Paul Goble’s World: Native Americans’ relationship to all created beings
For more than four decades, world-renowned artist Paul Goble has participated closely in the life of the Plains Indians of the American West and he has shared the friendship of many tribal elders who remembered the pre-reservation days.
In All Our Relatives readers can experience Native American tales and songs, dreams and quotations. These carefully chosen ancient stories and art meticulously reflects traditional designs and colors and with clear insights examines the spiritual life of these nomadic peoples.
All Our Relatives also contains a foreword by Dr. Joe Medicine Crow, Crow Tribal Historian and the oldest living man of the Crow tribe. He writes about Paul Goble:
“His art is tremendous because he is able to recreate the traditional forms with great accuracy and detail…He is able to recreate the spirit of the old stories with his illustrations and his words.”
“Life for the Indian is one of harmony with nature and the things which surround him. The Indian tried to fit in with nature and to understand, not to conquer or rule. Life was a glorious thing, for great contentment comes with the feeling of friendship and kinship with the living things about you.”
—Standing Bear, Lakota
“You ought to follow the example of the wolf. Even when he is surprised and runs for his life, he will pause to take one more look at you before he enters his final retreat. So you must take a second look at everything you see.”
—Ohiyesa, Santee Dakota
“All animals have power, because the Great Spirit dwells in all of them, even a tiny ant, a butterfly, a tree, a flower, a rock.”
—Pete Catches, Lakota
“We make bear sounds, talk bear language when we are in a fighting mood. Harrrnh!—and you are as good as gone.”
—Lame Deer, Lakota
“At one time animals and people were able to understand each other. We can still talk to the animals, just as we do to people, but they now seldom reply, excepting in dreams. Whenever we are in danger, or distress, we pray to them and they often help us.
—Brings Down the Sun, Blackfoot
“The bear has a soul like ours, and his soul talks to mine in my sleep and tells me what to do.”
—Bear With White Paw, Lakota
Against the winds, may I roam
—Lakota
“Everything as it moves, now and then, here and there, makes stops. The bird as it flies stops in one place to make its nest, and in another to rest in its flight. A man when he goes forth stops when he will. So God has stopped. The sun, which is so bright and beautiful, is one place where he has stopped. The moon, the stars, the winds he has been with. The trees, the animals, are all where he has stopped, and we think about these places and send our prayers to reach the place where God has stopped, to win help and a blessing.”
—Lakota
Before proceeding in the hunt, it is necessary to stop, take a smoke, and offer a prayer to the Medicine Fathers. They will always hear the prayer of a sincere hunter. It is not through the great skill of the hunter himself that success is achieved, but through the hunter’s awareness of his place in Creation and his relationship to all things.
—Thomas Yellowtail, Absaroke
—Shooter, Lakota
“When the day is cloudy, the thunder makes a low rumble and we hear the rain striking against the tipi; then it’s nice to sleep, isn’t it?”
—Absaroke
Our tipis 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, Lakota
“In winter we are out a long time hunting deer, and when we come back tired to our tipi and find it warm, we sleep well, don’t we?”
—Absaroke
!["Even when feeding, he [the elk] never seems to forget his dignity."](https://worldwisdom.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/233.jpg)
“The earth is your grandmother and mother, and she is sacred. Every step that is taken upon her should be as a prayer.”
—Black Elk, Lakota
“Silence is greater than speech. This is why we honor animals, who are more silent than man, and we reverence the trees and rocks, where the Great Mystery lives undisturbed, in a peace that is never broken.”
—Ohiyesa, Santee Dakota
“The elk walks among his herd as if there is nothing in the sky nor on earth that is his equal. And others of the herd seem to think so. Even when feeding, he never seems to forget his dignity. With every mouthful of food, up goes his head as he watches over his herd.”
—Standing Bear, Lakota
eagles do.”
O Spotted Eagle, who are next to the heavens, close to Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit! Your wings are powerful. Help us to send our voice to Wakan Tanka.
O Spotted Eagle, who circles in the highest heavens, you see all things in the heavens and upon the earth! The thoughts of men should rise as high as eagles do.
—Black Elk, Lakota
Song of the Thunderbird:
My children,
It is I who make the thunder
As I circle about,
The thunder as I circle about,
My children,
It is I who make the loud thunder
As I circle about,
The loud thunder as I circle about.
Arapaho
WHISTLING ELK WAS WOUNDED IN BATTLE. His friends brought him home
and laid him in his tipi. The medicine men did what they could to cure his wounds, but everyone feared Whistling Elk did not have many more days to live.
As he reclined on his bed, close to death, a kingfisher flew in at the tipi door and perched on the top of the backrest above his head. Uttering his loud rattling call, the kingfisher told him: “Whistling Elk, get up now! Go to
the stream. Do as I do: dive down into the water!”
Whistling Elk obeyed the kingfisher, rose from his bed, walked down to the river, and dived in. His wound was cleansed, and soon after that he recovered.
“Long ago it was the cottonwood tree who taught us how to make our tipis, for the leaf is an exact pattern of the tipi, and this we learned when some of our old people were watching little children making play houses from these leaves. This too is a good example of how much grown men and women may learn from very little children, for the hearts of little children are pure, and, therefore, the Great Spirit may show to them many things which older people miss.”
—Black Elk, Lakota
“Some people may think that human beings were the first to dance, but I do not think so. I believe that the birds danced fi rst. I have seen the prairie chicken hold dances as orderly and as well organized as I have seen humans hold.”
—Standing Bear, Lakota
Do you see the whole world, dear child?
There is nothing for you to be afraid of in death,
Go home, sleep well, and eat.
As long as you have teeth you have nothing to fear.
“Tatanka, the buffalo, should always be treated with respect, for was he not here before the two-legged peoples, and is he not generous in that he gives us our homes and food? The buffalo is wise in many things, and, thus, we learn from him and will always be a relative with him.”
—Black Elk, Lakota
“We Lakota have a close relationship to the buffalo. He is our brother. You can’t understand about nature, about the feeling we have toward it, unless you understand how close we were to the buffalo. That animal was almost like a part of ourselves, part of our souls.”
—Lame Deer, Lakota
“Did you know that trees talk? Well they do. They talk to each other, and they’ll talk to you if you listen. I have learned a lot from trees: sometimes about the weather, sometimes about animals, sometimes about the Great Spirit.”
—Walking Buffalo, Stoney
At daybreak, I roam,
Running, I roam.
At daybreak, I roam,
Trotting, I roam.
At daybreak, I roam,
Timidly, I roam.
At daybreak, I roam,
Watching cautiously, I roam.
“I am particularly fond of the little groves of oak trees along the rivers. I love to look at them, and to feel a reverence for them, because they endure the wintry storm and the summer’s heat, and—not unlike ourselves—they seem to thrive and flourish by them.”
—Sitting Bull, Lakota
