their music, each other, and the relaxed crowd. I’m splitting fry bread with a cousin as we cheer on the band, and across the tent, a young girl reading a paperback catches my eye. In that moment, I wish for more characters like those kids in the pages of children’s books. This anthology is a fulfillment of that wish.”

Middle GradeMiddle SchoolAnthologyChildrens BooksIndigenous PeoplesChildrens LiteratureNative American LiteratureIndigenous LiteraturePowwow
Book:Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids
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“When governments talk of truth and reconciliation, and then push unwanted infrastructure projects, please remember this: There can be no truth unless we admit to the 'why' behind centuries of abuse and land theft. And there can be no reconciliation when the crime is still in progress. Only when we have the courage to tell the truth about our old stories will the new stories arrive to guide us. Stories that recognize that the natural world and all its inhabitants have limits. Stories that teach us how to care for each other and regenerate life within those limits. Stories that put an end to the myth of endlessness once and for all.”

Social JusticeStorytellingNatural ResourcesStorytellersEconomic JusticeNative LandIndigenous PeoplesGreen New DealNarrative Theory
Book:On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal
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“This place, our little cloud forest, even though we missed our papi, it was the most beautiful place you've ever seen. We didn't really know that then, because it was the only place we'd ever seen, except in picture in books and magazines, but now that's I've seen other place, I know. I know how beautiful it was. And we loved it anyway even before we knew. Because the trees had these enormous dark green leaves, as a big as a bed, and they would sway in the wind. And when it rain you could hear the big, fat raindrops splatting onto those giant leaves, and you could only see the sky in bright blue patches if you were walking a long way off to a friend's house or to church or something, when you passed through a clearing and all those leaves would back away and open up and the hot sunshine would beat down all yellow and gold and sticky. And there were waterfalls everywhere with big rock pools where you could take a bath and the water was always warm and it smelled like sunlight. And at night there was the sound of the tree frogs and the music of the rushing water from the falls and all the songs of the night birds, and Mami would make the most delicious chilate, and Abuela would sing to us in the old language, and Soledad and I would gather herbs and dry them and bundle them for Papi to sell in the market when he had a day off, and that's how we passed our days.' Luca can see it. He's there, far away in the misty cloud forest, in a hut with a packed dirt floor and a cool breeze, with Rebeca and Soledad and their mami and abuela, and he can even see their father, far away down the mountain and through the streets of that clogged, enormous city, wearing a long apron and a chef's hat, and his pockets full of dried herbs. Luca can smell the wood of the fire, the cocoa and cinnamon of the chilate, and that's how he knows Rebeca is magical, because she can transport him a thousand miles away into her own mountain homestead just by the sound of her voice.”

NatureBeautyMountainsIndigenous PeoplesCentral AmericaHondurasCloud Forest
Book:American Dirt
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“On May 28, 1830, President Andrew Jackson unlawfully signed the Indian Removal Act to force move southeastern peoples from our homelands to the West. We were rounded up with what we could carry. We were forced to leave behind houses, printing presses, stores, cattle, schools, pianos, ceremonial grounds, tribal towns, churches. We witnessed immigrants walking into our homes with their guns, Bibles, household goods and families, taking what had been ours, as we were surrounded by soldiers and driven away like livestock at gunpoint. There were many trails of tears of tribal nations all over North America of indigenous peoples who were forcibly removed from their homelands by government forces. The indigenous peoples who are making their way up from the southern hemisphere are a continuation of the Trail of Tears. May we all find the way home.”

AmericaNative AmericansIndigenous PeoplesAndrew JacksonTrail Of TearsForced MigrationIndian Removal Act
Book:An American Sunrise
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“First off, as has been well stated by many Indigenous Feminists before us, the idea of gender equality did not come from the suffragettes or other so-called "foremothers" of feminist theory. It should also be recognized that although we are still struggling for this thing called "gender equality," it is not actually a framed issue within the feminist realm, but a continuation of the larger tackling of colonialism. So this idea that women of colour all of a sudden realized "we are women," and magically joined the feminist fight actually re-colonizes people for who gender equality and other "feminist" notions is a remembered history and current reality since before Columbus. The mainstream feminist movement is supposed to have started in the early 1900s with women fighting for the right to vote. However, these white women deliberately excluded the struggles of working class women of color and participated in the policy of forced sterilization for Aboriginal women and women with disabilities. Furthermore, the idea that we all need to subscribe to the same theoretical understandings of history is marginalizing. We all have our own truths and histories to live.”

FeminismIndigenousIndigenous PeoplesFeministsFeminist TheoryPeople Of ColorWomen Of ColorIndigenous Feminism
Book:Feminism FOR REAL: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism
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“After weaning the indigenous people's of Egypt: 'from their miserable and barbarous manners, [Osiris] taught them how to till the earth, and how to sow and reap crops, he formulated a code of laws for them, and made them worship the gods and perform service to them. He then left Egypt and traveled over the rest of the world teaching the various nations to do what his own subjects were doing. He forced no man to carry out his instructions, but by means of gentle persuasion and an appeal to their reason, he succeeded in inducing them to practice what he preached.”

WorldCivilizationEgyptTransmissionIndigenous PeoplesInstructionsOsiris
Book:Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilization
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“On an idyllic summer day, we walked through the meadows and hillsides, sitting in circles, laughing and filling sacks of cottongrass, salmonberries, crowberries, cranberries, mountain alder, northern golden rod, and rose hip roots. We collected cloudberry tea and Labrador tea, and wild celery. The Elders walked together, laughing, talking of the old days when they would travel to the Messenger Feasts, across the channel to Siberia, or south to trade in Qikiqtaġruk. We’d mix a dessert of fresh berries and lard, whipping and whipping the lard until fluffy.”

