12/12 #45

We know that the god of the educated and the god of the child, the god of the civilized, and the god of the savages is the same god.

There is only one god. He is made of three parts, the father, the son, and the holy spirit. It sounds like scripture to me. God love everyone the same, we are all his children.

12/7 #43

The whites too shall pass, perhaps sooner than other tribes, if you keep contaminating your own bed you will not survive long

The whites will not survive. The bed is the land, and with more cities the less land. The earth will become sick and the world will end. The whites are killing the earth.

12/6 #42

the sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man, but maybe because the red man is a savage, and does not understand.

The cities are great and all but sometimes you have to go out of your way to get some peace and quiet in the countryside. The cities are loud and busy, which is the total opposite to the countryside. There is so much noise in the cities, wheres theres nothing but the sounds of the wind, and animals in the countryside.

12/5 #41

Civilization has been thrust upon me, and it has not added one whit to my love for truth, honesty, and generosity.

This is one of my favorite readings. It says so much with little words. truth, honesty, and generosity, are the three huge ways to live with and around one another as a society. without trust the everything is questioned. Without honesty, there is nothing to believe in. Without generosity, there is no good left in the world. And to the cheyenne they already have it, they don't need the big cities to complicate everything. 

11/30 #40

we can only judge what is right and wrong on our own standards.

Faith vs. Goodworks. If people grow old doing bad things, but before they die, if they are truly sorry, they are forgiven. In the catholic belief anyway. this reading calls out to me in a different way because the way he words the passage, he doesn't judge anyone else, he accepts them for who they are. people are who they are, they do not just change.

#38 11/15/16

they are truly industrious, money money get money, get rich, and be a gentlemen

They have good intentions, but there vision is clouded by greed. Money is the root to all evil. It what makes the world go round but it's only a piece of paper. It only has value because someone says it does.

#37 11/11

you approach us inappropriately, they say their country is better than mine, but why did you leave it?

The indians are happy, the french are not. It's reminds me of the election. some people are happy Trump was elected and some are protesting. In the end change is coming, weather one group likes it or not.

#36 11/10

Our ways are fading. 

The way of life for the natives has changed. The ones who have lived feel displaced, and the ones who didn't live in their ways don't know the difference. The white people have transformed their whole culture, they beat them up until they could take no more. and now we are all the same. 

#35 11/9

we are like a bird with a broken wing, i am old, my eyes are dim.

The spark is dying. The natives are losing their hope, and their fight slows down. The white men are killing the buffalo trail, and their medicine is stronger. The Natives don't know what else to do, they have lost hope.

#34 11/4

when i was a boy the Sioux owned the land. where did they go?

People judge people and include people in a group before they truly know them. The cliche saying comes to mind when hearing this reading for the first time, "never judge a book by it's cover". You can't tell someone apart from another by just the color of skin. people are people, and everyone is different, you and I are not the same.

#33 11/2

Do not grieve. misfortunes will happen to the best, death will come always out of season. 

We know for sure only two things in the time we spend here on this earth. One, we were born. Two, we will die. people cannot control the future and we don't know when that final day is going to come. So the best thing to do is to live your life to the fullest, and enjoy it, because we only have one.

#30 10/31

Nothing in the land if the indian, interested the white man. nothing escapes the white man's forcing hand.

Everything that the Indians do, the white man doesn't care about it. they try and save their land, while the white man takes it. Greed drives the whites, and they do nothing but take from the indians. power is what drives them, and no matter what the indians try and do to stop it, nothing will change.

#28 10/28/16

The animals have rights, the lakota never enslaved an animal.

The indians never took the animals for granted. They only hunted for what was needed, they didn't hunt for game. They didn't domesticate any animals, except for the horses. Because, they had such a strong spiritual connection.

#27 10/27/16

a life force that flows through all things, it is the same force that was breathed into the first man.

Everything is connected. everyone is connected. All things around that live, breathe the same air we do. all things are connected and without one the rest of the chain fails.

#26 10/21/16

We do not want churches, because they will teach us to quarrel about god.

The native Americans want to be free to believe in what they do. Forcing people to believe in a certain thing, is inhumane. They just want to be able to believe in their own god, and their own beliefs. like he says, he has quarrelled with men before, but does not want to quarrel with god. 

#25 10/18

the comfort of feeling safe with a person, when you don't have to think about or speak words, but can show the love and trust you have for someone.

With family, people have trust, they have love and laughter, and they have each other. This reading says to me that, when you have someone, or a number of someones' like a family you together can be happy. And when you have each other, you do not need anyone else in the world. Family comes first, always.

#24 10/17 Ten Bears

My heart is filled with joy when I see you here, filled with joy. 

When the season changes to spring, everything comes to life. the flowers start blooming, the grass grows green, and the rivers flow again. This brings warmer weather and time for people to grow and live happily. people have the ability to be happy, but they choose when they are and are not happy. 

#22 10/14/16 Chief Dan George

How desperately do we need to love, we must have it. without it we become weak, our courage fails. with love we can do anything, but without we can do nothing.

Love is the end guide to happiness. when you're in love, there nothing you can't do or won't try to do. Love drives us, in good ways, and bad. Love does crazy things, and all the time we spend trying to find it is just part of our journey. 

