Chief Joseph Father Quotations

My father... had sharper eyes than the rest of our people.

I pressed my father's hand and told him I would protect his grave with my life. My father smiled and passed away to the spirit land.

My father was the first to see through the schemes of the white man.

A man who would not love his father's grave is worse than a wild animal.

Our fathers gave us many laws which they had learned from their fathers. These laws were good.

I am ready to talk today. I have been in a great many councils, but I am no wiser. We are all sprung from a woman, although we are unlike in many things. We can not be made over again. You are as you were made, and as you were made you can remain. We are just as we were made by the Great Spirit, and you can not change us ; then why should children of one mother and one father quarrel ? — why should one try to cheat the other ? I do not believe that the Great Spirit Chief gave one kind of men the right to tell another kind of men what they must do.