A Prayer

An Indian Prayer

My grandfather is the fire

My grandmother is the wind
The Earth is my mother

The Great Spirit is my father
The World stopped at my birth and laid itself at my feet and I shall swallow the Earth whole, when I die and the Earth and I will be one.

 

Hail The Great Spirit, my father without him no one could exist because there would be no will to live. Hail The Earth, my mother without which no food could be grown and so cause the will to live to starve. Hail the wind, my grandmother for she brings loving, lifegiving rain nourishing us as she nourishes our crops. Hail the fire, my grandfather for the light, the warmth, the comfort he brings without which we be animals, not men. Hail my parent and grandparents without which not I, nor you, nor anyone else could have existed.

 

Life gives life which gives unto itself a promise of new life.

 

Hail the Great Spirit, The Earth, the wind, the fire praise my parents loudly for they are your parents, too. Oh, Great Spirit, giver of my life please accept this humble offering of prayer this offering of praise this honest reverence of my love for you.

 

If one Native child is belittled or ridiculed for being of Native ancestry as a result of schools using inappropriate Native names and symbols, this is unacceptable.

—Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. D-New Jersey