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

“[...] and above all the mazaskan-skan, that damn clock-white man's time as opposed to Indian time, which is natural time. Like eating when you are hungry and sleeping when you are tired, not when that damn clock says you must.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“And then suddenly a bus or car arrives, full of strangers, usually white strangers, who yank the child out of the arms of those who love it, taking it screaming to the boarding school. The only word I can think of for what is done to these children is kidnapping.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“So many of my relations and friends who were ever dear to me, or meant something to me, or meant something to the people, have either been killed or found dead on some out-of the-way road. The good Indians die first.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“The little settlements we lived in-He-Dog, Upper Cut Meat, Parmelee, St. Francis, Belvidere-were places without hope where bodies and souls were being destroyed bit by bit. Schools left many of us almost illiterate. We were not taught any skills. The land was leased to white ranchers. Jobs were almost nonexistent on the reservation, and outside the res whites did not hire Indians if they could help it. There was nothing for the men
to do in those days but hit the bottle. The men were psychologically crippled and thus my mother did not have much choice when it came to picking a husband. The men had nothing to live for, so they got drunk and drove off at ninety miles an hour in a car without lights, without brakes, and without destination, to die a warrior's death.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“The father says so-E'yayo!
The father says so-E'yayo!
You shall see your grandfather!
You shall see your kindred-E'yayo!
The father says so.
A'te he'ye lo.
Child let me grasp your hand,
Child let me grasp your hand.
You shall live,
You shall live!
Says the father.
A'te he'ye lo. -Ghost Dance song”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Our land itself is a legend, especially the area around Grass Mountain where I am living now. 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. The Sioux used to keep winter counts, picture writings on buffalo skin, which told our people's story from year to year. Well, the whole country is one vast winter count. You can't walk a mile without coming to some family's sacred vision hill, to an ancient Sun Dance circle, an old battle ground, a place where something worth remembering happened. Mostly a death, a proud death or a drunken death. We are a great people for dying. "It's a good day to die!" that's our old battle cry. But the land with its tar paper shacks and outdoor privies, not one of them straight, but all leaning this way or that way, is also a land to live on, a land for good times and telling jokes and talking of great deeds done in the past. But you can't live forever off the deeds of Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse. You can't wear their eagle feathers, freeload off their legends. You have to make your own legends now. It isn't easy.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“I have white blood in me. Often I have wished to be able to purge it out of me. As a young girl I used to look at myself in the mirror, trying to find a clue as to who and what I was. My face is very Indian, and so are my eyes and my hair, but my skin is very light. Always I waited for the summer, for the prairie sun, the Badlands sun, to tan me and make me into a real skin.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“After my sister Sandra was born the doctors there performed a hysterectomy on my mother, in fact sterilizing her without her permission, which was common at the time, and up to just a few years ago, so that it is hardly worth mentioning. In the opinion of some people, the fewer Indians there are, the better. As Colonel Chivington said to his soldiers: "Kill 'em all, big and small, nits make lice!”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“Among Plains tribes, some men think that all a woman is good for is to crawl into the sack with them and mind the children. It compensates for what white society has done to them. They were famous warriors and hunters once, but the buffalo is gone and there is not much rep in putting a can of spam or an occasional rabbit on the table. As for being warriors, the only way some men can count coup nowadays is knocking out another skin's teeth during a barroom fight. In the old days a man made a name for himself by being generous and wise, but now he has nothing to be generous with, no jobs, no money”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman

“When I was a small girl at the St. Francis Boarding School, the Catholic sisters would take a buggy whip to us for what they called "disobedience." At age ten I could drink and hold a pint of whiskey. At age twelve the nuns beat me for "being too free with my body." All I had been doing was holding hands with a boy. At age fifteen I was raped. If you plan to be born, make sure you are born white and male.”
― Mary Crow Dog, Lakota Woman