CHIEF SEATTLE

"The dead have power too." Wow, that was a great line.

After reading a few of my fellow classmate's responses to this reading, it seems that some have interpreted Chief Seattle as a close minded and angry individual. I could not disagree more with the opinion that he was as narrow minded and judgmental as the missionary in Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha's speech. I found him to be incredibly accepting of the fate of himself and his people.

In my opinion, any anger that may have come across, did so briefly, and was merited by the absolute horrendous treatment of Native Americans by early settlers. The settlers, as a fellow blogger so eloquently pointed out, took everything from them and then offered them the table scraps. I would say that any contempt felt by Native Americans was provoked; however, I really did not get that sort of vibe from the reading.

I felt like he was speaking the truth and sometimes the truth hurts. He seemed to have an "it is what it is" sort of attitude. He seemed to have a very realistic grasp of what his people had been through and where they would have to go from here. He really only had one option: sell the land and take his people to a reservation or refuse to sell his land and have the settlers take his land anyway and most likely kill all his people. Considering what he had been through and what his options were, I found him to be a rather enlightened and forgiving individual. He was even willing to take part of the blame for the death of his people.

I can understand how he would feel that the God the settlers spoke of must hate the red man after what they had been through. The settlers would probably have felt the same had it all been the other way around. I can also understand why he felt that the red and white man were two separate races that must remain separate. Would you want to be a part of a community that murdered your family and stole your land? I think not.

I loved the way this reading ended. One fellow blogger described the idea of the "invisible dead" of Native Americans hanging out in our streets, highways, and forests as "spooky" but I got a lot more than just the idea that the dead have the power to haunt the living like a ghost. I sort of took that portion as the essence of karma. You can't do terrible things without consequence. Eventually, what goes around does come around. And that fact is why we should be just and deal kindly with all.