On A Visit to Washington, D.C. (1879)

On a visit to Washington, D.C., 1879


At last I was granted permission to come to Washington
and bring my friend Yellow Bull and our interpreter with me.
I am glad I came. I have shaken hands with a good many friends,
but there are some things I want to know which no one seems
able to explain. I cannot understand how the Government
sends a man out to fight us, as it did General Miles,
and then breaks his word. Such a government has something wrong
about it. I cannot understand why so many chiefs are allowed
to talk so many different ways, and promise so many different
things. I have seen the Great Father Chief [President Hayes];
the Next Great Chief [Secretary of the Interior];
the Commissioner Chief; the Law Chief; and many other law chiefs
[Congressmen] and they all say they are my friends, and that
I shall have justice, but while all their mouths talk right
I do not understand why nothing is done for my people.

I have heard talk and talk but nothing is done. Good words do not
last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for
my dead people. They do not pay for my country now overrun by
white men. They do not protect my father's grave. They do not
pay for my horses and cattle. Good words do not give me back
my children. Good words will not make good the promise of
your war chief, General Miles. Good words will not give my people
a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves.

I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick
when I remember all the good words and all the broken promises.
There has been too much talking by men who had no right to talk.
Too many misinterpretations have been made; too many
misunderstandings have come up between the white men
and the Indians. If the white man wants to live in peace
with the Indian he can live in peace. There need be no trouble.

Treat all men alike. Give them the same laws. Give them all
an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same
Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother
of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.
You might as well expect all rivers to run backward as that
any man who was born a free man should be contented penned up
and denied liberty to go where he pleases. If you tie a horse
to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian
up on a small spot of earth and compel him to stay there,
he will not be contented nor will he grow and prosper.

I have asked some of the Great White Chiefs where they get
their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay
in one place, while he sees white men going where they please.
They cannot tell me.

I only ask of the Government to be treated as all other men
are treated. If I cannot go to my own home, let me have a home
in a country where my people will not die so fast. I would like
to go to Bitter Root Valley. There my people would be happy;
where they are now they are dying. Three have died since I left
my camp to come to Washington.

When I think of our condition, my heart is heavy. I see men
of my own race treated as outlaws and driven from country
to country, or shot down like animals.

I know that my race must change. We cannot hold our own
with the white men as we are. We only ask an even chance
to live as other men live. We ask to be recognized as men.
We ask that the same law shall work alike on all men.
If an Indian breaks the law, punish him by the law.
If a white man breaks the law, punish him also.

Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop,
free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose
my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers,
free to talk, think and act for myself -- and I will obey
every law or submit to the penalty.

Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other
then we shall have no more wars. We shall be all alike --
brothers of one father and mother, with one sky above us
and one country around us and one government for all.
Then the Great Spirit Chief who rules above will smile
upon this land and send rain to wash out the bloody spots
made by brothers' hands upon the face of the earth.

For this time the Indian race is waiting and praying.
I hope no more groans of wounded men and women will ever
go to the ear of the Great Spirit Chief above,
and that all people may be one people.

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekht has spoken for his people.

Chief Joseph - Nez Perce

Black Elk (1863-1950)--Oglala Sioux

The life of an Indian is like the wings of the air.
That is why you notice the hawk knows how to get his prey.
The Indian is like that. The hawk swoops down on its prey;
so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal.
For instance, the coyote is sly; so is the Indian.
The eagle is the same. That is why the Indian is always feathered up;
he is a relative to the wings of the air.

Black Elk - Oglala Sioux

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now
from this high hill of my old age, I can still see
the butchered women and children lying heapen and scattered
all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them
with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died
there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard.
A peoples dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. . . .
the nations hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center
any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.

Black Elk - Oglala Sioux

I was standing on the highest mountain of them all,
and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world.
And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell
and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred
manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape
of all shapes as they must live together like one being.
And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops
that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in
the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children
of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy..
but anywhere is the center of the world.

Black Elk - Oglala Sioux


You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle,
and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles,
and everything tries to be round. In the old days when we were a
strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred
hoop of the nation, and so long as the hoop was unbroken,
the people flourished. The flowering tree was the living center
of the hoop, and the circle of the four quarters nourished it.
The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth,
the west gave rain, and the north with its cold and mighty wind
gave strength and endurance.

This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion.
Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle.
The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round
like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest
power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is
the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down
again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round.
Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing,
and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man
is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything
where power moves. Our teepees were round like the nests of birds,
and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop,
a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us
to hatch our children.

Black Elk - Oglala Sioux

Earth Prayer

Grandfather, Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth
and lean to hear my feeble voice. You lived first,
and you are older than all need, older than all prayer.
All things belong to you -- the two-legged, the four-legged,
the wings of the air, and all green things that live.

"You have set the powers of the four quarters of the earth
to cross each other. You have made me cross the good road
and road of difficulties, and where they cross, the place
is holy. Day in, day out, forevermore,
you are the life of things."

Hey! Lean to hear my feeble voice.
At the center of the sacred hoop
You have said that I should make the tree to bloom.
With tears running, O Great Spirit, my Grandfather,
With running eyes I must say
The tree has never bloomed
Here I stand, and the tree is withered.
Again, I recall the great vision you gave me.
It may be that some little root of the sacred tree
still lives.
Nourish it then
That it may leaf
And bloom
And fill with singing birds!
Hear me, that the people may once again
Find the good road
And the shielding tree.

" I think I have told you, but if I have not,
you must have understood,
that a man who has a vision is not able to use
the power of it until after he has performed the vision
on earth for the people to see... It was even then only
after the heyoka ceremony, in which I performed
my dog vision, that I had the power to practice
as a medicine man, curing sick people; and many I cured
with the power that came through me. Of course it was not
I who cured. It was the power from the outer world,
and the visions and ceremonies had only made me
like a hole through which the power could come
to the two-leggeds. If I thought that I was doing it myself,
the hole would close up and no power could come through.
Then everything I could do would be foolish..."

Revealing this, they walk.
A sacred herb -- revealing it, they walk.
Revealing this, they walk.
The sacred life of bison -- revealing it, they walk.
Revealing this, they walk.
A sacred eagle feather -- revealing it, they walk.
Revealing this, they walk.
The eagle and the bison -- like relatives they walk.

