"Among the Indians there have been no written laws. Customs handed down from generation to generation have been the only laws to guide them. Every one might act different from what was considered right did he choose to do so, but such acts would bring upon him the censure of the Nation.... This fear of the Nation's censure acted as a mighty band, binding all in one social, honorable compact."
George Copway (Kah-ge-ga-bowh) Ojibwa Chief 1818-1863

TRIBES

The following is only a partial list of Indian Tribes which I have found listed. If anyone knows of another Tribe I have failed to mention, please email the *OKIE* from Muskogee and let me so I can add them to my web home *s*.

Abenake, Absentee Shawnee, Alabama Quassarte, Aleut, Apache, Icarilla Apache, Mescalero Apache, Arapah, Aztec, Big Sandy, Blackfeet, Caddo, Cherokee Nation, Cheyenne-Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, Chichansi, Chickhominy, Chickasaw Nation, Chippewa, Chishoktak, Choctaw Nation, Citizens Band of Potawatomic, Cochiti, Cold Springs, Comanche, Cree, Creek Nation, Crow, Delaware Tribe of East Oklahoma, Delaware Tribe of West Oklahoma, Eastern Shawnee, Ft Sill Apache, Haliwa Saponi, Hopi, Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma, Isleta, Jemez, Kaw Tribe of Oklahoma, Kialegee Tribal Town of the Creek Indian Nation, Kickapoo, Kiowa, Laguna, Loyal Shawnee, Lumbee, Maricopa, Mattapora, Miami, Modoc, Mowhawk, Mojave, Mona, Muskogee, Navajo, Ojibwa, Onondaga, Osage Nation, Otoe-Missouria, Ottawa, Pamunkey, Papago, Pawnee, Peoria, Pima, Ponca, Potawatommi, Laguna Pueblo, Nambe Pueblo, Quapaw, Sac & Fox Nation, Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, Seminole Nation, Seneca, Seneca-Cayuga, Shoshone, Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Yankton Sioux, Taos, Thlopthlocco Tribal Town, Tonkawa, Tribe, Tuscarora, United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees, Ute, Wampanoag, Wichita, Winnebago, Wyandotte, Yakitna, Yuchi(Euchee), Zuni

"The white people, who are trying to make us over into their image, they want us to be what they call "assimilated," bringing the Indians into the mainstream and destroying our own way of life and our own cultural patterns. They believe we should be contented like those whose concept of happiness is materialistic and greedy, which is very different from our way. We want freedom from the white man rather than to be intergrated. We don't want any part of the establishment, we want to be free to raise our children in our religion, in our ways, to be able to hunt and fish and live in peace. We don't want power, we don't want to be congressmen, or bankers....we want to be ourselves. We want to have our heritage, because we are the owners of this land and because we belong here. The white man says, there is freedom and justice for all. We have had "freedom and justice," and that is why we have been almost exterminated. We shall not forget this." 1927 Grand Council of American Indians, anonymous

Our Way to Worship
"When you came to our country, we gave you a hand. And so in return, you took our land.
You said that we were savage, and that we had no God. Our way of worship was forbidden, because you found it very odd.
As the sun would rise, we would face the east. To pray for all creations, from the birds to the beasts.
To thank our Creator, for another sacred day. Because all days are sacred, if you worship the Native way."
Igmo Tanka, Geltendtrail.gifne Martin, Chief, Chicora Indian Tribe of South Carolina

"If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace.....Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. 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.......Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade....where I choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty." Chief Joseph

"How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right."
Black Hawk, Sauk
"The ground on which we stand is sacred ground. It is the blood of our ancestors."
Chief Plenty Coups, Crow
"...... everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence."
Mourning Dove, Salish > 1888-1936 <