Chief Dan George: Words of wisdom echo down the years

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At the end of each year most of us evaluate our lives; we take stock of where we've been, what we've achieved, and what we hope to accomplish in the coming 12 months.

But sometimes it's beneficial to look beyond the last year to other advice and counsel. In this 1972 speech by the late Chief Dan George, given at a teacher's conference in Lethbridge, he expresses deep insight into his roots and the directions of his life.

Now, years later, it is as though the words were spoken only yesterday. The insights are still clear and fresh and they can help us evaluate our lives.

Perhaps the true test of wisdom is its endurance. The chief's words do not date, do not go out of style, do not fade with time . . . they, like the chief, are immortal.

My good friends:

Was it only yesterday that men sailed around the moon? And is it tomorrow that they will stand on its baren surface?

You and I marvel that man should travel so far and so fast. Yet, if they have travelled farther; if they have travelled fast, then I faster. For I was born a thousand years ago ? born in a culture of bows and arrows. But within the span of half a life, I was flung across the ages to the culture of the atom bomb. And from bows and arrows to the atom bomb is a distance far beyond a flight to the moon.

Was it only yesterday?

I was born in an age that loved the things of nature and spoke to it as though it had a soul. And then the people came. More and more people came. Like a crushing, rushing wave they came, hurdling the years aside. Suddenly I found myself a young man in the midst of the 20th century.

I found myself and my people adrift in a new age but not part of it. Engulfed by its rushing tide, but only as a captive eddy, going round and round ? on little reserves, on plots of land, we floated in a kind of grey unreality ? ashamed of our culture which you ridiculed, unsure of who we were or where we were going. We were uncertain of our grip on the present, weak in our hope for the future.

And that is where we pretty well stand today.

I had a glimpse of something better than this. For a few brief years, I knew my people when we lived the old life. I knew them when there was still a dignity in our lives and a feeling of worth in our outlook.

I knew them when there was unspoken confidence in the home and a certain knowledge of the path we walked upon. But we were living on the dying energy of the dying culture that was slowly losing its forward thrust.

I think it was the suddenness of it all that hurt us so. We did not have time to adjust to the startling upheaval around us. We did not have time to take your 20th century progress and eat it, little by little, and digest it. It was force feeding from the start and our stomachs turned sick.

Do you know what it is like to be without mooring? Do you know what it is like to live in surroundings that are ugly and everywhere you look you see ugly things, strange things? It depresses man because man must be surrounded by the beautiful if his soul is to grow.

What did we see in the new surroundings you brought us?

Laughing faces, pitying faces, conniving faces; faces that ridiculed, faces that stole from us.

It is no wonder we turned to the only people who did not steal and who did not sneer, who came with love; I for one will ever return that love.

Do you know what it is like to feel you are of no value to society and those around you?

Do you know what it is like to have your race belittled and to learn that you are only a burden to your country?

Maybe we did not have the skills to make a meaningful contribution, but no one would wait for us to catch up. Now you hold out your hand and beckon me to come across the street. Come and integrate you say. But how can I come? I am naked and ashamed.

How can I come in dignity?

I have no presents, I have no gifts. What is there in my culture you value? My poor treasure you can only scorn. Am I then to come as a beggarand receive all from your omnipotent hand?

Somehow I must wait. I must delay. I must find myself. I must find my treasure. I must wait until you want something of me, until you need something that is me. Then I will hold my head high for I will meet you as an equal.

I will not scorn you for your demeaning gifts and you will not receive me in pity. Pity I can do without ? my manhood I cannot do without. I shall not come as a cringing object of your pity. I shall come in dignity or I shall not come at all.

You talk big words of integration in the schools. Does it really matter ? can we talk of integration until there is social integration? Unless there is integration of hearts and minds you have only a physical presence ? and the walls are as high as the mountain range.

I know you must be saying, 'Tell us what do you want?' What do we want?

What we want first of all is to be respected and to feel we are people of worth. We want an equal opportunity in life, but we cannot succeed on your terms.

We need specialized help in education, specialized help in the formative years, special courses in English and guidance counselling. We need equal job opportunities for our graduates, otherwise our students will lose courage and ask what is the use of it all.

Let no one forget it. We are a people with special rights guaranteed to us by promises and treaties. We do not beg for these rights, nor do we thank you. We do not thank you for them because we paid for them, and the price we paid was exorbitant. We paid for them with our culture, our dignity and self-respect. We paid until we became a beaten race, poverty-stricken and conquered.

But you have been kind, and I know that in your heart you wish you could help. I wonder if there is much you can do, and yet there is a lot you can do.

When you meet my children in your classrooms, respect each one for what he is ? a child of our father in heaven, and your brother.