"The Six Grandfathers have placed in this world many things,
all of which should be happy. Every little thing is sent for something,
and in that thing there should be happiness and the power to make happy.
Like the grasses showing tender faces to each other, thus we should do,
for this was the wish of the Grandfathers of the World."

Black Elk - Oglala Sioux

Ten Bears--Yampariko Comanche

Painting by Kirby Sattler

Great Spirit - I want no blood upon my land to stain the grass.
I want it clear and pure, and I wish it so, that all who go
through among my people may find it peaceful when they come,
and leave peacefully when they go.

Ten Bears - Yamparika Comanche

I was born upon a prairie where the wind blew free and there
was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where
there were no enclosures and where everything drew a free breath.

I want to die there, and not within walls.

Ten Bears - Yamparika Comanche

My heart is filled with joy, when I see you here, as the brooks
fill with water when the snows melt in the spring, and I feel glad,
as the ponies are when the fresh grass starts in the beginning
of the year.

I heard of your coming, when I was many sleeps away, and I made
but few camps before I met you. I knew that you had come to do
good to me and to my people. I look for the benefits,
which would last forever, and so my face shines with joy,
as I look upon you.

Ten Bears - Yamparika Comanche

Sitting Bull--Teton Sioux

Sitting Bull - Teton Sioux


When I was a boy, the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose
and set in their land; they sent ten thousand men into battle.

Where are the warriors today? Who slew them?
Where are our lands? Who owns them?

What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny
of his money? Yet they say I am a thief.

What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted
by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian.

What white man has ever seen me drunk ?

Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed ? Who has ever
seen me beat my wives or abuse my children?
What law have I broken?

Is it wrong of me to love my own? Is it wicked for me
because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux? Because I
was born where my father lived? Because I would die
for my people and my country?

Sitting Bull - Teton Sioux

If the Great Spirit has desired me to be a white man
he would have made me so in the first place. He put in
your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart
he put other and different desires.

Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit. It is not
necessary for eagles to be crows. Now we are poor but we are
free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die,
we die defending our rights.

Sitting Bull - Teton Sioux

Geronimo--Apache called Goyathlay

Geronimo--Apache Called Goyathlay

I was warmed by the sun, rocked by the winds and sheltered
by the trees as other Indian babes. I was living peaceably
when people began to speak bad of me. Now I can eat well,
sleep well and be glad. I can go everywhere with a good feeling.

The soldiers never explained to the government when an Indian
was wronged, but reported the misdeeds of the Indians. We took
an oath not to do any wrong to each other or to scheme
against each other.

I cannot think that we are useless or God would not have created us.
There is one God looking down on us all. We are all the children
of one God. The sun, the darkness, the winds are all listening
to what we have to say.

When a child, my mother taught me to kneel and pray
to Usen for strength, health, wisdom and protection.
Sometimes we prayed in silence, sometimes each one prayed aloud;
sometimes an aged person prayed for all of us... and to Usen.

I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free
and there was nothing to break the light of the sun.
I was born where there were no enclosures.

Geronimo - Apache

The song that I will sing is an old song, so old that none
knows who made it. It has been handed down through generations
and was taught to me when I was but a little lad. It is now
my own song. It belongs to me. This is a holy song (medicine-song),
and great is its power. The song tells how, as I sing, I go
through the air to a holy place where Yusun (The Supreme Being)
will give me power to do wonderful things. I am surrounded
by little clouds, and as I go through the air I change,
becoming spirit only.

Geronimo--Apache

Chief Crazy Horse

Chief Crazy Horse - Sioux


I was hostile to the white man...We preferred hunting
to a life of idleness on our reservations. At times we did not
get enough to eat and we were not allowed to hunt.
All we wanted was peace and to be let alone. Soldiers came...
in the winter...and destroyed our villages. Then Long Hair
(Custer) came...They said we massacred him, but he would have
done the same to us. Our first impulse was to escape...
but we were so hemmed in we had to fight. After that I lived
in peace, but the government would not let me alone.
I was not allowed to remain quiet. I was tired of fighting...
They tried to confine me... and a soldier ran his bayonet into me.
I have spoken.

Crazy Horse - Sioux

"We did not ask you white men to come here. The Great Spirit
gave us this country as a home. You had yours. We did not
interfere with you. The Great Spirit gave us plenty of land
to live on, and buffalo, deer, antelope and other game.
But you have come here, you are taking my land from me,
you are killing off our game, so it is hard for us to live.

Now, you tell us to work for a living, but the Great Spirit
did not make us to work, but to live by hunting. You white men
can work if you want to. We do not interfere with you, and again
you say why do you not become civilized? We do not want your civilization!
We would live as our fathers did, and their fathers before them."

Crazy Horse - Sioux

Chief Seattle's Wisdom

Chief Seattle's Wisdom


What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone,
men would die from great loneliness of spirit,
for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man.
All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth
befalls the children of the earth.

Chief Seattle - Suqwamish & Duwamish

We know that the white man does not understand our ways.
One portion of the land is the same to him as the next,
for he is a stranger who comes on the night and takes
from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother,
but his enemy - and when he has conquered it, he moves on.
He leaves his fathers' graves, and his children's birthright
is forgotten.

Chief Seattle - Suqwamish & Duwamish

The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.

There is no quiet place in the white man's cities,
no place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle
of insects' wings. Perhaps it is because I am a savage
and do not understand, but the clatter only seems
to insult the ears.

The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting
over the face of the pond, the smell of the wind itself
cleansed by a midday rain, or scented with pinon pine.
The air is precious to the red man, for all things share
the same breath - the animals, the trees, the man.

Like a man who has been dying for many days,
a man in your city is numb to the stench.

Chief Seattle - Suqwamish & Duwamish

A few more hours, a few more winters, and none of the children
of the great tribes that once lived on this earth,
or that roamed in small bands in the woods, will be left
to mourn the graves of a people once as powerful
and hopeful as yours.

The whites, too, shall pass - perhaps sooner than other tribes.
Continue to contaminate your own bed,
and you will suffocate in your own waste.