#21 10/13

Try to do something for your people, have pitty on your people and help them.

sometimes people need help, they need guidence. people cna not help themselves sometimes so they need a little lift up from others. when you do something for another person in need, it give them hope. hope that there are people who care about them and for them.

10/6 reading #20

Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and always in view not only the present but also coming generations.

As a leader you have to listen to what the people want. The Leader must be all the things the people can't be. The leader must pay attention to his people, and do what is essential for them to flourish. you have to steer your people in the best possible way towards the future, not only for the living but the unborn who are coming.

Reading # 19 10/5 Mohawk

No person among us desires any other reward for performing a brave and worthy action but the conscious of having served his nation.

No one desires a reward if everyone fights what they believe in. They say that fighting at home means more than fighting in a foreign land, it means more. People who are defending there homes, and trying to keep them from being ripped from their grasps. We shouldn't do good deeds or an amazing act out of the goodness of our hearts not for a reward.

Reading #17 10/4

When you begin a great work, you can't expect to finish all at once, you and your bothers and sister can't be discouraged, until the work is finished.

This reading calls to me, once I start a project i want to finish it that day. I want to make it perfect within the next couple of hours. For example, papers, and projects around the house. When i start writing a paper for english class, i want to finish it right then and there. But like everything else in life, there is a process. "Do or do not, there is no try."- Yoda

Reading #12 9/28

observation certainly has its rewards, The indian lives in every sense of the word from his first breath to his last. 

This reading says to me that the earth is beautiful, the things we see in our life time are beautiful. Our eyesight is a gift and the sights we see is a reward. The world as so much more to offer than just living and seeing one town in your lifetime. It feels like its telling me to go out and see the world, visit the different places, experience their cultures, and taste their food. There are an unlimited amount of opportunities in front of us, and no one knows where they could lead. 

9/21/16 Reading #11

We never railed against the storms, the furious winds and the fighting frost that snows.

This reading means to me, that when a problem comes at you big or small, you adjust to make it work and keep going. I believe the key to this is positivity. Positivity goes a long way. Without it, negativity takes over and yelling, and fighting can break you down. It's like on a sports team, if your captain is a positive leader, the rest of the team will work harder and want to win. But if he or she is negative, who would want to play with someone who is always negative? There is a difference though, between negative and constructive criticism. There is a very grey line there that splits the two.

Reading #10 9/20

Knowledge was inherent, and the earth was like a library.

He says that the stones, and the leaves are like the books from the library, and that we learn from them. I don't understand how we can learn from leaves or stones, but i know that we can learn how to use them. When he says we can "feel beauty". I can relate to that because sometimes I find myself outside looking at nature and just realizing how beautiful everything is.

9/15/16 #8

We are not the less abolished though we decline accepting it. The Indian children went to college and when they came back they were unfit to live in the wood.

I think that the Indian way of living was crucial to their type of survival. But the children who left the tribe and went to college came back and were unfit to live in the woods. As the world "evolves" and becomes more advanced with technology, we become in a way softer. You hear stories of just a couple of decades ago when people say "that's when men were men".

9/14/16 reading #7

The ways of learning

We do not want riches, but we do want to treat our children right. We want peace and love

Riches spoil the soul. If you look at the best soccer players in the world, they usually come from a dirt poor family. Soccer is all that those kids had, Messi, Ronaldo, the two best players in the world came from dirt poor cities and families. People who have nothing strive to have everything. People who have everything are spoiled with riches, and won't have the work rate, or the heart as those who come from nothing.

9/12/16 reading #6

Silence before speech.

 Silence is golden. This reading shows that you must think before you speak. Silence when someone else is talking is respectful. While silent, you can concentrate better, listen to someone and comprehend them better.

9/9 Reading #5

"It does not require many words to speak the truth." Actions speak louder then words do. If you say you're going to do something but then do the exact opposite. Speaking the truth goes far with all people, if you tell the truth to the teacher you will have an easier punishment or none at all. But if you lie, to your parents, your teacher, your boss, you will be punished. Telling the truth is just so much easier.

8/31 #3

Man with no animals means man with no food, man with no game, man with no friend. Man needs the animals to survive. Spirits would die without seeing the beautiful animals in the world. The animals guide us through life, they do things that set examples and give ideas to men.

8/30 reading #2

Nature conquers everything in time. Nature will prevail, when all other man made structures will be ruined. There will become a time when the earth will cleanse itself, and there won't be people to maintain what they have built and nature will prevail. Nature will conquer. I heard a song one time and the words spoke out to me.
"I don't know why, know why

Everybody wanna die rich
Diamonds, champagne,
Work your way down that list.
We try, everybody tries
Tries to fit into that ditch
You can't take it with you when you go
Never seen a hearse with a trailer hitch
Never seen a hearse with a trailer hitch"

Trailer Hitch- Kristian Bush

Journal 8/29 #1

All things are connected, what falls upon the earth, falls upon the children of the earth.

The earth as a whole is a living thing. So what falls upon it falls upon all the living thing on the earth. The earth lives and breathes just as the humans who live here do.  If the earth becomes sick, so do the people; if well so are the people.