Chief Seattle's Speech

Question 1

Who is the Great Chief at Washington?

Answer 1

The Great Chief at Washington is George Washington, the first President of the United States.

Question 2

What does the White Chief want?

Answer 2

The White Chief wants to buy the land of the Native Americans but will allow them enough land to “live comfortably”.

Question 3

Why does Chief Seattle say that today is fair but tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds?

Answer 3

He says this because, though things are fine at the present, they may not be fine in the future because the Great Chief wants to buy land from the Native Americans.

Question 4

With what natural imagery is the difference between the population of the white people and the population of the native Americans explained?

Answer 4

Chief Seattle says that the people of the Big Chief at Washington are many like the grass that covers vast prairies. He says that the Native Americans are few like the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain.

Question 5

According to Chief Seattle, how reliable are his words?

Answer 5

Chief Seattle’s words are like the “stars that never change”. He says that the Great Chief can rely on words with as much certainty as he can upon the “return of the sun or the seasons”.

Question 6

State the reaction of Chief Seattle to the greetings given by the Big Chief at Washington?

Answer 6

He says that it is kind of the Big Chief to give such greetings because the Big Chief has little need of the friendship of the Native Americans in return.

Question 7

Why would the Big Chief’s offer appear just?

Answer 7

The Big Chief’s offer would appear just because the “Red Man” no longer has the rights that he need respect.

Question 8

Why would the Big Chief’s offer appear wise?

Answer 8

It may appear wise because the Native Americans are no longer in need of an extensive country because of their sparse population.

Question 9

To what is the previously large population of native Americans compared?

Answer 9

The previously large population of the native Americans is compared to the winds of a wind-ruffled sea covering its shell-paved floor.

Question 10

What won’t Chief Seattle do with respect to the untimely decay of the Native Americans? Why?

Answer 10

Chief Seattle will not dwell on, nor mourn over, the untimely decay of Native Americans. He will not reproach his paleface brothers for it either.. This is because he believes that the Native Americans may too have been somewhat to blame.

Question 11

How did the Native Americans contribute to their own demise?

Answer 11

The youth of the population of Native Americans contributed to its decline. When young Native American men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black and that they are often cruel and relentless. The old individuals in the population of Native Americans are unable to restrain these younger people.

Revenge by young men is considered gain even at the cost of their own lives, but the old men who stay at home and the mothers who have sons to lose know better.

Question 12

What would the “good father in Washington” do if Chief Seattle’s people do as he desires?

Answer 12

If the Chief Seattle’s people do as he desires, the “good father in Washington” will protect them. His brave warriors would be a bristling wall of strength and his wonderful ships of war will fill out the harbours of Chief Seattle’s people, so that the Haidas and Tsimshian tribal enemies in the North will cease to frighten the woman, children and old men of Chief Seattle’s people.

Question 13

How does the God of the white people treat the Native Americans and the White people differently?

Answer 13

The God of the White people love the white people and hate the native Americans.

1. He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads them by the hand as a father leads an infant son. He has forsaken His native American children.
2. He makes the white people wax stronger every day. The Native Americans are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return.
3. He came to His paleface children and gave them laws, while the Native Americans never saw Him and he had no word for His “Red Children” whose teeming multitudes once filled the American continent as stars that fill firmament.

Question 14

Who is the god of the Native Americans?

Answer 14

The Great Spirit

Question 15

What do the Native Americans “seem” to be?

Answer 15

They seem to be orphans who look nowhere for help.

Question 16

How do the Native Americans and the white people treat their ancestors?

Answer 16

To the Native Americans, their ancestors are ‘sacred’ and their resting place is ‘hallowed ground’. The white people wander far from the graves of their ancestors seemingly without regret.

Question 17

How is the religion of the White people and the Native Americans different?

Answer 17

The religion of the white people is written upon ‘tablets of stone’ by the ‘iron finger’ of their God so that they could not forget.

The ‘Red Man’ could never remember or comprehend this religion. The Native Americans’ religion is the traditions of their ancestors, the dreams of their old men given in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit and the vision of their sachems. This religion is written in the hearts of the Native Americans.

Question 18

How is the treatment of the dead by the Red Man and by the White people different?

Answer 18

The dead of the white people ‘cease to love’ the people and the ‘land’ of their ‘nativity’ as soon as they ‘pass the portals of the tomb and wander beyond the stars’. They are soon forgotten and never return.

The dead of the ‘Red Man’ never forget the beautiful world that ‘gave them being’. They still love its ‘verdant valleys’, its ‘murmuring rivers’, its ‘magnificent mountains’, ‘sequestered vales’ and ‘verdant lined lakes and bays’. They ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the ‘happy hunting ground’ to visit, guide, console and comfort them.

Question 19

What is the dead man fleeing the approach of the White man compared to?

Answer 19

The dead man fleeing the approach of the White man is compared to the morning mist fleeing before the morning sun.

Question 20

What do the words of the Great White Chief seem to be?

Answer 20

The words of the great white chief seem to be the words of ‘nature’ speaking to the ‘Chief Seattle’s people’ out of ‘dense darkness’.

Question 21

How is does Chief Seattle explain that there won’t be many remnant days for the Red Man?

Answer 21

Chief Seattle says that the Indian’s night promises to be dark. He says that not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. He adds that sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. He ends by saying that Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man’s trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer he will prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.

Question 22

How does Chief Seattle explain that the demise of the white people will eventually come?

Answer 22

He says that, in a few more moons or winters not one of the descendants of the ‘mighty hosts’ that once moved over America or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than the white people. He questions why he should mourn at the untimely fate of his people, saying that, since tribe follows tribe and nations follows nation like the waves of the sea, the time of decay of the white people will surely come even if it is distant.

Question 23

On what condition will Chief Seattle’s people accept the White Chief’s proposition?

Answer 23

Chief Seattle’s people will accept the White Chief’s proposition if the Native Americans will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any times the tombs of their ancestors, friends and children.

Question 24

What is the justification provided for the condition by Chief Seattle?

Answer 24

Chief Seattle says that every part of the soil of the Native Americans’ land is sacred in the estimation of the Native Americans and that every hillside, every valley, every plane and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished.

He adds that even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as they swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of the Native Americans.

He concludes by saying that the very dust on which the white people now stand responds more lovingly to the footsteps of the Native Americans than the footsteps of the white people because it is rich with the blood of the ancestors of the Native Americans and because the bare feet of Native Americans are conscious of sympathetic touch.

Question 25

Will the white people ever be alone? Justify.

Answer 25

The white people will never be alone. According to Chief Seattle, when the last Red Man shall have perished and the memory of Chief Seattle’s tribe will have become a myth among the white people, the shores of the land will swarm with the invisible dead of Chief Seattle’s tribe.

He adds that, when the white man’s children’s children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop upon the highway or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. At night, when the streets of the white people’s cities and villages are silent and seem deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love their beautiful land.

Question 26

What is a theme of Chief Seattle’s Speech?

Answer 26

A theme of Chief Seattle’s speech is the major difference between the belief systems of the white people and of the native Americans.

Question 27

Character traits of Chief Seattle

Answer 27

• patriotic
• guided by humanitarian principles
• peace-loving
• spiritual

Question 28

Character traits of native americans

Answer 28

• oppressed and subjugated
• live a fearful life – lacked power and material resources to protect themselves
• believe in living in harmony with each other and with nature

Question 29

Character traits of the white peopel

Answer 29

• powerful and authoritative

- indifferent to Native Americans’ feelings

Question 30

Who is the White Chief?

Answer 30

The White Chief is the governer of America.