When the buffalo are all slaughtered,
the wild horses all tamed,
the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent
of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted
by talking wires, where is the thicket? Gone.
Where is the eagle? Gone.

And what is it to say farewell to the swift and the hunt,
to the end of living and the beginning of survival?
We might understand if we knew what it was that the white man
dreams, what he describes to his children on the long winter nights,
what visions he burns into their minds, so they will wish
for tomorrow. But we are savages.
The white man's dreams are hidden from us.

Chief Seattle - Suqwamish & Duwamish

The red man has ever fled the approach of the white man,
as the morning mist flees before the morning sun ...
It matters little where we pass the remnants of our days.
They will not be many.

But why should I mourn the untimely fate of my people?
Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come,
for even the white man, whose God walked and talked with him
as friend with friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny.
We may be brothers, after all. We will see ...

Chief Seattle - Suqwamish & Duwamish

Every part of all this soil is sacred to my people.
Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove
has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in the days
long vanished. The very dust you now stand on responds
more willingly to their footsteps than to yours,
because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors
and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch.

Even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here
for a brief season love these somber solitudes, and at eventide
they greet shadowy returning spirits.

And when the last red man shall have perished, and the memory
of my tribe shall have become a myth among the white men,
these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe;
and when our 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 your cities and villages are 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. Dead, did I say? There is no death,
only a change of worlds.

Chief Seattle - Suqwamish & Duwamish

Paiute Medicine Song

Paiute Medicine Song


Now all my singing Dreams are gone,
But none knows where they have fled
Nor by what trails they have left me.
Return, O Dreams of my heart,
And sing in the Summer twilight,
By the creek and the almond thicket
And the field that is bordered with lupins!

Now is my refuge to seek
In the hollow of friendly shoulders,
Since the singing is stopped in my pulse
And the earth and the sky refuse me;
Now must I hold by the eyes of a friend
When the high white stars are unfriendly.

Over-sweet is the refuge for trusting;
Return and sing, O my Dreams,
In the dewy and palpitant pastures,
Till the love of living awakes
And the strength of the hills to uphold me.

Come On the Trail of Song

Come On The Trail Of Song

Come on the trail of song,
Leaving no footprints there,
Over the rainbow bridge
Down the mountain stair.

Come on the trail of song,
Gods of the Navajo,
Out of the sky-land
And the five worlds below.

Edna Lou Walton

Dream Catchers

Dream Catchers

An ancient Chippewa tradition
The dream net has been made
For many generations
Where spirit dreams have played.

Hung above the cradle board,
Or in the lodge up high,
The dream net catches bad dreams,
While good dreams slip on by.

Bad dreams become entangled
Among the sinew thread.
Good dreams slip through the center hole,
While you dream upon your bed.

This is an ancient legend,
Since dreams will never cease,
Hang this dream net above your bed,
Dream on, and be at peace.

Chippewa Song

Grandfather Cries

Grandfather Cries

Grandfather, do you know me?
I am your blood.
The son of your son.
I come to ask you a question Grandfather.
Grandfather, don't you know me?
Can I stop being Indian now?
There are others that want to be Indian,
And if they can start from nothing,
I should be able to stop from something?
Grandfather, don't you know me?
Grandfather, I don't look like you.
I don't know what you know.
It would be easy for me to hide behind my paler skin.
No one would know the pain I feel,
Or see the tears I cry for your Great Grandchildren.
Grandfather, don't you know me?
Grandfather, look what I have done to our world.
Mother Earth is on her knees.
The Snake and Owl rule the day.
I don't understand the language you speak Grandfather.
Grandfather, don't you know me?
Grandfather, I want my Pepsi, Levi's and Porsche too.
I want to go where the others go,
And see the things they see too.
I don't have time to dance in the old way Grandfather.
Grandfather?
Grandfather, why are you crying?
Grandfather, why are you crying?
Grandfather, please stop crying.
Grandfather, don't you know me?

Charles Phillip Whitedog

Two Tongues

Two Tongues

American History is at times embellished
Consequently it's sometimes wrongly cherished
John Wayne simply portrayed the Hollywood view
He fought make-believe battles all life through
From the Alamo - to World War II

But it is in the Native American domain
That myth is portrayed to be most profane
The Indian brave is blatantly misrepresented
Truth was bent to the advantage of Daniel Boone
So much of history is still cocooned

For American Aboriginals had hearts and souls
With family pride and sacred goals
A grace and pride that reaches back in time
"Wakan Tankan Nici Un" in Cherokee
Means - May the Great Spirit walk with thee

Geronimo went on to say
"Yigaquu osaniyu adanvto adadoligi
nigohilvi nasquv utloyasdi nihi"
"May the Great Spirit always give you blessings"
Hardly the chant of a crazed assassin

They believed in one God
With the philosophy - that was clearly stated
"Ho! Mitakuye Oyasin" "We Are All Related -
our Earthly meeting is surly fated"

For after all is said and done
"Under the sky - all living things are one"
Yes - Geronimo - of Apache fame
Said "God meant us all to be the same" -

"There is one God looking down on all"
This Apache Chief - was no ones fool
But soldiers killed his wife - and then his child
It's little wonder he went wild

Yes, when the white man came, there was a rout
Because they tried to wipe his people out
It's no wonder he suddenly went insane
And he attacked and burnt the wagon trains

So if Indians speak of peace and Love
And worship just one God above
Has Hollywood got its' philosophy right?
Were all Indians only born to fight?

