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Quotes About Indigenous

The most important thing is the indigenous people are not vindictive by nature. We are not here to oppress anybody - but to join together and build Bolivia, with justice and equality.
~ Evo Morales
Health economists have estimated that an injection of $250 million per year in Indigenous clinical care, and $50 million in preventative care, is required to provide services at the same level as for any other group with the health conditions of Indigenous Australians.
~ Malcolm Fraser
We, who work every day just to survive, swear on the blood of our ancestors that we will never allow dams across our rivers. We are simple Indians and mestizos, but we would rather die than stand by as our land is flooded. We warn our Colombian brothers: stop working for the construction companies.
~ John Perkins
Isn't there a risk, you wonder, of indigenous leaders being corrupted by the big corporations? No doubt. But aren't we already living with the problem of government officials, politicians, civil servants, political parties and mayors being corrupted by these companies or – to put it in gentler terms – agreeing to act in a compliant manner? They
~ John Ralston Saul
Richard Atleo's Principles of Tsawalk
~ John Ralston Saul
Guerin and Delgamuukw are two examples of the continuing ability of Aboriginal peoples to shape not just how Canada functions or will function, but how Canada imagines itself. The Court's decisions demonstrate how Canada does not exist or function merely in the narrative of the British or French philosophy of governance. It
~ John Ralston Saul
And so the indigenous languages of this place do belong to the people through whom they emerged. But they also carry within them an understanding of where we are and what is required of us all. Each time one of these languages disappears, even if you have never heard it, a great steel door closes forever on an understanding of this place. The
~ John Ralston Saul
The government and its representatives repeatedly constructed Canada by using the language and meaning of Aboriginal peoples – the language of long-term commitments in the most complete sense. As the strength of indigenous peoples returns, the courts are holding our governments to the language they used in order to gain power. That is good for all of us, and
~ John Ralston Saul
By 1902, when Abuelito, my grandfather, was twenty years old and moving the tassel from one side of his graduation cap to the other at the University of Notre Dame, Julio César had thousands of rain-forest Indians making him rich. They were the Huitoto, the Bora, the Andoke, the Ocaina: from fierce headhunters to doe-eyed forest folk.
~ Marie Arana
They sent out notices to all the tribal leaders, and they told us we could have whatever we wanted: Prairie Niggers, if the New Jersey team did not object, Redskins, Savages, Warriors, Heathens, Braves, Bucks—and of course the cheerleaders would be the Squaws, unless we wanted to modernize the language and just call them the Cunts. But
~ Unknown
Texas does not, like any other region, simply have indigenous dishes. It proclaims them. It congratulates you, on your arrival, at having escaped from the slop pails of the other 49 states.
~ Alistair Cooke
The ninos santos (Psilocybe mexicana) heal. They lower fevers, cure colds, and give freedom from toothaches. They pull the evil spirits out of the body or free the spirit of the sick.
~ Unknown
They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they kept only one; they promised to take our land, and they did.
~ Red Cloud
In what's usually referred to as "the Columbian Exchange" -one of history's great misnomers, given the genocide that followed - Europe took so much of value from the Indigenous people of what became known as North and South America that it was able to rule most of the world until the mid-twentieth century.
~ Mark Bittman
Trust Indians not to miss any virtues of the plant world! Nothing
~ Unknown
American religion scholar George "Tink" Tinker, wrestling with the role Jesus played in the lives of his people, concludes that liberation for indigenous folk begins with a clear understanding that Jesus, in whose name well-intending missionaries justified cultural and physical genocide, is not the answer. Salvation for those crushed under Christendom
~ Unknown
Los médicos, en cambio, pueden ensayar en el hospital con los indios.
~ Unknown
Four thousand years ago, we, the people of the Indus River basin, had cities that were laid out on grids and boasted underground sewers, while the ancestors of those who would invade and colonize America were illiterate barbarians.
~ Mohsin Hamid
In many Latin American countries, the historic ties of Catholic bishops with the political elite rendered them less sensitive to the conditions of the poor and especially of indigenous people.
~ Moisés Naím
Selfishness returns the logic of modern, indigenous culture, patriotic science, to the animal sources of survival. Billions of people each think about themselves, people will die of selfishness.
~ Unknown
The takeover of the Amerindians appears to them as the beginning of the Apocalypse.
~ Unknown
The aborigines were a source of wonder and amusement to be alternately fed, clothed, teased, educated, and petted.
~ Nancy Rubin Stuart
Rather than always holding up American traditions of democracy and freedom as the example, the U.S. should spend more time focused on what local traditions might be emphasized to help speed change. "You have to make the discussion indigenous, talk about justice and dignity... Democracy is discredited because it is too compromised and too identified with the West. You need something more rooted locally, so people know they have a stake in defining and constructing that.
~ Unknown
By the 1780s, Florida was home to Spanish-speaking Africans, fugitive slaves from the colonies, and indigenous and migrated Indian tribes, including the Seminoles. Fugitive slaves established maroon settlements in Spanish Florida with names like "Disturb Me If You Dare" and "Try Me If You Be Men.
~ Nicholas Johnson