Our people could not talk with these white-faced men, but they used signs which all people understand.
Interpretation
Communication transcends language through universal signs.
This quote by Chief Joseph highlights the importance of non-verbal communication and gestures, emphasizing that despite language barriers, human connection and understanding can still be achieved through shared signs and symbols. It reflects the idea that all people have a common ability to convey emotions and ideas, fostering relationships across cultures.
In practice
In a multicultural event, to emphasize the importance of understanding each other beyond words.
We do not want churches because they will teach us to quarrel about God. We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. We do not want to learn that.
Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to talk, think and act for myself β and I will obey every law or submit to the penalty.
It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and the broken promises.
If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. There need be no trouble. Treat all men alike. give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow.
The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.
All men were made by the Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers.
No man who respects his mother or loves his sister, can speak disparagingly of any woman; however low she may seem to have sunk, she is still a woman. I want every man to remember this. Every woman is, or, at some time, has been a sister or daughter.
Her dignity consists in being unknown to the world; her glory is in the esteem of her husband; her pleasures in the happiness of her family.
When you are honest and open with young people, they let you in.
Hospitality means we take people into the space that is our lives and our minds and our hearts and our work and our efforts. Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves. It is the first step towards dismantling the barriers of the world. Hospitality is the way we turn a prejudiced world around, one heart at a time.
In common with all Protestant or Jewish cultures, America was developed on the idea that your word is your bond. Otherwise, the frontier could never have been opened, 'cause it was lawless. A man's word had to mean something.
My whole life, meeting people is like a blind date, because I feel like they've already seen the video on me.
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