Is popular history out of stride
As it seems to take the white mans side
Has the Indian been properly portrayed
Or have Indian virtues been betrayed

When foreigners first arrived from their voyage
Tired, starving and overwrought
Indians came forth, not to fight
but helped the white man in his plight

They came out of the forest to share their food -
This resulting in a festive mood
And it is written that there was enough for all
At the first "Thanks Giving" in that fall

But soon contentment turned to greed
As the white man began to spread his seed
Plunder and rape became the white man's way
The Indians really had no say

Gold prospecting and gambling . . .
Liquor and undue land claims
For the Indians there was no safe haven
And the teepees all went up in flames

When pioneers began to take Indian land
Their blood soon stained the sun-bleached sand
The soldiers were sent to put things right
But they only helped - if you were white

And few white men of the time
Had "walked a mile in native shoes"
To understand what he'd been through
And appreciate his point of view -

And the American Government of the day
Aided and abetted all the way-
And for the lowly Indian - which they helped maim
They shunned the blame - quickly rejecting the Redman's claim

So soldiers help the pioneer
And soon the official policy was clear
It was take, take, take - without any giving
And they did their best to stop the Redman living

Yet the Indians really lived as one with nature
Never cut green branches with a knife
Kill only to eat and use dead wood for cooking
All living things are a part of life

Whilst the white man cut the forests and polluted the air
For a balanced nature they did not care
The Indians had been the custodians of the land
But conversely - the white man didn't give a damn

In the Indian Wars Geronimo proclaimed
"We are all children of one God -
The Great Spirit cannot think we are no use
He would not have created us simply for abuse"

There is an Indian creed which believes
Ever present in the Sun, the darkness, and the wind,
God is listening to what we say.
That's Indian thinking and the Indian way

"When you were born - You cried - And the World rejoiced -
Then live your life in such a way
That when you die - nothing is remiss
And - The World will cry - Whilst you feel bliss"

A hundred plus tribes used to ride the plains
All with a simple philosophy lived in their veins
In tune with nature - like yin and yang
And one Great Spirit whose praise they sang

There was Buffalo, water, grass for feed
There was nothing more for them to need
Fresh air, forests, mountains and no pollution
To live with nature was their solution

Shawnee, Chippewa Mohawk Navajo Cherokee
All poetic - free spirit names are these
Choctaw, Iowa, Sioux Skakopee Shakopee
All very soon lost their liberty

Crow, Cheyenne, and then Blackfeet
Had no choice but to retreat
Now memories living in mournful songs
But sadly many of these tribes are gone

But stories of the Lakota at "Broken Knee "
Can never be ignored or washed away
And the Cherokee on the "Trail of Tears"
Are still remembered - after all these years

The Native American - were openly abused
because Washington could not afford to lose
The Shoshone, Arapaho and then Apache
Were shoot against the wall heralded by the U.S. bugle call

Choctaw, Comanche, Kiowa
As the list goes on it gets hard to see -
Through the river of tears
That is Native American History

Pawnee, Wichita, Navajo
How could the invaders sink so low
Black Elk the Sioux Holy Man lamented
For him the circle of life had been all that mattered

And this spiritual man proclaimed
that Indian Nations hoop was broken
and its people scattered

He said "our dead never would forget
The beautiful world that gave them being."
"The rivers, the mountains, the lakes and bays
That the white man came to take away -

"And when the last Red Man has perished
and the memory of my people becomes . . .
just myth portrayed in the white mans lies
These shores will throng
with the invisible dead of my tribe..."

But truth will win out - and its no myth
that Elk expressed and here described
First in Indian dance, then documentation
He has made indelible the history of his proud nation

Ironically when Lieutenant Custer disobeyed his orders
And attacked instead of favoring peace
And sealed the fate of the Indian race
He made "The Little Big Horn" his last disaster

Outnumbered by the combined Indian Nation
Bent on revenge for the many Indian deaths
And protecting the tens of thousands in their camp
Two Thousand plus warriors came from every side

There was no stopping Crazy Horse and Chief Hunkapa
Leading the Cheyenne, plus Sans Arcs, Miniconjoux
Oglala Sioux, Blackfeet and the Sioux,
It took twenty minutes to annihilate "Yellow Hairs" Cavalry

Reno and Benteen arrived far too late
Finally sealing Custer fate -
But this massacre took away all sympathy
And Custer's Ghost got revenge at "Wounded Knee"

The Politicians plans for peace - took on a frown
And orders came to hunt the Indian down
Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull - and White Feather
All names that will surely live forever

All part of history of which they can be proud
But better you don't speak too loud
For the invisible dead are not far away
And ghosts might come to have their say

On yesteryear's stories of -
"The American Way"

Albert Gazeley ©2004

The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments

version 1

The Earth is our Mother; care for Her
Honor all your relations.
Open your heart and soul to the Great Spirit.
All life is sacred; treat all beings with respect.
Take from the Earth what is needed and nothing more.
Do what needs to be done for the good of all.
Give constant thanks to the Great Spirit for each day.
Speak the truth but only for the good in others.
Follow the rythms of Nature.
Enjoy life's journey; but leave no tracks.

version 2


Treat the earth an all that dwell theron with respect
Remain close to the Great Spirit
Show great respect for your fellow beings
Work together for the benefit of all humankind
Give assistance and kindness wherever needed
Do what you know to be right
Look after the well-being of mind and body
Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good
Be truthful and honest at all times
Take full responsibility for your actions

A First People Treatise

The Lights

The Lights

The Sun is a luminous shield
Borne up the blue path
By a god;

The moon is the torch
Of an old man
Who stumbles over the stars.

Edna Lou Walton

The Deer Star

The Deer Star


Hear now a tale of the deer-star,
Tale of the days a-gone,
When a youth rose up for the hunting
In the bluish light of dawn --
Rose up for the red deer hunting,
And what should a hunter do
Who has never an arrow feathered,
Nor a bow strung taut and true?
The women laughed from the doorways,
the maidens mocked at the spring;
For thus to be slack at the hunting
is ever a shameful thing.
The old men nodded and muttered, but the youth
spoke up with a frown:
"If I have no gear for the hunting,
I will run the red deer down."

He is off by the hills of the morning,
By the dim, untrodden ways;
In the clean, wet, windy marshes
He has startled the deer a-graze;
And a buck of the branching antlers
Streams out from the fleeing herd,
And the youth is apt to the running
As the tongue to the spoken word.
They have gone by the broken ridges,
by mesa and hill and swale,
Nor once did the red deer falter,
nor the feet of the runner fail;
So lightly they trod on the lupines
that scarce were the flower-stalks bent,
And over the tops of the dusky sage
the wind of their running went

They have gone by the painted desert,
Where the dawn mists lie uncurled,
And over the purple barrows
On the outer rim of the world.
The people shout from the village,
And the sun gets up to spy
The royal deer and the runner,
Clear shining in the sky.
And ever the hunter watches
for the rising of that star
When he comes by the summer mountains
where the haunts of the red deer are,
When he comes by the morning meadows
where the young of the red deer hide;
He fares him forth to the hunting
while the deer and the runner bide.

