Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder QUOTES

1 " They say that perhaps it is not by love, but by blood, that land is bought. They say that perhaps my people had to die to nourish this earth with their truth. Your people did not have ears to hear. Perhaps we had to return to the earth, so that we could grow within your hearts. Perhaps we have come back and will fill the hills and valleys with our song. Who is to know? "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

2 " People should think of their words like seeds. They should plant them, then let them grow in silence. Our old people taught us that the earth is always speaking to us, but that we have to be silent to hear her. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

3 " Our old people noticed this from the beginning. They said that the white man lived in a world of cages, and that if we didn't look out, they would make us live in cages too.
So we started noticing. Everything looked like cages. Your clothes fit like cages. Your houses looked like cages. You put your fences around your yards so they looked like cages. Everything was a cage. You turned the land into cages. Little squares.
Then after you had all these cages you made a government to protect these cages. And that government was all cages. All laws about what you couldn't do. The only freedom you had was inside your own cage. Then you wondered why you weren't happy and didn't feel free. You made all the cages, the you wondered why you didn't feel free. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

4 " We Indians know about silence,” he said. “We aren't afraid of it. In fact, to us it is more powerful than words. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

5 " That is not the way it should be. Good leaders wait to be called and they give up their power when they are no longer needed. Selfish men and fools put themselves first and keep their power until someone throws them out. It is no good to have a way where selfish men and fools fight with each other to be leaders, while the good ones watch. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

6 " If at times my words seem angry, you must forgive me. In my mind, there is great anger. No one who has seen the suffering of our children and the tears of our grandmothers cannot be angry. But in my heart I struggle to forgive, because the land is my teacher, and the land says to forgive. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

7 " Here is what I really think. White people are jealous of us. If it hadn't been for your religion you would have lived just like us from the first minute you got to this land. You knew we were right. You started wearing our clothes. You started eating our food. You learned how to hunt like us. When you fought the English you even fought like us. “You came to this country because you really wanted to be like us. But when you got here you got scared and tried to build the same cages you had run away from. If you had listened to us instead of trying to convert us and kill us, what a country this would be.” “Hannh, hannh,” Grover said in a subdued gesture of approval. “That's damn straight, Dan.” Dan "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

8 " It is not easy for a man to be as great as a mountain or a forest. But that is why the Creator gave them to us as teachers. Now that I am old I look once more toward them for lessons, instead of trying to understand the ways of men. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

9 " Think of that Thoreau fellow. I've read some of his books. He went out and lived in a shack and looked at a pond. Now he's one of your heroes. If I go out and live in a shack and look at a pond, pretty soon I'll have so many damn social workers beating on my door that I won't be able to sleep. “They'll start scribbling in some damn notebook: ‘No initiative. No self-esteem.’ They'll write reports, get grants, start some government program with a bunch of forms. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

10 " Watch, listen, and then act, they told us. This is the way to live. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

11 " Your people must learn to give up their arrogance. They are not the only ones placed on this earth. Theirs is not the only way. People have worshiped the Creator and loved their families in many ways in all places. Your people must learn to honor this. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

12 " Our elders told us this was the best way to deal with white people. Be silent until they get nervous, then they will start talking. They will keep talking, and if you stay silent, they will say too much. Then you will be able to see into their hearts and know what they really mean. Then you will know what to do.” “I imagine it works,” I said. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

13 " Let us put our minds together and see what kind of life we can make for our children.” — Sitting Bull I "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

14 " And here is something that I think is important — your religion didn't come from the land. It could be carried around with you. You couldn't understand what it meant to us to have our religion in the land. Your religion was in a cup and a piece of bread, and that could be carried in a box. Your priests could make it sacred anywhere. You couldn't understand that what was sacred for us was where we were, because that is where the sacred things had happened and where the spirits talked to us. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

15 " We were taught that the old people and the babies were the closest to God and it was for them that we all lived. They were the most helpless and they needed us the most. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

16 " In the last analysis, we must all, Indian and non-Indian, come together. This earth is our mother, this land is our shared heritage. Our histories and fates are intertwined, no matter where our ancestors were born and how they interacted with each other. Neither Wolf nor Dog is one small effort to help this coming together. It is not an attempt to build a fence around a man and his people, but to honor them with the gift of my words. I have done my best, and I place this book before you, like the tobacco before the buffalo rock, as a simple offering. May you receive it in the spirit with which it is offered. Kent Nerburn Bemidji, Minnesota Spring 1994 "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

17 " These people would ride across the land and put a flag up, then say that everything between where they started and where they put the flag belonged to them. That was like someone rowing a boat out into a lake and saying that all the water from where he started to where he turned around belonged to him. Or someone shooting an arrow into the sky and saying that all the sky up to where the arrow went belonged to him. “This is very important for you to understand. We thought these people were crazy. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

18 " we had something that was real, that we lived the way the Creator meant people to live on this land. They "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

19 " In my ears I have heard the words of Sitting Bull, telling me that white people are not to be trusted. But I have also heard the words of Black Kettle, who told us to reach out a hand of peace. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder

20 " of its usage. “The Creator loves the smell of sweetgrass. If you smoke the pipe and pray and then put sweetgrass on the fire, he will listen to you. "

― Kent Nerburn , Neither Wolf Nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder