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Say Thank You
“We are facing a dangerous period ahead. If we do not stop, correct and change some of these wrongdoings, now, we are all going to suffer. Either things we make will overtake us or nature will take over. Earthquakes, floods, rain, severe drought, severe winter, lightning destruction, great wind destruction…these things will warn us that we’re not following the law of the Great Spirit.”
— Thomas Banyacya, Hopi
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“If you white men had never come here, this country would still be like it was. It would be all pure here. You call it wild, but it wasn’t really wild, it was free. Animals aren’t wild, they’re just free. And that’s the way we were. You called us wild, you called us savages. But we were just free! If we were savages, Columbus would never have gotten off the island alive.
Our religion is all about thanking the Creator. That’s what we do when we pray. We don’t ask Him for things. We thank Him. We thank Him for the world and every animal and plant in it. We thank Him for everything that exists. We don’t take it for granted that a tree is just there. We thank the Creator for that tree. If we don’t thank Him, maybe the Creator’ll take that tree away… We are made from Mother Earth and we go back to Mother Earth. We can’t “own” Mother Earth. We’re just visiting here. We’re the Creator’s guests.”
