Lakota Woman Quotes

“The thing to keep in mind is that laws are framed by those who happen to be in power and for the purpose of keeping them in power.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Moral power is always more dangerous to an oppressor than political force.”
― Mary Crow Dog , Lakota Woman

“Nixon sent some no-account underling to tell us that he had done more for the American Indian than any predecessor and that he saw no reason for our coming to Washington, that he had more important things to do than to talk with us—presumably surreptitiously taping his visitors and planning Watergate. We wondered what all these good things were that he had done for us.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Don’t sell your land, don’t sell Grandmother Earth to the strip-mining outfits and the uranium companies. Don’t sell your water.” That kind of advice is a threat to the system and gets you into the penitentiary.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“The thing to keep in mind is that laws are framed by those who happen to be in power and for the purpose of keeping them in power. That goes for the U.S.A as well as for Russia or any other country in the world.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“You got to look at things with the eye in your heart, not with the eye in your head. —Lame Deer”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Racism breeds racism in reverse.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“The men who had brought us whiskey and the smallpox had come with the cross in one hand and the gun in the other.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Even now, in a good school, there is impersonality instead of close human contact; a sterile, cold atmosphere, an unfamiliar routine, language problems, and above all the maza-skan-skan, that damn clock—white man’s time as opposed to Indian time, which is natural time.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“The fight for our land is at the core of our existence, as it has been for the last two hundred years. Once the land is gone, then we are gone too.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“White men invented whiskey and brought it to America. They manufacture, advertise, and sell it to us. They make the profit on it and cause the conditions that make Indians drink in the first place.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“I still have a poster I found among my grandfather’s stuff, given to him by the missionaries to tack up on his wall. It reads:

Let Jesus save you.
Come out of your blanket, cut your hair, and dress like a white man.
Have a Christian family with one wife for life only.
Live in a house like your white brother. Work hard and wash often.
Learn the value of a hard-earned dollar. Do not waste your money on giveaways. Be punctual.
Believe that property and wealth are signs of divine approval.
Keep away from saloons and strong spirits.
Speak the language of your white brother. Send your children to school to do likewise.
Go to church often and regularly.
Do not go to Indian dances or to the medicine men.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“In the old days, nature was our people’s only school and they needed no other.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“You must kill the Indian in order to save the man! " That was part of trying to escape the hard life. The missions, going to church, dressing and behaving like a wasičun—that for her was the key which would magically unlock the door leading to the good life, the white life with a white-painted cottage, and a carpet on the floor, a shiny car in the garage, and an industrious, necktie-wearing husband who was not a wino.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Between 1870 and 1880 all Sioux were driven into reservations, fenced in and forced to give up everything that had given meaning to their life—their horses, their hunting, their arms, everything.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“You got to look at things with the eye in your heart, not with the eye in your head.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“a drop of her moon blood fell to the earth. Rabbit saw it. He started to play with this tiny blood clot, kicking it around with his foot, and through the power of Tkuskanskan, the quickening, moving spirit, the blood clot firmed up and turned into We-Ota-Wichasha—Blood Clot Boy—the First Man.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Our language comes from the water, the flowers, the wild creatures, the”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Sound is important. Our sound is the sound of nature and animals, not the notes of a white man’s scale. Our”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Look at the real reality beneath the sham realities of things and gadgets,” Leonard always tells me. “Look through the eye in your heart. That’s the meaning of Indian religion.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“I was looking into the clouds, into the sun. Brightness filled my mind. The sun seemed to speak: "I am the Eye of Life. I am the Soul of the Eye. I am the Life Giver!" In the almost unbearable brightness, in the clouds, I
saw people. I could see those who had died. I could see Pedro Bissonette standing by the arbor and, above me, the face of Buddy Lamont, killed at Wounded Knee, looking at me with ghostly eyes. I saw the face of my friend Annie Mae Aquash, smiling at me. I could hear the spirits speaking to me through the eagle-bone whistles. I heard no sound but the shrill cry of the eagle bones. I felt nothing and, at the same time, everything. It was at that moment that I, a white educated half-blood, became wholly Indian. I experienced a great rush of happiness. I heard a cry coming from my lips:
Ho Uway Tinkte.
A Voice I will send.
Throughout the Universe,
Maka Sitomniye,
My Voice you shall hear:
I will live!”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Is it right for me to be kept from my people, from my earth? The house of my mother and father has been burned down. This is where seven generations of Crow Dogs have lived. I am in the penitentiary and could not help my family save the house. I can only watch the iron bars. But even here, today, I can feel my grandfather's heartbeat and hear the echo of the drum.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“You have no power at all. It is I who have the power. I have a legend. What legend do you have? What can you tell your children when you get home? What can you pass on to them?”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“It took some two hundred thousand dollars to get him out of jail in slightly under two years. While I was happy to see him free, I had a bad conscience thinking of the many nameless kids who had stuck their necks out in all the AIM confrontations languishing in the slammer, unable to raise money for bail or defense.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“It did not take us long to find out that money was all-important. If you have two hundred thousand dollars to spend on defense, you win your case; if you have no money, you lose. The so-called adversary system is simply a lottery. If you had money and connections to hire a brilliant lawyer and were faced with a mediocre prosecutor, you won. If you had no money and had to rely upon a court-appointed lawyer, you lost. If you could get a trial shifted to an Eastern city, you generally were acquitted. If you were tried in South or North Dakota, you went to jail. Guilt or innocence did not enter into it.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Sound is important. Our sound is the sound of nature and animals, not the notes of a white man's scale. Our language comes from the water, the flowers, the wild creatures, the winds. Crow Dog believes that the newborn child can understand this universal language, but later he forgets it. He teaches about harmony between humans and the earth, between man and man and between man and woman.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“You got to look at things
with the eye in your heart,
not with the eye in your head. -Lame Deer”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Annie Mae Aquash is dead. Leonard Peltier is doing two lifetimes. Maybe the prison hacks let him wear the moccasins she made for him. Nogeeshik was in a bad car accident and is now a wheelchair case. Leonard and I still have a lot of things she once treasured, which she gave to us. Some day I am going to find out who killed this good, gently tough, gifted friend of mine who did not deserve to die. Someday I will tell her daughters that she died for them, died like a warrior. Someday I will see Annie Mae. In a strange way I feel that she died so that I, and many others, could survive. That she died because she had made a secret vow, like a Sun Dancer who, obedient to his vow, pierces his flesh and undergoes the pain for all the people so that the people may live.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“They cut her hands off to send to Washington for identification-a needless cruelty as they could have made fingerprints on the spot without mutilating her.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“She came to my room. She did not say anything much, she was just sitting on the bed looking at me. She said, "I just wanted to see you. You won't see me again. " We talked about a few unimportant things, said our goodbyes, shook hands, hugged each other, and she cried and cried. That was the last time I saw her. It was as if she had heard Hinhan, the owl, hoot for her, death calling her. She knew and she accepted it.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman