The Gift of Silence
Lakota Narrative on SILENCE
from Aŋpétu Wašté Wiŋ
(1889–1971):
“We Indians know about silence. We are not afraid of it. In fact, for us,
silence is more powerful than words. Our elders were trained in the ways of
silence, and they handed over this knowledge to us. Observe, listen, and
then act, they would tell us. That was the manner of living.
With you, it is just the opposite. You learn by talking. You reward the
children that talk the most at school. In your parties, you all try to talk
at the same time. In your work, you are always having meetings in which
everybody interrupts everybody and all talk five, ten or a hundred times.
And you call that ‘solving a problem’. When you are in a room and there is
silence, you get nervous. You must fill the space with sounds. So you talk
compulsorily, even before you know what you are going to say.
White people love to discuss. They don’t even allow the other person to
finish a sentence. They always interrupt. For us Indians, this looks like
bad manners or even stupidity. If you start talking, I’m not going to
interrupt you. I will…