Anonymous

I Hear Your Jive

I Hear Your Jive


You comb your hair straight up
and it stays--
Bleached ripe as a field.

Who knew you would look like
a head of wheat?
Emulator of grain--
your punk generation is aware
of hunger.


Diane Glancy

An Autobiography of my Life with Jesus

The Autobiography of My Life
with Jesus

I think they brought me a picture of Jesus with the lambs,
and there was a black one, and I think they pointed to it
and said Jesus loved the black sheep, the lost sheep.
Somehow they must have sensed I was or would be.
Or the Holy Spirit told them. I have come to believe that's
true. I don't remember Jesus again for a while except that
He was the staff I leaned on. I couldn't see Him, but I knew
He was there. Somehow He was the shepherd. The children were
around Him then, and how the sheep turned into children I
cannot say, but somehow the transformation happened
without my notice.

Jesus is my shepherd. My staff, as I have said.

I see His footprints on the crumpled moon. Every night
He steps to the earth. He goes to those dark villages
in the desert and unloads their guns. He feeds rice
to the camels. He calls the radio waves and broadcasts.

How long I have hoped to put my foot in Galilee.

Still I wait.

He gives me faith.

Jesus is my Earhart.

My flight jacket.

My straw fan on a summer afternoon when I was supposed
to sleep. I don't know why I had to take naps. Sleep
was like a herd of avocados in my hand.

Sometimes I fall on the bed in my bare feet, the straps
of a pinafore or sundress over my shoulders. I feel His
invisible staff. I remember when I was a girl. I lie quiet
as if I were a sheep.

Diane Glancy


Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Book Title: The Cold-And-Hunger Dance. Contributors: Diane Glancy - author. Publisher: University of Nebraska Press. Place of Publication: Lincoln, NE. Publication Year: 1998.

Eggs

Eggs

I've got wooden eggs in a wire hen hanging in my kitchen.
One egg, from Germany, has a few letters of the alphabet
on it. It was designed by a group of Gypsy women because
they were losing their language.

I have a speckled egg, an egg with dalmatian spots,
a cedar egg, an Italian glass egg from Venice,
a Russian egg, an Easter egg, a carnelian
Chinese egg with a carved design.

The yard is full of trees. The wire hen is full of eggs.
Stoic eggs. Eggs of faith. I have a geometric beaded egg
from a Peyote culture, the beads held with beeswax.
Jagged reds and greens as trees in the yard.
As old gasoline pumps. The trees step out of fields.
The cows and crops move over.

There is a blue reindeer with jags of lightning.

My spurs jangle as I pump gas.

I am a marginal voice in several worlds. I can tell
several stories at once. Mixed-blood stories of academic
life and the experience of Christianity. Nothing fitting
with anything else. The word community has always meant
being left out. But in the cold-and-hunger dance, the
voice is one story holding the disparate parts.

Diane Glancy


Questia Media America, Inc. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Book Title: The Cold-And-Hunger Dance. Contributors: Diane Glancy - author. Publisher: University of Nebraska Press. Place of Publication: Lincoln, NE. Publication Year: 1998.

Christopher

Christopher

Here come Christopher Columbus comming ober t’ wabes.
PUFF. PUFF.
He think he come to the segund part of urth.
His shups bump inter land at night
y haze la senal dla cruz.
Hey Yndias. He say. HEY ERMERICA.
He brang glaz beads & bells.
Luego se ayunto alli mucha gente dla Isla.
We think he god from skie. Yup. Yup. Wedu.
The blue oshen sprad like a table napkin by his shups.
Como el por ante todos toma
va como de hecho tomo possession dla dha.
Yaz. He say. I take. Now whar find GOLD?
Our har like harsehair. He say.
He look our fish tooth on spears. HAR HAR. He laf.
Los reyes wand gold. Gloria religion xpiana.
Gloria Yndias. He say. Y load his shups. Wedu.
Thar go Christopher. Huf. Huf.
Wid gold he own t’ segund urth.
Wid gold he buy our souls inter heaben.

Diane Glancy........from ROOMS.

Bull Head's Wife on the 80 Mile Journey to her Wounded Husband who had Just Killed Sitting Bull

BULL HEAD'S WIFE ON THE 80 MILE JOURNEY TO HER WOUNDED HUSBAND WHO HAD JUST KILLED SITTING BULL
by Diane Glancy


They didn't do it themselves.
They got us to do it.
They divided us.
My husband, the lieutenant of police, led the group
to Sitting Bull, the hostile. I had to be away. My family
called me to their camp on Cannonball River.
I saw the runner. I knew it was about Bull Head.
I knew my husband was in trouble. But shot? But near death?
I started immediately. The runner already was far ahead.
A coyote walked beside me saying nothing.
I followed an old trail. Twenty miles a day, I suppose.
I slept once in the leaves in a ravine. The clumps of grass
rattled their stories. I dug roots. I ate dried buffalo meat
my sister wrapped in a medicine pouch. I heard my mother's voice.
She spoke my tiredness out of the way. The coyote was
my father's voice saying nothing I could hear. I heard the birds.
They said, go, go, go. They were chirping. The leaves were howling.
The wind was an uncle who said Bull Head would be dead soon.
I had to see him. I had to tell him he'd been a good husband.
He had to know that for his trip through the stars.
We'd betrayed our own people. He would know that soon.
It was something I didn't tell him.
We had our different ways to see.


Diane Glancy

Bull Head's Wife Mail-Orders in Morse Code

Photo of the real Diane Glancy


BULL HEAD'S WIFE MAIL-ORDERS IN MORSE CODE
by Diane Glancy


I am cold Stop
I am cold Stop
I am thrashing with cold Stop
Send a blanket Stop
Cover me with a buffalo robe Stop
The river is a knife Stop
My horse is shivering Stop
I have frost for hair Stop
The snow geese are calling.
Their cries are the north wind Stop
I hear them say, frio frio blanco blanco Stop
I am freezing Stop
The air is full of birds Stop
I am the only tree on the prairie Stop
My teeth are ice Stop
The cries of the foxes are a white tower Stop
Hey yanno Stop
Send galoshes for the buffalo Stop
Send parka. Snow shoes Stop
The clouds cover the land with snow Stop
The wind is copied doublesided.


