Winona LaDuke quotes

I see a lot of damage to Mother Earth. I see water being taken from creeks where water belongs to animals, not to oil companies. (Winona LaDuke)
We are launching a campaign called Wind, Not War, which is about the alternatives to a fossil-fuels-based economy and looking at wind, an alternative energy, as key to that in terms of issues of global climate change as well as issues of democracy. View quote
Winona LaDuke
The idea that you can dress up in some kind of a fake Indian outfit and get on stage is somehow acceptable in this country. That has to do with the fact that you have the Redskins, the Braves, you have people who dress up like Indians, people dress up like Indians on Halloween. That is acceptable. View quote
Winona LaDuke
Mother Earth needs us to keep our covenant. We will do this in courts, we will do this on our radio station, and we will commit to our descendants to work hard to protect this land and water for them. Whether you have feet, wings, fins, or roots, we are all in it together. View quote
Winona LaDuke
When I first came to Harvard, I thought to myself, 'What kind of an Indian am I?' because I did not grow up on a reservation. But being an Indian is a combination of things. It's your blood. It's your spirituality. And it's fighting for the Indian people. View quote
Winona LaDuke
Rarely is there money in the federal bureaucracy for the cultural and environmental needs of the Natives. I find it ironic however, that federal monies always miraculously appear to study and develop coal strip miners, uranium mines and nuclear waste dumps on Reservations. View quote
Winona LaDuke
In the time of the sacred sites and the crashing of ecosystems and worlds, it may be worth not making a commodity out of all that is revered. View quote
Winona LaDuke
What we all need to do is find the wellspring that keeps us going, that gives us the strength and patience to keep up this struggle for a long time. View quote
Winona LaDuke
In the end, there is no absence of irony: the integrity of what is sacred to Native Americans will be determined by the government that has been responsible for doing everything in its power to destroy Native American cultures. View quote
Winona LaDuke
Ojibwe prophecy speaks of a time during the seventh fire when our people will have a choice between two paths. The first path is well-worn and scorched. The second path is new and green. It is our choice as communities and as individuals how we will proceed. View quote
Winona LaDuke
Native people - about two-thirds of the uranium in the United States is on indigenous lands. On a worldwide scale, about 70 percent of the uranium is either in Aboriginal lands in Australia or up in the Subarctic of Canada, where native people are still fighting uranium mining. (Winona LaDuke)
Post office closures in the Dakotas and Minnesota will impact many communities, but the White Earth reservation villages, and other tribal towns of Squaw Lake, Ponemah, Brookston in Minnesota, and Manderson, Wounded Knee and Wakpala (South Dakota) as well as Mandaree in North Dakota will mean hardships for a largely Native community. View quote
Winona LaDuke
I will argue that native societies' knowledge surpasses the scientific and social knowledge of the dominant society in its ability to provide information and a management style for environmental planning. Frankly, these native societies have existed as the only example of sustainable living in North America for more than 300 years. View quote
Winona LaDuke
What gives corporations like Conoco, Shell, Exxon, Daishowa, ITT, Rio Tinto Zinc, and the World Bank the right which supersedes or is superior to my human right to live on my land, or that of my family, my community, my nation, our nations, and to us as women? What law gives that right to them? Not any law of the Creator or of Mother Earth. Is that right contained within their wealth? Is that right contained within their wealth, which was historically acquired immorally, unethically through colonialism and imperialism and paid for with the lives of millions of people, species of plants, and entire ecosystems? They should have no such right. And we clearly, as women and as indigenous peoples, demand and will recover that right-the right of self-determination, to determine our own destiny and that of our future generations. View quote
Winona LaDuke
Consumption causes the commodification of the sacred, the natural world, cultures, children, and women. And unless we speak and take meaningful action to address the high levels of consumption, we will never have any security for our individual human rights as women. View quote
Winona LaDuke
The preamble to the U.S. Constitution declares as one of its purposes, to "secure the blessings of liberty, to ourselves and our posterity." Should not those blessings include air fit to breathe, water decent enough to drink, and land which is as beautiful for our descendants as it was for our ancestors? View quote
Winona LaDuke
If private property has found safe haven in the Fifth Amendment, where is common property equally protected? View quote
Winona LaDuke
I always greet people in my language because I believe that cultural diversity is as beautiful as biodiversity, and that is reflected in language. View quote
Winona LaDuke
I haven't seen anyone improve on the tepee-you can have a fire inside it, and you can love it. View quote
Winona LaDuke
Forests are worth more standing than cut. View quote
Winona LaDuke
Sometimes when you ask people to consume less, to not use it and toss it, there's this puzzled look like, "That sounds painful. That sounds like I'm not going to really get what I want, and I have a right to it." That's what we have to deconstruct. (Winona LaDuke)
And in our covenant with the Creator, we understand that it is not about managing their behavior-it's about managing ours, because we're the ones who cause extinction of species. We're the youngest species, and we don't necessarily have the most smarts. We've bungled up along the way, and we acknowledge these mistakes in our stories and in our history as Indian people. The question is whether you have the humility and the commitment to get some learning out of these experiences. View quote
Winona LaDuke
The largest party in America: the more than 50% of the American electorate who don't vote. View quote
Winona LaDuke
"Akiing" is the word for land in our language, and in the indigenous concept of land ownership or the Anishinaabeg concept of land ownership, it is much more a concept that we belong to that land than the land belongs to us. View quote
Winona LaDuke
How come there are so many mountains named after small men? Who were these guys? Why did they get these mountains named after them? You go out there and these little puny men have mountains named after them, and some of these men were really, really bad guys. View quote
Winona LaDuke