Quotes from Leslie Marmon Silko

AFTER THE NIGHT rain, a blue mist rose above the rolling green llanos from dawn until noon. A hundred miles in the distance, the high mountains were still hidden in clouds, and it had been easy for David to imagine he was Adam in the Garden. For as far as he could see to the south and the west, there were no jet vapor trails, no engine sounds, no glitter of metal or glass, no dogs barking, no human voice; only the insects whirring and the calls of birds.

Christianity might work on other continents and with other human beings; Yoeme did not dispute those possibilities. But from the beginning in the Americas, the outsiders had sensed their Christianity was somehow inadequate in the face of the immensely powerful and splendid spirit beings who inhabited the vastness of the Americas. The Europeans had not been able to sleep soundly on the American continents, not even with a full military guard.

No wonder the blood sacrifices and the blood-spilling had stopped when the people reached this high desert plateau; every drop of moisture, every drop of blood, each tear, had been made precious by this arid land.

They are afraid, Tayo. They feel something happening, they can see something happening around them, and it scares them. Indians or Mexicans or whites—most people are afraid of change. They think that if their children have the same color of skin, the same color of eyes, that nothing is changing." She laughed softly. "They are fools. They blame us, the ones who look different. That way they don't have to think about what has happened inside themselves.

Some people act like witchery is responsible for everything that happens, when actually witchery only manipulates a small portion.

at that time she had not yet seen that the horizon was an illusion and

The morning of the funeral an honor guard from Albuquerque fired the salute; two big flags covered the coffins completely, and it looked as if the people from the village had gathered only to bury the flags.

Linguistic diversity is integral to the cultural diversity that ensures some humans will survive in the event of one of the periodic global catastrophes. Local indigenous languages hold the keys to to survival because they contain the nouns, the names of the plants, insects, birds and mammals important locally to human survival.

The room pulsed with feeling

White people selling Indians junk cars and trucks reminded Tayo of the Army captain in the 1860s who made a gift of wool blankets to the Apaches: the entire stack of blankets was infected with smallpox

He was standing with the wind at his back, like that mule, and he felt he could stand there indefinitely, maybe forever, like a fence post or a tree. It took a great deal of energy to be a human being, and the more the wind blew and the sun moved southwest, the less energy Tayo had.

The juke box was playing a Mexican polka

They drank until they couldn't walk without holding on to her. She asked them for money then, money to send back to Emma at Towac: for the little girls. Then they stumbled up the steps to the Hudson Hotel. If she took long enough in the toilet, they usually passed out on the bed.

Their mouths were wet and soured with beer, and when they pushed themselves down on her, they felt small and soft between her thighs. She stared at the stains on the ceiling, and waited until they gave up or fell asleep, and then she rolled out from under them.

She didn't like the looks of the Indian women she saw in Gallup, dancing at Eddie's club with the drunks that stumbled around the floor with them. Their hair was dirty and straight. They'd shaved off their eyebrows, but the hairs were growing back and they didn't bother to pencil them any more. Their blouses had buttons missing and were fastened with safety pins. Their western pants were splitting out at the seams; there were stains around the crotch.

At twilight the earth was darker than the sky, and it was difficult to see if any of Romero's sheep or goats were grazing along the edge of the pavement. The tourist traffic on Highway 66 was gone now, and Tayo imagined white people eating their mashed potatoes and gravy in some steamy Grants café.

But there was something else now, as Betonie said: it was everything they had seen—the cities, the tall buildings, the noise and the lights, the power of their weapons and machines. They were never the same after that: they had seen what the white people had made from the stolen land.

The humma-hah (meaning 'long ago') stories are traditional Pueblo stories that have been told continuously for thousands of years about a time when amazing things were possible, when the plants and animals and even rocks and stars used to converse with human beings. The humma-hah stories describe the various supernatural beings and other worlds and other times that still exist right beside the present world and present time

Indian Song: Survival We went north to escape winter climbing pale cliffs we paused to sleep at the river. Cold water river cold from the north I sink my body in the shallow sink into sand and cold river water. …Mountain forest wind travels east and I answer: taste me, I am the wind touch me, I am the lean gray deer running on the edge of the rainbow.

Then they grow away from the earth then they grow away from the sun then they grow away from the plants and animals. They see no life When they look they see only objects. The world is a dead thing for them the trees and rivers are not alive

Whirling darkness has come back on itself. It keeps all its witchery to itself.

But as long as you remember what you have seen, then nothing is gone. As long as you remember, it is part of this story we have together.

You don't have anything if you don't have the stories.

I will tell you something about stories . . . They aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.