Tekst 36: Udtalelser fra amerikanske indianske børn, 1960’ern og 1970’erne

Følgende to uddrag er fortalt til psykiateren Robert Coles i slutningen af 1960’erne og begyndelsen af 1970’erne. Det første uddrag er fortalt af en amerikansk indiansk dreng fra Oklahoma, mens det andet uddrag er fortalt af en amerikansk indiansk pige fra Hopi-stammen i Arizona.

Fra Peter Nabokov: Native American Testimony. Penguin Books, 1999, s. 402-403.

At school they show us their guns and submarines and tanks; we know of them, anyway. Aren’t we here, on a reservation? We didn’t just walk here, whistling and saying it’s a sunny day, and let’s live where we won’t bother anyone, and let them tell us everything to do, because we’re glad to wait on them.

I look out the window a lot when I’m in school. I take walks, only the teacher thinks I’m sitting at my desk, taking in all her words. (Why is it, all teachers sound alike? They have sirens in their voices, and whistles, and they wave their bands as if they’re holding a rifle, and don’t know who to aim it at, and when to fire.)

I have our dog with me on the walk I imagine I’m taking. He is a wise dog. He teaches me. I climb trees; I don’t want to go higher – no airplanes for me.

My grandfather says the land vomited its oil for the white man, and soon the white man will leave the land alone, and at least we will have quiet here. But my grandmother says no, the white man will never leave. He is a tornado, and we have tornados every year in Oklahoma.

When the white man landed on the moon, my father cried. He said the day had to come, he knew; but still, he cried. I told him there weren’t any Indians on the moon, so stop crying. He said nothing for a long time. Then he said our spirits were there, too – and he was sure Indians were crying up there, and trying to hide, and hoping that soon they’d go back to their Earth, the white men, where they make so many people unhappy, and where they don’t know what to do next.

But my aunt told me ‘the moon is yours to look at and talk to, so don’t worry.’ And I don’t. One day, you know, everything will settle down; there won’t be the Federal Government and their troops, or the army and navy and air force – only some people growing their food and saying hello and smiling when they speak and not worrying about landing on the moon.

Well, I hope that day will come. When I take my walk away from school, while I’m sitting there at my desk, that’s what I say to myself: the day will come, the good day. And then we’ll all be friends.

ANONYMOUS, Oklahoma Indian


We are nothing to the white people; we are a few Hopis, but they are Americans, millions of them. My father told me that their leader, whoever he is, ends his speech by saying that God is on their side, and then he shakes his fist and say to all the other nations: you had better pay attention, because we are big, and we will shoot to kill, if you don’t watch out.

My mother says all the big countries are like that, but I only know this one. We belong to it, that is what the government of the United States says. They come here, the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] people and they give us their orders. This law says...another law says…, and soon there will be a new law.

In case we have any objections, they have soldiers, they have planes. We see the jets diving high in the sky. The clouds try to get out of the way, but they don’t move fast enough. The water tries to escape to the ocean, but can only go at its own speed.

Everything, everyone, is the white man’s; all he has to do is stake his claim. They claimed us. They claimed our land, our water; now they have turned to other places, and my uncle, who knows the history of our people, and of the United States, says it is a sad time for others, but when my brother began to worry about the others, our uncle sighed, and said; “At least our turn is over, and don’t be afraid to be glad for that.”

They are not really through with us, though. They come here – the American police, the red light going around and around on their cars: visitors to our reservation from the great United States of America. “There they are,” my father always says. He tells us to lower our eyes. I have stared at them and their cars, but I will never say anything, I know that.

If their President came here, I would stay home or come to look at him, but not cheer. I have seen on television people cheering the President. In school they show us pictures of white men we should cheer. I never want to. I don’t think the teachers expect us to, want us to; just to pretend. So, we do.

ANONYMOUS,  Hopi Indian

Til tekst 35 | Til oversigten over kildetekster | Til tekst 37