The Chiefs

Big Foot §  Chief Black Kettle §  Chief Dull Knife §  Gall Pizi §  Chief Looking Glass  §  Wovoka §  Chief Seattle §  Crazy Horse §  Standing Bear §  Kicking Bird § 



Big Foot (???-1890)

 The leader of the Miniconjou band massacred at Wounded Knee Creek on December 29,1890 The Great Spirit is in all things: he is in the air we breathe. The Great Spirit is our Father, but the earth is our mother. She nourishes us; that which we put into the ground she returns to us


Chief Black Kettle (???-1868)

 We were once friends with the whites, but you nudged us out of the way by your intrigues, and now when we are in council, you keep nudging (to fight) each other. Why don't you talk and go straight, and let all be well?Although wrongs have been done to me, I live in hopes. I have not got two hearts.Now we are together again to make peace. My shame is as big as the earth, although I will do what my friends have advised me to do. I once thought that I was the only man that persevered to be the friend of the white man, but since they have come and cleaned out our lodges, horses and everything else, it is hard for me to believe the white men any more.


Chief Dull Knife

 "The true Indian sets no price upon either his property or his labor. His generosity is limited only by his strength and ability. He regards it as an honor to be selected for difficult or dangerous service and would think it shameful to ask for any reward, saying rather: "Let the person I serve express his thanks according to his own bringing up and his sense of honor. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!. What is Silence? It is the Great Mystery! The Holy Silence is His voice! Whenever, in the course of the daily hunt, the hunter comes upon a scene that is strikingly beautiful or sublime -- a black thundercloud with the rainbow's arch above the mountain, a white waterfall in the heart of a green gorge, a vast prairie tinged with the blood-red of the sunset -- he pauses for an instant in an attitude of worship. He sees no need for setting apart one day in seven as a holy day, because to him all days are God's days. The first American mingled with his pride a singular humility. Spiritual arrogance was foreign to his nature and teaching. He never claimed that the power of articulate speech was proof of superiority over the dumb creation; on the other hand, it is to him a perilous gift. Children must early learn the the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving"

Gall Pizi (1840-1894)

 Born about 1840 - Died December5, 1894
GALL was one of the greatest of the Hunkpapa Sioux chieftains, and some historians consider him to be the peer of the famous Red Cloud and of Spotted Tail. Gall was one of the leaders of the Hunk-papa Sioux during the time of the fabulous Sitting Bull. Gall was a superb specimen of manhood, rugged and able. On one occasion he had stolen some ponies and a detachment of a hundred soldiers was sent to his village to arrest him. The soldiers surrounded the village at about 2 A.M., announcing that they wanted Gall. He was aroused, stuck his head out of his tipi, and was promptly shot at by one of the soldiers. Gall dashed to the back of the tipi, slashed a hole, and started to leap out. Soldiers, armed with rifles and bayonets, were all around, and slammed him to the ground. They clubbed, stomped, and stabbed him, and one soldier had to put his foot on Gall's body to retrieve his bayonet. Thinking Gall dead, they left him lying in the snow. Other Indians in the camp would not touch his body, and they quickly moved their tipis to another location. Gall later revived, and in spite of his terrible wounds and the fact that he was nearly naked in the cold and snow, made his way to the lodge of a friend some twenty miles away. The friend cared for him until he recovered from his ordeal, but one of the wounds remained open for more than a year. After this affair, Gall carried a lasting hatred for the whites, and finally died December 5, 1894, as a result of his horrible wounds. His birth has been recorded as c. 1840.

Chief Looking Glass (1832-1877)

 Looking Glass was the war chief who, along with Chief Joseph, directed the 1877 Nez Percé retreat from eastern Oregon into Montana and on toward the Canadian border. The son of a prominent Nez Percé chief, Looking Glass was born around 1832 in what is now western Montana. Although he bitterly resented white encroachments on his ancestral lands, he opposed going to war with the United States over its plans to force his people onto the small reservation assigned to them at Lapwai, Idaho. When the Nez Percé were finally surrounded by Colonel Nelson A. Miles's troops in Northern Montana's Bearpaw mountains, Looking Glass remained stubbornly opposed to surrender. By this time, however, Chief Joseph had concluded that surrender was the only viable option, and on October 5, he rode out to hand over his rifle. That same day, Looking Glass set out to join Sitting Bull's band in Canada, but before he could make it to the border, he was killed by a Cheyenne scout.

