I refrain tears, as I look reminiscingly out, onto the deserted plain...
There is no comfort or feelin’ that can express our empty pain...
Visions of sane Insanity are crushed by the white mans Inhumanity...
A gargantuan tragedy as the whites killed our people so mercifully...
Did we deserve it?, Questions I run over and over in my mind...
Our leaders saw it comin’ and left, but we were so visionally blind...
Now we're confined, to these so small and austere spaces provided...
The Buffalo population is parting, and our civilisation is divided...
” Whose voice was first sounded on this land? The voice of the red people who had but bows and arrows... When the white man comes in my country he leaves a trail of blood behind him... I have two mountains in that country... I want the Great Father to make no roads through them.
” Red Cloud
A great leader has forsaken us, but now we have a inspiration in Sitting Bull...
We have to fight this white man, because we will never live under his rule...
But these plains are desolately empty, all the energy and vigour has gone....
Dawn is quickly departing, but soon all Custer’s troops will be withdrawn...
The “Wild West”, is the white mans song, he sings it fluently in the heat of battle...
He whistles arrogantly, we know he wants to replace our sacred buffalo with cattle...
But now we have to defend, these rich mountains right thru to the end...
We strive into battle so confidently, but secretly I can no longer pretend...
”I will remain what I am until I die, a hunter, and when there are no buffalo or other game I will send my children to hunt and live on prairie mice, for where an Indian is shut up in one place his body becomes weak.”
Sitting Bull
Now we’re confined, to this treacherous land, West of the Missouri river...
We visioned occupying the Black Hills as our sacred home forever and ever...
But now restricted to a small vicinity, By the white man, death was carelessly inflicted...
But to say that we were naïve or innocent is erroneous, it was already predicted...
Now I look out onto the empty plain, Nothing or no-one can express our pain...
In the distance, a train hurdles forward, Over what used to be our blessed land...
The last buffalo hoard gallops by, The few survivors of a herd so grand...
But it is time to look to the future, under the influence and command of the white man...
Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other, then we will have no more wars. We shall all be alike -- brothers of one father, and one mother, with one sky above us and one country around us, and one government for all. Then the Great Spirit who rules above will smile upon this land, and all people may be one people. Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekht has spoken for his people.
Chief Joseph
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