Diane Glancy

Military Honors at Fort Yates, ND, 12/20/1890

MILITARY HONORS AT FORT YATES, NORTH DAKOTA, DECEMBER 20, 1890
by Diane Glancy


I stood with his father and brother
at the head of his grave.
Bull Head, lieutenant of the Indian police,
went to Sitting Bull's house with a warrant for his arrest.
Hostiles they were called.
Bull Head shot Sitting Bull in the heart.
Sitting Bull shot Bull Head in the thigh as he fell.
How could the wound kill him there?
I ran without sleeping until my feet tore with bruises.
I ran 80 miles.

[Among Sitting Bull's belongings were letters from Mrs. Weldon
of New York warning him to leave the agency because
the government was planning to kill him:
Flee the agency flee they will kill you they will kill
they will hit you with bullets
the impastoned are here
carrying their pallet knives
they will take your moccasins
and clothes for relics
they will scalp
they will saw each hair from your head.]


Diane Glancy

The Ghost Dance

The Ghost Dance


1890

We had been like wolves
that gathered because we were starving.
The animal we gathered around
was the Ghost Dance.

We moved in a pack.
We circled.
We circled.
We stumbled as we danced.
As we moved beyond our endurance.
Our limits.

They came like a blizzard without end.
They brought their unrest.
We felt it in the air.
Break their teeth—
Their hold on the land.
Drive them back, O Maker.
They have no fear but themselves.

Some were saying they saw
the ancestors starting to return.
But our ancestors were the falling stars.
I saw them at night on the open prairie.

We howled like wolves.
Our teeth were on fire.
We fainted.
All hope was gone.

In the confusion—
soldiers opened fire—
Winter was all that we will know.
We were mowed down.
We swallowed darkness.


Diane Glancy

A Trellis In The Snow

A Trellis in the Snow

The glacial snow smudging the plate
an opaque gray.
A mercurial bend
rising too soon from the spine
of a western mountain range.
The white bones swimming there,
laminated and reinforced with x-ray eyes.
Hold them awkward as plane wings
bolted and riveted into place,
or disk harrows in some farmer's field.
It's rideable.
The pain there along the back,
turning on the cold table
for the gulp of x-ray.
And you, sitting there in the waiting room,
reading with your finger lapping at a page,
look outward from your article
to see the work
of seas and swamp vapors and dry land.
As if it was how protozoans
only hoped they would look.
Impossible to see
the cracks and fissures.
But what do we say?
We knew here in the vicinity of the upright
there would be trouble.
Old seers should have kept us on all fours.
But now my backbone imprinted on a plate
of sheet metal
to shake and tremble in the wind,
and you beside me,
reading,
holding my bones on your lap.


Diane Glancy

Red Moonwalking Woman

Red Moonwalking Woman
by Diane Glancy


Grandmother said her grandmother
unwrapped the knives & forks each meal,
backward-walking to the cabin she left.
She remembered her dishes on the shelf,
a book, her feather bed.
The way sun dusted the floor.
Soldiers could come again & push her
on a trail in the dead of winter.
After the removal
she started again from nothing —
a twig to stir the stew rations.
Old Lot's wife,
salt pillar of the field.
It took years to collect bowls & kettles again.
Grandmother wiped the serving spoons,
closed them in a drawer.
The potato-sack curtains
trudged in the wind,
the spotted wallpaper, the long trail they marched.
It was more than a hundred years
but we sat in the kitchen
waiting for the squeak of the back door,
old shawl around our shoulders,
the bundle of supper in our belly.


Copyright © Diane Glancy

Indian Summer

INDIAN SUMMER

There’s a farm auction up the road.
Wind has its bid in for the leaves.
Already bugs flurry the headlights
between cornfields at night.
If this world were permanent,
I could dance full as the squaw dress
on the clothesline.
I would not see winter
in the square of white yard-light on the wall.
But something tugs at me.
The world is at a loss and I am part of it
migrating daily.
Everything is up for grabs
like a box of farm tools broken open.
I hear the spirits often in the garden
and along the shore of corn.
I know this place is not mine.
I hear them up the road again.
This world is a horizon, an open sea.
Behind the house, the white iceberg of the barn.

Diane Glancy

The Eight O Five

The Eight O Five
by Diane Glancy


The train
again this morning, sky always gray,
grain cars flying
like blackbirds with field seed
in their bellies.


The eight o five carrying
grain
sings like tribes
when they migrated north in summer
across the plains
following tracks of herds.


High water into trees.
The lake full of rain.
We say it is someone else
pushing down on the lake
to make it spill over its edge.


While we wait
the woman earth sings with the tribes,
transforms herself
into all things.


After the train
brush burning, the delay of smoke
in the car comes after
we have passed like sound.


Rain hangs fringe from earth woman’s dress.
She holds the delay of truth
until it comes from our mouths.


Coyotes sleep on her lap,
birds fly into the branches of her hair
while farther down the road
the black snake train wiggles behind her ear.

Diane Glancy



Reprinted by permission of Holy Cow! Press (Duluth, Minnesota) ¦copy;1986 by Diane Glancy. All rights reserved.

Source: Offering: Poetry & Prose (Holy Cow! Press, 1988).

Reservation

Reservation
by Diane Glancy


This prairie holds us
with its plainness.
An ugly wife.
We would not stay but children comfort us
and we need this flatness.


On our table
a carp with a tumor
on its lip,
larva eating its side.


An old man laughs,
one silver tooth
in his head
like a galvanized
watertank.


We are driven back
into the land,
our raccoon faces
banded around the eyes
with motorcycle goggles.
Every car we had
rusting in the yard.


We saddle the buffalo
and say we are captives.
This barrenness holds
us down like a wife.


Diane Glancy



Reprinted by permission of Holy Cow! Press (Duluth, Minnesota) ¦copy;1986 by Diane Glancy. All rights reserved.

