Page:Natalie Curtis - The Indians' Book.djvu/16

 FOREWORD By Hiamovi (High Chief) (Chief among the Cheyennes and the Dakotas.)

To the Great Chief at Washington, and to the Chiefs of Peoples across the Great Water

This is the Indians' Book

Long ago the Great Mystery caused this land to be, and made the Indians to live in this land. Well has the Indian fulfilled all the intent of the Great Mystery for him. Through this book may men know that the Indian people was made by the Great Mystery for a purpose.

Once, only Indians lived in this land. Then came strangers from across the Great Water. No land had they; we gave them of our land. No food had they; we gave them of our corn. The strangers are become many and they fill all the country. They dig gold—from my mountains; they build houses—-of the trees of my forests; they rear cities—of my stones and rocks; they make fine garments—from the hides and wool of animals that eat my grass. None of the things that make their riches did they bring with them from beyond the Great Water; all comes from my land, the land the Great Mystery gave unto the Indian.

And when I think upon this I know that it is right, even thus. In the heart of the great Mystery it was meant that stranger-visitors—my friends across the Great Water—should come to my land; that I should bid them welcome; that all men should sit down with me and eat together of my corn. It was meant by the Great Mystery that the Indian should give to all peoples.

But the white man never has known the Indian. It is thus: there are two roads, the white man's road, and the Indian's road. Neither traveller knows the road of the other. Thus ever has it been, from the long ago, even unto to-day. May this book help to make the Indian truly known in the time to come.

The Indian wise-speakers in this book are of the best men of their tribes. Only what is true is within this book. I want all Indians and white men to read and learn how the Indians lived and thought in the olden time, and may it bring holy-good upon the younger Indians to know of their fathers. A little while, and the old Indians will no longer be, and the young will be even as white men. When I think, I know that it is the mind of the Great Mystery that white men and Indians who fought together should now be one people.