A Quote by Sherman Alexie

Do you know why the Indian rain dances always worked? Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained. — © Sherman Alexie
Do you know why the Indian rain dances always worked? Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained.
We need to give out portrayal of ourselves. Every non-Indian writer writes about 1860 to 1890 pretty much, and there is no non-Indian writer that can write movies about contemporary Indians. Only Indians can. Indians are usually romanticized. Non-Indians are totally irrepsonsible with the appropriation of Indians, because any time tou have an Indian in a movie, it's political. They're not used as people, they're used as points.
There aren't a lot of alternative roles for Indian actors. I think we've fallen short of portraying Indians in the media. We don't need to make another Dances With Wolves, because it's not an Indian movie. When Indians portray themselves, then we have a different perspective. I've been asked about making period pieces but I've never read one that wasn't about guilt, and I'm not trying to make a guilt film.
The white men despise the Indians, and drive them from their homes. But the Indians are not deceitful. The white men speak bad of the Indian, and look at him spitefully. But the Indian does not tell lies; Indians do not steal. An Indian, who is as bad as the white men, could not live in our nation; he would be put to death, and eat up by the wolves.
And it rained a fever. And it rained a silence. And it rained a sacrifice. And it rained a miracle. And it rained sorceries and saturnine eyes of the totem.
It made it feel impossible, quite honestly, because filming - you film come rain, come shine, come whatever. And it did rain a lot. And of course, that's what she must have gone through. Of course it rained; of course it was cold... But, you know, it really was quite hard to be out there in the rain.
It started to rain as soon as Donald Trump stood to take the oath of office - and it rained as he was speaking and as soon as he finished and sat down it quit raining. And I thought the liberal media will say it rained on his parade. And I thought, no, what does the Bible say about rain? It's a sign of blessing.
We know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to Indians' ears. Instead, the replacement entailed English-speaking immigrants' killing most Indians by war, murder, and introduced diseases, and the surviving Indians' being pressured into adopting English, the new majority language.
We, as Indian tribes, should be able to prosecute non-Indians on tribal lands. But on Indian land, we have no ability to prosecute anyone but another Indian. American Indians having status as a foreign nation is good for us, but it's not good in some ways if we don't have the jurisdictional power that the federal government claims.
I used to object to being called an Indian writer, and would always say I was a writer who happened to be an Indian, and who happened to write about Indians.
I mean, a Mexican boy couldn't be anything else but an Indian. And why did you take the name of Quinn, they used to say to me. Hey, you're an Indian, so I played Indians.
When I'm dancing, I'm not thinking about anything. I am here. I am totally there. You know? And the feeling is a sensation of being away from myself. My soul dances with the angels, and my body dances with my wife.
'Dances with Wolves' really started the movement, using subtitles for Lakota Sioux and showing Indians as interesting, complex people - not just the enemy - and giving a lot of unknown Indian actors work.
And it rained a screaming. And it rained a rawness. And it rained a plasma. And it rained a disorder.
In fact, George Washington had been an Indian fighter since the French and Indian War. And a lot of folks, particularly in the red states, the Southern states that had suffered a number of Indian depredations wanted to remove all the Indians to Canada. Let them go with the English. And Washington said, well, you can try , but better, he said, more expedient to negotiate treaties with them because, and again this is what the founders believed to a man, Indians are a vanquished race. They won't be here two to three generations.
I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing then, it is the eternal dance or creation. The creator and creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing and dancing...and dancing. Until there is only...the dance.
All Indians must dance, everywhere keep on dancing.
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