Quotes from Mary Brave Bird

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.

Moral power is always more dangerous to an oppressor than political force.

People who want to be tattooed don't always have good taste.

I have become an environmentalist, because it is over the environment that the last of the Indian Wars will be fought.

To me, women's lib was mainly a white, upper-middle class affair of little use to a reservation Indian woman.

The land is sacred. These words are at the core of your being. The land is our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land away and we die. That is, the Indian in us dies.

these white people have lost their own gods and mislaid their souls. They have trouble dealing with reality, with death.

truth is beautiful, even when it is ugly. I

The government and the highest courts in the land have admitted that this huge area was stolen from us. But stolen or "bought," Uncle Sam never gives any Indian land back.

Fourteen billion dollars in gold alone have been taken out of our sacred land and they offer us 120 million in compensation!

They are not racist. They'll drill and mine the land of white ranchers and farmers too if they think their area is "resource rich." So we told those white folks: "You'll be next, you'll be the next Indians.

In no event shall any environmental regulations or standards of South Dakota be applicable to this project.

these polluters shall have the sole right to decide what: kind of shit, poison, toxic or hazardous waste they will dump on us. If, at some later date, the tribe should adopt stricter standards for waste disposal, then we must compensate those bastards for the costs arising from the new rules.

one dollar for every ton of waste.

The reasoning behind the new law was that if liquor was made legal, we'd have fewer accidents.

a white person who wants to know about our religion but won't listen. There

Allowing liquor on the res, close to where you lived, was supposed to prevent injuries and deaths caused by drunken driving.

They are hungering for "a deep sexual experience." They'll sleep with anybody who wears braids or a choker. I

Let's make our stand at Wounded Knee, because that place has meaning for us, because so many of our people were massacred there. If you guys don't want to do it, we women will, and you men can stay behind and mind the kids." After

When playing either quarter pitch or spinners, you can go through a case of beer in twenty minutes. It's fun and it's deadly.

In South Dakota about 6 percent of the population are Indians, but we account for 43 percent of arrests and 50 percent of all convictions.

Whites break the law too, but it is always the poor and the nonwhites who actually do the time in penitentiaries.

when you seem to get yourself down, teach yourself to think like the eagle always, and let your spirit soar high. Feel the strength of his wings, and feel the beat of his heart so that your spirit soars high and you can look down and see just how small things really are.

As recently as 1991, the Supreme Court upheld a Washington State ruling outlawing peyote. Freedom of religion, as I said before, seems to apply only to whites. For