Wovoka 1857- 1932

 "You ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's bosom? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. "You ask me to dig for stones! Shall I dig under her skin for bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again. "You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white men, but how dare I cut my mother's hair? "I want my people to stay with me here. All the dead men will come to life again. Their spirits will come to their bodies again. We must wait here in the homes of our fathers and be ready to meet them in the bosom of our mother." Grandfather says that when your friends die you must not cry. You must not hurt anybody or do harm to anyone. You must not fight. Do right always. It will give you satisfaction in life.When the sun died, I went up to heaven and saw God and all the people who had died a long time ago. God told me to come back and tell my people they must be good and love one another, and not fight, or steal, or lie. He gave me this dance to give to my people.

All Indians must dance, everywhere, keep on dancing. Pretty soon in the next spring Great Spirit come. He bring back all game of every kind. The game will be thick everywhere. All dead Indians come back and live again. They all be strong just like young men, be young again. Old blind Indians see again and get young and have fine time. When Great Spirit comes this way, then all the Indians go to the mountains, high up away from the whites. Whites can’t hurt Indians then. Then while Indians way up high, big flood comes like water and all white people die, get drowned. After that, water go away and then nobody but Indians everywhere and game all kinds thick. Then medicine man tell Indians to send word to all Indians to keep up dancing and the good time will come. Indians who don't dance, who don't believe in the word, will grow little, just about a foot high, and stay that way. Some of them will be turned into wood and be burned in fire.

Chief Seattle

 The legend of Chief Seattle's speech may never die. Undoubtedly there will be many who refuse to believe that such fine and noble words and sentiments could have been made by a non-Indian during the 20th century--and for a television show at that. To allow any version of the speech to pass away would be to deny the magic and power of the words and their meaning. If something is true, it shouldn't matter who said it and when it was said as long as we recognize the source. What matters most is that the "Chief Seattle Speech" has something to teach us all: "So if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. We may be brothers after all." The chief died in 1866. His grave lies in a little cemetery behind the historic St. Peter's Catholic Church in the hamlet of Suquamish on Washington's Kitsap Peninsula. Through tall Douglas-fir trees toward the west, visitors can gaze across mist-covered Puget Sound on warm summer days. With the snow-clad Cascade Mountains on the far horizon as background, the tiny bumps of downtown Seattle rise like headstones.

Crazy Horse (1849-1877)

 "We did not ask you white men to come here. The Great Spirit gave us this country as a home. You had yours. We did not interfere with you. The Great Spirit gave us plenty of land to live on, and buffalo, deer, antelope and other game. But you have come here; you are taking my land from me; you are killing off our game, so it is hard for us to live. Now, you tell us to work for a living, but the Great Spirit did not make us to work, but to live by hunting. You white men can work if you want to. We do not interfere with you, and again you say why do you not become civilized? We do not want your civilization! We would live as our fathers did, and their fathers before them." . . . .One does not sell the land upon which people walk.

Standing Bear

 We cannot all sit on the same side of the Fire. A Council Fire forms a circle, not a line or a square. When we move to the side, we still sit at the Fire with our Brothers and Sisters, but as we move away from one we move toward another. The circle, like the Dream Hoop, brings us ever back to where we start. Any time words of respect and love are spoken, they will return as given. A harsh word runs forever in the circle, eventually vanishing from the wear against itself. Love settles within the Circle, embracing it and thereby lasting forever, turning within itself. The Medicine Wheel is the circle of life (sometimes referred to as the Scared Hoop) Starting with birth and continuing through out our lifes until death, when we have gone full circle. The Medicine wheel has four Direction, each direction offering it's own lessons, color, and animal guide. There are to paths shown which cross in the center, at which point for me is the heart. (for when you work from your heart, you can reach all directions.) The path from East to West is the path of spirits, (the Blue Road) the path from South to North is our physical Walk (the Red Road ). East - beginnings, purity, family, innocence, amazement of Life South - youth - passions of life, friendships, self-control West - Adulthood - solitude, stillness, going inside oneself, reflection North - Place of the Ancient Ones who have gone over - place of wisdom Above - Freedom of mind, body, spirit below - Nuturing, Mother, life

Kicking Bird

 I am but one man. I am the voice of my people. Whatever their hearts are, that I talk. I want no more war. I want to be a man. You deny me the right of a white man. My skin is red; my heart is a white man's heart; but I am a Modoc. I am not afraid to die. I will not fall on the rocks. When I die, my enemies will be under me. Your soldiers began (fighting) me when I was asleep on Lost River. They drove us on these rocks like a wounded deer. I have always told the white man heretofore to come and settle in my country; that it was his country and Captain Jack's country. That they could come and live there with me and that I was not mad with them. I never received anything from anybody, only what I bought and paid for myself. I have always lived like a white man, and wanted to live so. I have always tried to live peaceably and never asked any man for anything. I have always lived on what I could kill and shoot with my gun, and catch in my trap.


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