Reservation School For Girls

Reservation School for Girls
by Diane Glancy


I.
We hang clothes on the line.
His wide trousers and shirt, wind-beat,
roar small thunder from one prairie cloud.


The same rapple of flag on its pole.


Half in fear, half in jest, we laugh.
He calls us crow women.
Our black hair shines in the sun
and in the light from school windows.


He drives his car to town, upsets the dust
on buckboard hills.
We sit on the fence when he is gone.
Does he know we speak of thunder in his shirts?


We cannot do well in his school.
He reads from west to east,
The sun we follow moves the other way.


Crowbar.


Our eyes come loose from words on the page
in narrow rooms of the reservation school.
He perceives and deciphers at once.


For us
written letters will not stay on the page,
but fall like crows from the sky and hit
against the glass windows of the school.


Our day is night when we sit in rows of the classroom.
Leaves in a whirlwind from sumac groves.
Flock of crows are black starts on a white night.


II.
On the porch of the reservation school
the blackbirds walk around our feet,
fly into our head.
They call our secret name.


Dark corridors linger in our mind
We whisper the plains to one another.


We do not talk of what we cannot understand.
Black and white fleckered dresses.


Our face like our fathers.


The sun is no enemy to the eye looking west.
The brush thin as hair of old ones.


It blinds the eye, makes fire on fields,
flashes against windows like silver ribbons
on burial robes.


Hot late into the fall, windy, ready for
cold to sweep in.
The heat seems solid, but totters on the brink
of winter.


We laugh to ourselves when he returns to the
reservation school for girls.
Take his clothes from the line.
Set the table with salt and pepper, spoon, knives.
Cattails and milk-pods in a jar.


We get lard from the basement,
rub a place in the dusty window like a moon in the ancient sky.


III.
One hill larger than the others:
an old buffalo with heavy head and whiskers
nods at the ground,
grazes in my dreams, one blade at a time.


We stay in our stiff white-sheeted beds in the
dormitory room.
Buffalo wander in our dreams.


White night-dresses.
Black pods suspended in sumac groves like crows.


In the sweat lodge of sleep
we make our vision quest,
black as pitch in crevice between crow feathers.


We hang his thunder clothes in sleep,
arms reach above our beds like willows blowing slowly
by the creek.


Quietly we choke,
hold our wounded arms like papooses.


Clothes beat on lines.
Sumac groves and whirl of leaves:
a shadow of our fathers at council fires.


Red leaves, waxy as hay on fields.
We dream of schoolrooms.


Written letters on the wind.


He reads crow-marks on the page but does not know
crow.



Reprinted by permission of Holy Cow! Press (Duluth, Minnesota) ¦copy;1986 by Diane Glancy. All rights reserved.

Source: Offering: Poetry & Prose (Holy Cow! Press, 1988).

Coyote's Shyness

"COYOTE'S SHYNESS"

1.
"COYOTE'S SHYNESS"

Coyote, the trickster, used to be shy. He who is always in
the front row waving at the camera. Shouting at
everything in sight. A long time ago, Coyote talked
quietly. You could say he was even shy. The
Grandfathers were proud of him. Because you see, when
you tell a story, the little words you speak migrate to the
ear. And when Coyote first spoke. He spoke this way.
And his words ran like small animals covered with fur.
And crawled into the cave of the ear where the words
hibernate for a while. Then begin to turn and scratch.
And come slowly awake. And tell their story. That's how
stories get started. Hardly before you know it. One gets
into your head. And after a while you hear it. And you
begin to know who you are.

From Coyote's Quodlibet (1995). Used with permission of the author.

2.
Coyote, the trickster, used to be shy.
He who is always in
the front row waving at the camera.
Shouting at everything in sight.

A long time ago, Coyote talked
quietly. You could say he was even shy. The
Grandfathers were proud of him.
Because you see, when
you tell a story,
the little words you speak migrate to the
ear. And when Coyote first spoke.
He spoke this way.
And his words ran like small animals
covered with fur.

And crawled into the cave of the ear
where the words hibernate for a while.
Then begin to turn and scratch.
And come slowly awake. And tell their story.
That's how
stories get started.
Hardly before you know it. One gets
into your head. And after a while
you hear it. And you
begin to know who you are.

Diane Glancy

From Coyote's Quodlibet (1995).

Quodlibet" is defined by Webster's as 1. A disputation on a philosophical or theological point, and as 2. A whimsical combination of familiar texts. The book was designed by Charles Alexander at Chax Press.

Iron Woman

IRON WOMAN"

I knew I came from a different place,
a story cut apart with scissors.
I would find a piece of rust in the morning
or a shape in a field through a fog.
I would hear a broken language
as if spoken by a woman
with a bird's nest on her head,
long pieces of iron welded for her buckskin.
She wears a mosquito mask,
a crooked twig for a nose.
Her teeth sewn together with close white threads.
I hear her small voice
from the bird's nest on her head.
It once lived in a pile of fallen limbs & brush
hauled to the field to burn after an ice storm.
Her voice rises in the trail of smoke
& mixes with mine in air.
It takes a while to speak with these two voices
as it takes a while to walk on two feet
each one going the other way.


Diane Glancy

From Iron Woman (1990). Used with permission of the author.

This collection of sixty-two poems won the 1988 Capricorn Poetry Prize. The Iron Woman of the title refers to a Noguchi sculpture on the Macalester College campus. When walking past this sculpture, Glancy hears "old footsteps of the ancestors in the leaves of autumn" and is struck with "a sense of loss." She dedicates this collection to the Iron Woman statue or, more exactly, to "the 'remains' of a heritage" evoked by its presence. This second printing of the first edition was limited to 1000 copies.

Great Grandmother Steps Into The Room

"GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER STEPS INTO THE ROOM"

Her head small as a pecan.
Her body large as husks from corn.
Hi hey ya
hey yo.
She speaks in dreams.

Through narrow channels of the prairie
a stream of sheep pass into her head.
She tends them on the hill
where small rocks cluster
like a flock.

Moccasins tied to thick feet.
Her leggins dangle like puffin beaks.
She is from the north now.
Her dress fishskin.
Wooden snow goggles with slits for eyes.

Her mouth shriveled to a cedar berry
she speaks through the blue opening
in her head.
Her brittle dress crackles and her voice.
Teehee.
laughs with narrow vision
and her small words say to me
speak.


