Indigenous Literature Quotes

“Truth is a seed
planted deep
If you want to get it
you have to dig.”
― Katherena Vermette, River Woman

“In the place Calliope had bled, a trail of corn sprouted behind her. She picked the two tallest corn shoots then sat beside two large, smooth stone metates for grinding. From within her husk rebozo, she pulled a mano, shucked the corn, laid it on the altar, and with the mano in both hands, she began moving with the weight of her whole body, the strength of her shoulders and back pressing down through her arms, back and forth, shearing, until the corn became a fine yellow powder.
The Ancients sang her on as she worked. When the Earth has had enough, she will shake her troubles off. She will shake her troublemakers off. She scooped this and mashed it into the butter of her hands. Rolled it into a ball, flattened it again. Shaped and shaped until the corn grew into a child, who sprang from the stone of her hands, laughing.
For she was finished, and sank into the earth, solid, hardened, at peace. And as her corn-made child ran from the mound to the grass below, the spirits intoned. The Earth has all the power she needs.
When she decides to use her power, you will know.”
― Jennifer Givhan, Trinity Sight

“When I left residential school, I became confused and saw life from a different perspective. I was not aware of society. I was now living in the world, seeing people other than priests and nuns. I was ashamed of who I was. After nine years of having negative messages drilled into my head at residential school, my mind was tattered by the time I was released. I had been taught that to be Native meant I had no value: that I was not human. I felt defective and did not know how to change this. I was overflowing with shame. When my relatives staggered down the streets, I would pretend I did not know them. I felt embarrassed seeing them drunk. When people saw them staggering down the street, they were not just calling them down, they were also including me. I took this so personally. I often wondered why they were like this. I did not realize they had the same pain I had, maybe more, and that was their way of coping.”
― Karen Chaboyer, They Called Me 33: Reclaiming Ingo-Waabigwan

“Now living has become a series of hauntings, poltergeists, revenants that flock to the entrances to my ceremonial spaces and enter without regard or invitation.”
― Joshua Whitehead, Making Love with the Land: Essays

“I constanly ask myself if all writing is a form of mourning.”
― Joshua Whitehead, Making Love with the Land: Essays

“A man kills enough. A woman keeps on walking.”
― Marie Clements, The Unnatural and Accidental Women

“A shock of light. Unbelievable light. Blood orange swallowing the Albuquerque evening. A pulling in, taking back, reclaiming something stolen. Halfway home from her Saturday-morning lecture, Calliope Santiago drove across the river toward West Mesa and the Sleeping Sisters, ancient cinder-cone volcanoes in the distance marking the stretch of desert where she lived. Only now she could see no farther than two feet ahead of her from the blinding light, the splotches in her eyes bursting like bulbs in an antique camera. She blinked, not sure what she was seeing. She meant to cover her eyes. Meant to shield her sight.”
― Jennifer Givhan, Trinity Sight

“The rocks pummeled her belly. Something rose in her throat and when she tried to speak, from her mouth she dislodged a rock. She was made of rocks. She couldn’t move from the fossilized casing she’d once called her body.
Heat crackled nearby. A conversation wove through the fire. A child’s sweaty body curled at her lap, chest rhythms of breathing, up and down, pressing against her.
'I didn’t want to believe it was happening again.”
― Jennifer Givhan, Trinity Sight

“we make a grave error when we try to separate individual well-being from the health of the whole.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

“The land, like the body, teaches us the fundamental rule of ending: that no such thing exists, no suffix of "-ed" shall ever touch the prefix of "pre-" and even a body in its most cellular state knows this.
We always begin at the end.”
― Joshua Whitehead, Making Love with the Land: Essays

“Another white man, when asked what he did for a living, said by way of an answer that he’d married an Osage woman, and everyone who listened understood what that meant.”
― Linda Hogan, Mean Spirit

“I light a smoke and tell myself stories that I hope will keep me sane.”
― Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., Sacred Smokes

“At the National Museum of the American Indian,

68 percent of the collection is from the United States.

I am doing my best to not become a museum

of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out.”
― Natalie Díaz, Postcolonial Love Poem

“Sometimes, I think of mourning as if it were a haunting.”
― Joshua Whitehead, Making Love with the Land: Essays

“Given that the United States purportedly annexed Hawai'i in 1898, before these statements were negotiated, those who cite them apply them retroactively. In this logic Hawai'i is merely occupied by the United States; kingdom nationalists argue that Hawai'i was never colonized: therefore decolonization is an inappropriate political strategy. Because the Hawaiian nation afforded citizenship to people who were not Kanaka Maoli [native people to Hawai'i] - and because of its status as an independent state - kingdom nationalists tend to distance themselves from Indigenous rights discourse as well.”
― J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism

“Four kids in T-shirts and jeans jam on a powwow stage. They’re grinning, bouncing, fully engaged with their music, each other, and the relaxed crowd. I’m splitting fry bread with a cousin as we cheer on the band, and across the tent, a young girl reading a paperback catches my eye.
In that moment, I wish for more characters like those kids in the pages of children’s books.
This anthology is a fulfillment of that wish.”
― Cynthia Leitich Smith, Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids

“Returning the phone, she said, “You’re an artist.”
The whole train seemed to shimmer. The stars shone brighter out the window.
Ray knew Grampa and his art teacher believed in him, but nobody had ever said, “You’re an artist.” Just like that. Let alone someone his own age. Maybe Mel wasn’t easy to get to know, but she sure did have a kind heart.”
― Cynthia Leitich Smith, Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids

“Another white man, when asked what he did for a living, said by way of an answer that he’d married an Osage woman, and everyone who listened understood what. that meant”
― Linda Hogan, Mean Spirit