Live
Your Life
~Tecumseh~
“So live
your life so the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about
their religion; respect others in their views, and demand that they respect
yours. Love your life, perfect your life, and beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble
death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or
sign of salute when meeting or passing a stranger if in a lonely place. Show
respect to all people, but grovel to none. When you arise in the morning, give
thanks for the light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and
for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies
in yourself.
Touch not
the poisonous firewater that makes wise ones turn to fools and robs them of
their visions.
When it
comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear
of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more
time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song
and die like a hero going home.”
Tecumseh (March 1768 – October 5, 1813) was a
Native American leader of the Shawnee and a large tribal confederacy (known as
Tecumseh's Confederacy) which opposed the United States during Tecumseh's War
and the War of 1812. Tecumseh has become an icon and heroic figure in American
Indian and Canadian history.
Quotes:
- A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong.
- Let us form one body, one heart, and defend to the last warrior our country, our homes, our liberty, and the graves of our fathers.
"No tribe has the right
to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers... Sell a country! Why not
sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn't the Great Spirit make
them all for the use of his children?
The way, the only way
to stop this evil is for the red man to unite in claiming a common and equal
right in the land, as it was first, and should be now, for it was never
divided. We gave them forest-clad mountains and valleys full of game, and in
return what did they give our warriors and our women? Rum, trinkets, and a grave."
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