NetSpirit - Chief Seattle Speech: We are part of the earth and it is part of us

Title: Chief Seattle speech - We are part of the earth and it is part of us.

Author: NetSpirit

Publisher: Smashwords, Inc.

ISBN: 9781311991126

Chief Seattle, 1786-1866, was Northwest coast Indian of the Suquami tribe and should give name to the city of Seattle. He was an important part of the whites peace treaties with the Northwest Coast Indians. As a prelude to negotiating treaties with the United States, he delivered a speech to Governor Stevens in 1854 and it is this speech that is "Chief Seattle's speech."

Chief Seattle was famous for his eloquence, and someone claimed he could be heard over long distances. He had certainly sense of staging. When he made his famous speech, he should have put his hand on the governor's head, which should also reflect the fact that he was of considerable size.

There were many Indian tribes present who spoke different languages. Then the governor's speech had first to be translated into the pidgin language that had evolved by the contact with the whites. (It is called chinook-jargon, and was a mixture of chi-nook, English and French.) After which others translated it to the various Indian languages. When the Indians spoke walked process the other way.

One of the suffer being, the 34-year-old Dr. Henry Smith, took notes, but what is not clear. He even called the notes for "a fragment of Seattle's speech," Smith published a number of articles and poems, but it is only 34 years after he reproduces Chief Seattle's speech. It was part of the autumn of 1887 in a series of articles he wrote for the Seattle Sunday Star on pioneer times..

In the following years the speech was interpreted and interpreted more or less at will. During the Great Depression in the 30s was released with hints of having to prophesy of a coming social breakdown. During WW2 were presented as a kind of Seattle fancies. In the 60s, he was designated as a significant Catholic. (Note: It is said that Seattle was baptized by Catholics around 1830, but there is nothing in the speech to suggest that this has stuck very deep. I guess it was a kindness to the white, or perhaps survival strategy. At least said that he took the name of Noah). But it was not until 1971 that the speech was interpreted and re-released in a version that has caused much stir. The initiation was in the case innocently.

A university teacher in Texas, William Arrowsmith thought it was a shame that the speech content due to old word forms were unavailable for the present, after which he modernized it. A friend Ted Perry had to make a script for an environmental film for the Southern Baptist Convention, and found Arrow Smith's version so inspiring that he asked for permission to borrow it.

But apart from Seattles name he kept incredibly little of the speech in the manuscript. Ted Perry interpreted and reshaped the text from its own vision of Earth's future in light of the white man's exploitation of all resources. He describes the Indians cohabitation with nature and contrasting it with the white man's rampage. It is a personification of our conception of "Indian" and as such was the message hit home. Maybe it was the following phrases which inspired Ted Perry:

"Every part of this country is sacred to my people. Every hill every valley, every plain and every grove was inaugurated by a happy memory or a sad experience of my tribe."

It as in Smith's version is a kind of ancestor worship, translated by Perry to an environmental program. He poet ahead and leave Seattle say that the rivers are our brothers, the earth is our mother and so on. Where Seattle in the historical reproduction soberly cherish tribal interests, leaving Perry him a prophet and say:

"Anything that hits the ground, will also hit the earth's sons."

The speech began performing as an independent text and became immensely popular. It is published in a myriad of contexts in several media forms, from full version to short extracts. However, it is a challenge to talk to Ted Perry version is not in line with either historical or cultural facts. It could not be held by the Chief Seattle. In Ted Perry version he talks about things like the world first saw much later than in 1854 (bison shot droves from the train) and what he leaves Seattle say about God is just the opposite of what Henry Smith reproduces.

The reason for the popularity of Perry's version is perhaps that it lives up to our stereotype of Indians, at the same time as it meets a need for a cultural self-understanding, which holds tribute to nature, shamanism.

Chief Seattle's beautiful speech from 1854 through the ages interpreted and construed in many ways. Here you have the opportunity to read the speech in its two main versions and even decide what you think thereof. Both are beautiful in their own way.

"If we sell our land, so love it, as we loved it. Take care of it as we took care of it. Preserve the memory of the country as it was when you took it. And take care with all your strength, spirit and heart for the sake of your children."

The article by dr. Henry A. Smith brought in Seattle Sunday Star October 29, 1887.

OLD MEMORIES, Number Ten, Excerpts from a diary.

Old Chief Seattle was the largest Indian I have ever seen and by far the most noble of appearance. He towered six feet up in his moccasins, was broad-shouldered, with a big chest and on the whole well-proportioned. His eyes were big, intelligent, expressive, friendly relaxed while they faithfully reflected the changing moods of the grand soul that looked out of them.