And I Saw That The Sacred Hoop

Whether It Happened So Or Not I Do Not Know; But If You Think About It You Can See That It Is True.

Grown Men May Learn From Very Little Children, For The Hearts Of Little Children Are Pure, And, Therefore, The Great Spirit May Show To Them Many Things Which Older People Miss.

Once We Were Happy In Our Own Country And We Were Seldom Hungry, For Then The Two-leggeds And The Four-leggeds Lived Together Like Relatives, And There Was Plenty For Them And For Us. But The Wasichus Came, And They Have Made Little Islands For Us And Other Little Islands For The Four-leggeds, And Always These Islands Are Becoming Smaller, For Around Them Surges The Gnawing Flood Of The Wasichu; And It Is Dirty With Lies And Greed.

I Did Not Know Then How Much Was Ended. When I Look Back Now From This High Hill Of My Old Age, I Can Still See The Butchered Women And Children Lying Heaped And Scattered All Along The Crooked Gulch As Plain As When I Saw Them With Eyes Still Young. And I Can See That Something Else Died There In The Bloody Mud, And Was Buried In The Blizzard. A People's Dream Died There. It Was A Beautiful Dream.

I Looked Below And Saw My People There, And All Were Well And Happy Except One, And He Was Lying Like The Dead - And That One Was Myself.