Historical FictionArcticIndigenous PeoplesHealersInupiaqHealing PlantsMessenger FeastsQikiqtagrukTraditional MedicineTraditional Plants
Book:Sivulliq: Ancestor
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“Flashlights there are plenty, Sun there is but one. Rushmores there are plenty, Everest there is but one. Rushmore leers as a criminal monument, While Everest stands as a gentle giant. Arrogance goes together with brutality, While valor and virtue go hand in hand.”

GeniusHumanitarianNative AmericanAmerican HistoryWhite SupremacyNeonaziIndigenous RightsIndigenous PeoplesIndigenous CultureRushmore
Book:Rowdy Scientist: Handbook of Humanitarian Science
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“I am not sure that energy company executives who say they want to understand the concerns of Indigenous people can actually do so unless they can grasp the emotional weight and social obligations carried by people who balance on the knife-edge of permanent cultural loss.”

Climate ChangeSustainabilityReciprocityOil And GasIndigenous PeoplesCultural IdentityFossil FuelsLumbee Indians
Book:On the Swamp: Fighting for Indigenous Environmental Justice
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“I surveyed the country that had cost us so much trouble, anxiety and blood, and that now caused me to be a prisoner of war. I reflected upon the ingratitude of the whites when I saw their fine houses, rich harvests and everything desirable around them; and recollected that all this land had been ours, for which I and my people had never received a dollar, and that the whites were not satisfied until they took our village and our graveyards from us and removed us across the Mississippi.”

HistoryGenocideUs HistoryNative AmericansIndigenous PeoplesNative American Genocide
Author:Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak (Black Hawk)
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“When Marquette asked his [Algonquin] guides what people lived on this river, they replied, "mihsoori", or "wehmihsoori" which in their Algonquin language describes a wooden canoe... Missouri is therefore translated as "people of wood canoes.”

HistoryNative AmericanIndigenousUs HistoryMissouriIndigenous PeoplesMissouri HeritageMissouri HistoryMissouriaNative History
Book:The People of the River's Mouth: In Search of the Missouria Indians (Missouri Heritage Readers)
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“Language is one way of determining relationships among American Indian nations. The Missouria are of the Siouan-language family, speaking a dialect known as the Chiwere. Other tribes speaking this dialect were the Ho Chunk (Winnebago), the Wahtohtana (Otoe, and the Baxoje (Ioway). William Clark said these tribes spoke the same language and correctly surmised they were "once one great nation.”

HistoryNative AmericanIndigenousUs HistoryMissouriIndigenous PeoplesMissouri HeritageMissouri HistoryMissouriaNative History
Book:The People of the River's Mouth: In Search of the Missouria Indians (Missouri Heritage Readers)
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“How then can the US society come to terms with its past? How can it acknowledge responsibility? The late Native historian Jack Forbes always stressed that while living persons are not responsible for what their ancestors did, they are responsible for the society they live in, which is a product of that past. Assuming this responsibility provides a means of survival and liberation. Everyone and everything in the world is affected, for the most part negatively, by US dominance and intervention, often violently through direct military means or through proxies.”

Human RightsGenocideUs HistoryColonizationEmpireIndigenous Peoples
Author:Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
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“In ancient times, at this shallow cove, the Koyukon attacked our people. The women fought alongside the men, running half-naked from their homes to show their courage. The Elders took the children into their umiaqs, fleeing to the sea. The Elders shielded the children’s eyes but could not shield their ears, and land went silent. The Elders and children buried the Inupiaq and Koyukon people side-by-side on the stilts of the whalebone, then they journeyed north to begin again.”

Historical FictionIndigenousAlaskaArcticAncestorsIndigenous PeoplesInupiaqWhaleboneBowheadKoyukon
Book:Sivulliq: Ancestor
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“I do not think I was capable of understanding, as I was only six. My mother became distant and shut her feelings as she left me. How could she explain to me—a six-year-old—what was going to happen to me? This was a hopeless situation for both of us. A mother giving up her child to strangers is one of the hardest things to do, and I would soon know what alone meant.”

Indigenous PeoplesCanadian HistoryResidential Schools
Book:They Called Me 33: Reclaiming Ingo-Waabigwan
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“Popular belief considers Christopher Columbus as some sort of hero, while in reality he was a murderer. While the world admires him as a brave explorer, all this brainless buffoon did was sail around the Caribbean and slaughtered innocent natives who greeted him with nothing but hospitality. You don't discover a land where people are already living. On top of that, when someone invades their land and starts looting, pillaging and slaughtering, he is neither brave, nor an explorer, he's just a petty thief and brut.”

White SupremacyColumbusIndigenous PeoplesWhitewashColumbus DayChristopher ColumbusColumbus Reputation
Book:When Veins Ignite: Either Integration or Degradation
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“When writing on the subject of civilization, one must understand that the ability to read or write a European language does not create a superior civilization. Nor does the ability to point exploding sticks that cause instantaneous death or injury, or to launch missiles that could blow the world apart, provide a moral basis to declare one’s culture more civilized than another. The question to ask when judging the values and merits of a civilization must always be: “How does the civilization respond to the human needs of its population?” By this standard, because they created social and political systems that ensured personal liberty, justice and social responsibility, most Amerindian civilizations must be given very high marks. When making an unbiased assessment, and comparing the values of early American civilizations with those of European civilizations, one cannot but find that the suppression and wanton destruction of American civilizations by European civilizations was in many ways a case of inferior civilizations overcoming superior ones. This is especially true in the area of respect for human rights. Although they were not as technologically advanced as the Europeans were by 1492, many Amerindian Nations possessed democratic political practices that were light years ahead.”

DecolonizationColonizationIndigenous PeoplesTurtle Island
Book:We Were Not the Savages: First Nations History ? Collision Between European and Native American Civilizations
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