An Indian Prayer: A Proposal to Man. Ron Skenandore

Bio: One of the very impressive spokesmen for the American Indian Movement, Rod Skenandore was one of the prime resource people at the Young World Development’s National Conversation during the summer of 1971. He delivered “An Indian Prayer” during the conference, one of the most moving moments for the gathering.

Quotations:

"I taught you when you first came to this land to plant certain things in the soil by which to survive. For you did not know the nature of this soil. And even though my methods were not all that productive quantity-wise, they worked. I taught you to take the skins of certain animals and to tan them. When you had learned this, I taught you to sew the hides together, and the protection these methods provided was far better than you employed. In your newness to this country, I took the time to teach you and you repaid me with death. But now, my brothers, don’t you think it is only fair and almost past time when you show me your appreciation by allowing me from here on out to live in the way I see fit? Don’t you think I should have a choice in the way I want to protect my own country? For once, allow me to decide if I want to go off and to fight in the wars you start and to perish as you obviously relish at the thought of for egotistic reasons. Allow me to live under my own laws as before, and I will not interfere with yours. Allow me to have control over my homelands that are called reservations, and if I want to be neutral where other countries are concerned, let me. Let me walk this land where I was born and where the spirits of my ancestors still sing in my songs. And, allow me to worship as I myself see fit. For have you not said that God is a just God? And if he is, he will not mind. For even though my ways of worship are different than those of yours, they still praise and thank the same thought. And allow me to have a seat in your United Nations. And if I want, let me beat on the table with my shoe while I voice my objections as you have allowed others to do. And if I so desire, let me speak as alternatively as you.

And when you have allowed me all these rights as are the rights of man that you wrote of, then at a point in time, let us meet on a neutral ground. And after we have prayed, thanking the spirits, let us smoke the pipe of man together. And, while we smoke, let us both see how the other is made. And then before the pipe goes out and before our spirits depart, let us take the other by the hand and speak the words, “I love you, my brother, and forever you will remain my brother.” And then forever like the blowing wind, and with feelings deeper than the reaches of space and warmer than the radiance of the sun, let us live as brothers in peace."