In the Luther Standing Bear statement, he talks about the differences between “white man” and his tribe, the Lakotas. He explains that what “white man” sees as wild, like animals and wilderness, the Lakotas see as tame. They feel that the animals have just as many rights as they did, and they therefore never enslaved animals, and they only killed what they needed for food and clothing, a very different way of thinking than that of the Europeans. Chief Seattle’s speech covers the fact that his tribe’s relevance is significantly decreasing because of the Europeans bit by bit taking over their land. Also, he feels that the Europeans are not treating them as an equal but rather inferior.
Chief Seattle’s speech has long been controversial. Did he really speak these words? Or is it just a story that Dr. Smith made up? Several issues come out of this speech. For one, records of him giving this speech have been translated. There is no record of the speech in its original language. For another, it has been revised and retranslated so many times in the last century. There were even lines that were added. So how do we know for sure if these were the words he spoke, or were they just put in his mouth? This is one of the biggest mysteries, one that will more than likely never be solved.
Remembering Chief Seattle: Reversing Cultural Studies of a Vanishing Native American
Crisca Bierwert
American Indian Quarterly
Vol. 22, No. 3 (Summer, 1998), pp. 280-304
Published by: University of Nebraska Press
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/stable/1184814
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