When the Homily is about Immunology

Noe Siattle

My family and I spent the weekend abroad - meaning on the western shores of Puget Sound as hosted by a most gracious and patient host and guide: Dawn.

For me, one of the more interesting things about the visit, revolved around seeing Seattle's namesake's grave. Chief Sealth is buried on the grounds of an old Roman Catholic Parish/Mission in Suquamish. It happens to also be the same place where Dawn's Orthodox Mission meets (It's actually named after St. Elizabeth, but it's Dawn's too).

Chief Sealth is often quoted - usually for his "new age" sounding poetic wisdom with regard to the environment. But what is often disregarded is the fact that he became a Roman Catholic as an adult after seemingly having a profound conversion experience. After which, he gave up his life as a skilled and brutal warrior. As recounted here, the life of an "in harmony with nature" Native American didn't preclude some bloody spectacles.

On his baptismal certificate, his name is listed as Noe [Noah] Siattle. It is a curious thing to see a big cross of Chief Sealth's grave, and I have a sneaky suscpicion that it rubs many people around here the wrong way. Oh well.

Here is the text of Noe Siattle's famed speech as recounted by Dr. Henry A. Smith. No one is really sure if the account is accurate, but it certainly leads to some questions since he does not seem to show his inclination toward Christianity...who knows.

But as you read this particular portion, keep in mind our Orthodox (and Roman Catholic) understanding of the Saints and indeed all of those departed this life and what things that our Paradosis leads us to call Holy and Sacred. I am forced to ask Chief Sealth: Perhaps you knew too many Protestants...for in your words I hear much in common with the Paradosis of our ancestors.

There is little in common between us.

To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors — the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.

Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.

It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian’s night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man’s trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.

A few more moon, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Ever part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children’s children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not altogether powerless.

Amen. We know...we know.