I Am Not Ashamed To Be A

It Is My Land, My Home, My Father's Land, To Which I Now Ask To Be Allowed To Return. I Want To Spend My Last Days There, And Be Buried Among Those Mountains. If This Could Be I Might Die In Peace, Feeling That My People, Placed In Their Native Homes, Would Increase In Numbers, Rather Than Diminish As At Present, And That Our Name Would Not Become Extinct.

The Song That I Will Sing Is An Old Song, So Old That None Knows Who Made It. It Has Been Handed Down Through Generations And Was Taught To Me When I Was But A Little Lad. It Is Now My Own Song. It Belongs To Me. This Is A Holy Song (medicine-song), And Great Is Its Power. The Song Tells How, As I Sing, I Go Through The Air To A Holy Place Where Yusun (the Supreme Being) Will Give Me Power To Do Wonderful Things. I Am Surrounded By Little Clouds, And As I Go Through The Air I Change, Becoming Spirit Only.

I Am Not Ashamed To Be A Christian, And I Am Glad To Know That The President Of The United States Is A Christian, For Without The Help Of The Almighty I Do Not Think He Could Rightly Judge In Ruling So Many People. I Have Advised All Of My People Who Are Not Christians, To Study That Religion, Because It Seems To Me The Best Religion In Enabling One To Live Right.

We Are Vanishing From The Earth, Yet I Cannot Think We Are Useless Or Else Usen Would Not Have Created Us. He Created All Tribes Of Men And Certainly Had A Righteous Purpose In Creating Each.

We Had No Churches, No Religious Organizations, No Sabbath Day, No Holidays, And Yet We Worshiped. Sometimes The Whole Tribe Would Assemble To Sing And Pray; Sometimes A Smaller Number, Perhaps Only Two Or Three. The Songs Had A Few Words, But Were Not Formal. The Singer Would Occasionally Put In Such Words As He Wished Instead Of The Usual Tone Sound. Sometimes We Prayed In Silence; Sometimes Each One Prayed Aloud; Sometimes An Aged Person Prayed For All Of Us. At Other Times One Would Rise And Speak To Us Of Our Duties To Each Other And To Usen. Our Services Were Short.