Raül Romeva i Rueda

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L’Estat de Washington, al nord-oest dels Estats Units, fou la pàtria dels duwamish, un poble que -com tots els indis- es considerava part de la naturalesa, la respectava i la venerava, i, des de feia moltes generacions, vivia amb ella en harmonia. L’any 1855, el catorzè president dels Estats units, el demòcrata Franklin Pierce, proposà als duwamish que venguessin les seves terres als colons blancs i que ells se n’anessin a una reserva (avui, d’això, en diríem expoli). Els indis, això, no ho entengueren. Com es podia comprar i vendre la terra? Per a ells, l’home no pot posseir la terra, com tampoc pot ser amo del cel, de la frescor de l’aire o de la lluïssor de l’aigua. El Cabdill Noah Seattle (anglicisme de Sealth), donà la resposta a petició del Gran Cabdill dels blancs, amb un discurs la saviesa, crítica i pruden esperança del qual encara avui, 153 anys més tard, ens sorprèn i admira. ‘Les meves paraules són com les estrelles, mai no s’extingeixen‘, va dir el Gran Cabdill Noah Seattle. El seu poble no ha sobreviscut, les seves paraules no foren escoltades. Noah Seattle, amb la
seva resposta al president, va crear el primer manifest en defensa del medi
ambient i la naturalesa que ha perdurat en el temps. El cap indi va morir el 7
de juny de 1866 a l’edat de 80 anys. La seva memòria ha quedat en el temps i
les seves paraules continuen vigents. (segueix…)

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Yonder sky that has wept tears
of compassion upon our fathers for centuries untold, and which to us looks
eternal, may change. Today it is fair, tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds.

My words are like the stars
that never set. What Seattle says the Great Chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as our paleface
brothers can rely upon the return of the seasons.

The son of the White
Chief says his father sends us greetings of friendship and good will. This is
kind of him, for we know he has little need of our friendship in return because
his people are many. They are like the grass that covers the vast prairies,
while by people are few; they resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept
plain.

The Great – and I presume –
good White Chief, sends us word that he wants to buy our lands but is willing
to allow us to reserve enough to live on comfortably. This indeed appears
generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the
offer may be wise, also, for we are no longer in need of a great country.

There was a time when our people covered the whole land as the waves of a
wind-ruffled sea covers its shell-paved floor, but that time has long since
passed away with the greatness of tribes now almost forgotten. I will not dwell
on nor mourn over our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with
hastening it, for we, too may have been somewhat to blame.

Youth is impulsive. When our
young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces
with black paint, their hearts also are disfigured and turn black, and then
they are often cruel and relentless and know no bounds, and our old men are
unable to restrain them.

Thus it has ever been. Thus it
was when the white man first began to push our fore-fathers westward. But let
us hope that the hostilities between the Red Man and his paleface brother may
never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain.

It is true that revenge by
young braves is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old
men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know
better.

Our good father at Washington
– for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has
moved his boundaries farther north – our great and good father, I say, sends us
word that if we do as he desires he will protect us.

His brave warriors will be to
us a bristling wall of strength, and his great ships of war will fill our
harbors so that our ancient enemies far to the northward – the Sinsiams, Hydas
and Tsimpsians – will no longer frighten our women and old men. Then will he be
our father and we his children.

But can that ever be? Your God
is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds His strong
arms lovingly around the white man and leads him as a father leads his infant
son – but He has forsaken His red children, if they are really His. Our God,
the Great Spirit, seems, also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people
wax strong every day – soon they will fill all the land.

My people are ebbing away like
a fast-receding tide that will never flow again. The white man’s God cannot
love His red children or He would protect them. We seem to be orphans who can
look nowhere for help.

How, then, can we become
brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken
in us dreams of returning greatness?

Your God seems to us to be
partial. He came to the white man. We never saw Him, never heard His voice. He
gave the white man laws, but had no word for His red children whose teeming
millions once filled this vast continent as the stars fill the firmament.

No. We are two distinct races, and must ever remain so, with separate origins
and separate destinies. There is little in common between us.

To us the
ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their final resting place is hallowed
ground, while you wander far from the grave of your ancestors and, seemingly,
without regret.

Your religion was written on
tablets of stone by the iron finger of an angry God, lest you might forget it. The
Red Man could never comprehend nor remember it.

Our religion is the traditions
of our ancestors – the dreams of our old men, given to them in the solemn hours
of night by the Great Spirit, and the visions of our Sachems, and is written in
the hearts of our people.

Your dead cease to love you
and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the ports of the tomb –
they wander far away beyond the stars, are soon forgotten and never return.

Our dead never forget this
beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its winding rivers, its
great mountains and its sequestered vales, and they ever yearn in tenderest
affection over the lonely-hearted living, and often return to visit, guide and
comfort them.

Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever
fled the approach of the white man, as the changing mist on the mountain side
flees before the blazing sun.

However, your proposition
seems a just one, and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the
reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of
the Great White Chief seem to be the voice of Nature speaking to my people out
of the thick darkness, that is fast gathering around them like a dense fog
floating inward from a midnight sea.

It matters little where we
pass the remnant of our days. They are not many. The Indian’s night promises to
be dark. No bright star hovers beyond the horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the
distance. Some grim Fate of our race is on the Red Man’s trail, and
wherever he goes he will still hear the sure approaching footsteps of his fell
destroyer and prepare to stolidly meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that
hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.

A few more moons, a few more
winters – and not one of all the mighty hosts that once filled this broad land
and that now roam in fragmentary bands through these vast solitudes or lived in
happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to weep over the graves
of the people once as powerful and as hopeful as your own!

But why should I repine? Why
should I murmur at the fate of my people? Tribes are made up of individuals and
are no better than they. Men come and go like the waves of the sea. A tear, a
tamanamus, a dirge and they are gone from our longing eyes forever. It is the
order of Nature. Even the white man, whose God walked and talked with him as
friend to friend, is not exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers,
after all.

We will see.

We will ponder you proposition,
and when we decide we will tell you. But should we accept it, I here and now
make this the first condition – that we will not be denied the privilege,
without molestation, of visiting at will the graves of our ancestors, friends
and children.

Every part of this country is
sacred to my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove has
been hallowed by some fond memory or some sad experience of my tribe. Even the
rocks, which seem to lie dumb as they swelter in the sun along the silent sea
shore in solemn grandeur thrill with memories of past events connected with the
lives of my people.

The very dust under your feet
responds more lovingly to our footsteps than to yours, because it is the ashes
of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch, for
the soil is rich with the life of our kindred.

The noble braves, fond
mothers, glad happy-hearted maidens, and even the little children, who lived
and rejoiced here for a brief season, and whose very names are now forgotten, still
love these sombre solitudes and their deep fastnesses which, at eventide, grow
shadowy with the presence of dusky spirits.

And when the last Red Man
shall have perished from the earth and his memory among the white men shall
have become a myth, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my
tribe; and when your children’s children shall think themselves alone in the
fields, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the
pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place
dedicated to solitude.

At night, when the streets of
your cities and villages will be silent and you think them deserted, they will
throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful
land.

The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my
people, for the dead are not powerless.

(versió en castellà i anglès; versió en català publicada per Hesperus, amb traducció d’Esteve Serra).

Foto: Gran Cabdill Noah Seattle (Sealth). Font: desconeguda