Wisdom from Native Americans: Wovoka

"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 her 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."

-Wovoka
Paiute