Chief Dan George, Words of Wisdom Exerpts from the book, "The Best of Chief Dan George" by Chief Dan George and Helmut Hirnschall Published by, Hancock House Publishers Biographical Sketch By Harriet Shlossberg Chief Dan George, accomplished performer, poet, philosopher, champion of First Nations peoples, loving patriarch of a large family, was born in 1899 on a Salish Band reserve on Burrard Inlet, in North Vancouver, one of twelve children of the chief. His given name was Teswahno, meaning "thunder coming up over the land from the water." Like most native children at that time, under the influence of the Catholic Church, and need of white culture's education, he went to a residential school at the age of five, so as not to be seperated from his cherished brother Harry. The next eleven years were difficult ones, being distanced from family, culture, language and customs. Schooling ended at sixteen, and he went immediately into the forest to harvest trees. At nineteen, in an arranged marriage, he and a sixteen year old Squamish girl, Amy, entered into a devoted union of fifty-two years duration. They had eight children, six of whom survived into adulthood. Dan worked as a longshoreman off and on for the next twenty-seven years, during frequent strikes supplementing his income with hunting and lumbering, until he had a serious accident on the docks in 1947, which damaged a hip and leg. In the forties, with his children and a cousin, who billed themselves as Dan George and His Indian Enterainers, he played for dances three or four nights a week throughout British Columbia. Traveling and sleeping in a covered truck, they would spend summers picking hops and performing country and western music, with the kids doing special requests for extra money. Dan's instrument was the bass fiddle. He always remembered those years as the happiest times of his life. This is just a brief part of Chief Dan George's Biography by Harriet Shlossberg. A complete Biographical Sketch is in his book. |
Words of Wisdom Just a sampling from the book; |
Young people are the pioneers of new ways. Since they face too many temptations it will not be easy to know what is best. |
The sunlight does not leave its marks on the grass. So we, too, pass silently. |
If you talk to animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys. |
They say we do not show our feelings. This is not so. Everything is within, where the heart pounds out the richness of our emotions. The face only speaks the language of the passing years. |
The young and the old are closest to life. They love every minute dearly. If the very old will remember, the very young will listen. |
Keep a few embers from the fire that used to burn in your village, some day go back so all can gather again and rekindle a new flame, for a new life in a changed world. |
A man who lives and dies in the woods knows the secret life of trees. |
Look at the faces of my people: You will find expressions of love and dispair, hope and joy, sadness and desisre, and all the human feelings that live in the hearts of people of all colors. Yet, the heart never knows the colour of the skin. |
A child's trust in a grown-up shows in the touch of his hand. |
The only thing the world really needs is for every child to grow up in happiness. |
The Wolf The wolf has been driven from the land. Without him the wolf clan cannot celebrate the wolf ceremony. To loose a ceremony is to loose the past. |
Only love can stop a child from hurting. |
Wisdom There is wisdom in youth and there is wisdom in age. One is loud and seeking, the other is silent and true. |
The grace of God lives in a child's happy eyes. |
A child does not question the wrongs of grown-ups, he suffers them! |
Love It is hard for a child not to be afraid. It is impossible for a child not to be confused. Our love can make a child look ahead with confidence. |
Touch my hand before my voice will falter, sit with me until the shadows go, then smile.... |
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