Diane Glancy


From Offering: Poetry and Prose (1988). Used with permission of the author.

Author's signed presentation copy to the Golda Meir Library. In his forward to this collection, Simon J. Ortiz celebrates Glancy's "vivid poetic insights into the landscape of Oklahoma and its Cherokee heritage." He suggests that in this work, Glancy goes "more deeply and comprehensively into the dimensions of her Cherokee and German/English birthright, which, to her, is more than a matter of cultural and genetic descent." Offering is illustrated by Terry John Swaby.

First Summer After Divorce in an Apartment without Air Conditioning

Selections from:
FIRST SUMMER AFTER DIVORCE IN AN APARTMENT WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING"

The heat is not so much as cold
which is a war horse.

Heat is more of a ghost, somewhat dis-
oriented, with crumbs on his chin.
Second cousin Sixkiller
when he sat in the old kitchen and
talked,
choking suddenly,
somehow marked with an x like the barn door.
He turned over his plate when we jumped
at him.

Heat is a distant relative
choking
on venison and squaw bread.
We beat him on the back
but he rode into the space behind his eyes
like the bus
upstate
from Broken Bow.

Heat pushes in while cold drives away.

Last winter
deciding to divorce
I thought I'd never be warm again.
We opened the pasture gate
and the war horse
trampled
the field of daisies until it became a
constellation.

The flowers have sharp teeth and throats
like black holes.
None of us know where we are going.

As I lie in the heat,
I think of Sixkiller,
buried so wolves can't get to him,
bear teeth around his neck, prayer-sticks
like fenceposts
in the ground.

Heat pushes inward with the weight of barns,
and in some inverse way
made the house bigger,
while cold let me know how small it was.

Relatives confused about divorce
interrupt like bugs in the field,
talk among themselves.

But in the daisy field we are less sure of
what we doing.
Less certain of the other side.
Yet we trample the flower-eaters of our space
in dreams.

The season of the war horse is over
until the equinox.

In this slight suffocation, which heat is,
the relatives carry tradition
while we expanded
to dark sky
brushing crumbs of squaw bread from a ghost.

I lie in wet nightclothes above the field
of space.
Bear constellation sleep-walks the
Oklahoma summer.
Forgetting the dingy bus station that was
between us, we separate now as cold,
but these hot nights
pushed together again by thought.

Heat doesn't bother me as much as cold:
a ghost compared
to the corporeal war horse.

We circle the stale smell of wallpaper
in the old kitchen
where Sixkiller haunts the small frame of
our orb
and we are humbled at the sight of it.


Diane Glancy

From Brown Wolf Leaves the Res and Other Poems (1984). Used with permission of the author.

Snowmocycle

Snowmocycle

All right! a Ride!!

Not raining.
Streets bare.
More Or Less.
If I'm going to get a ride This Month.
This is IT!
The window is closing.

Not a great ride
Just 5 or so around the top of the hill
around here.
Around here the top of one hill
is just the bottom of another.
Stump puller gear set most of the trip.
Some hills you kill.
Some hills kill you.

Found some sort of geographical apex near Skyway
Aptly named, Skyway.
Found the Chief Sealth trail.
Nice blacktop.
Smooth curvy path.
One of the hills that killed me.

Tires flinging,
Snowmelt.
Grit.
No Salt.
Jacket, Jeans, and socks in the wash.
As we -

Speak.

Splog;

Distance 7.3 miles,
Average speed 7.3 miles per hour,
Riding time 59:35,
Maximum speed 29.5,
Odometer 1131 miles,
Temperature 45 degrees.

Just a little ride,
but I'm amused by it's presumption.
As I'm sure it is by mine.
Not very fast, but mostly uphill.

My shoes are wet too.

Doug Palmer After the snow began to melt, after Christmas 2008

The Burt Lancaster Westerns

Burt Lancaster, with his animal grace and acrobatic skills put some of that in every role in his 86 films, from 1946-1991--yet in was in his Westerns that one felt he had a comfort level and intensity not often matched. Most people would have assumed that he had made dozens of westerns, remembering one or more of his roles--yet he only made 14 of them. His production company, HECHT-LANCASTER produced (5) of them.
1) VENGEANCE VALLEY (1951) playing Owen Daybright, the good brother to Robert Walker's villainous one.
2) APACHE (1954) as Massai, blue eyes and all, making love to Jean Peters, and being pursued by John McIntire.
3) VERA CRUZ (1954) as Joe Erin, stealing the film from the less flashy Gary Cooper, with supporting roles by Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, and Cesar Romero.
4) THE KENTUCKIAN (1955) playing Elias Wakefield, with Walter Matthau as the heavy with a bull whip.
5) GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL (1957) as Wyatt Earp, with KirK Douglas as Doc Holliday.
6) THE UNFORGIVEN (1960) as Ben Zachary, with Audrey Hepbrun, Audie Murphy, Doug McClure, Joseph Wiseman, Lillian Gish, John Saxon, and Charles Bickford in support.
7) THE HALLELUJAH TRAIL (1965) as Col. Thaddeus Gearhart, with Lee Remick.
8) THE PROFESSIONALS (1966) as Bill Dolworth, with Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan, Woody Strode, Ralph Bellamy, Jack Palance, and
Claudia Cardinale.
9) THE SCALPHUNTERS (1968) as Joe Bass, with Ossie Davis, Shelley Winters, and Telly Savalas.
10) LAWMAN (1971) as Jared Maddox, with Lee J. Cobb, Robert Ryan.
11) VALDEZ IS COMING (1971) as Valdez, with Susan Clark.
12) ULZANA'S RAID (1972) as McIntosh, with Douglass Watson, Bruce Davison , and Richard Jaeckel.
13) BUFFALO BILL & THE INDIANS (1976) as Ned Buntline, with Paul Newman, Geraldine Chaplin, Harvey Keitel.
14) CATTLE ANNIE AND LITTLE BRITCHES (1981) as Bill Doolan, with Diane Lane, Amanda Plummer, Scott Glenn, Rod Steiger, and John Savage.

Here's a few images to take you back to the West, to Burt's great roles.