这里先说明一下：我看到的《西雅图的宣言》主要有两个版本，关于这两个版本，这个网页：http://www.kyphilom.com/www/seattle.html介绍得很详尽。我的校译也是根据这个网站显示的文章进行的。之所以是校译是因为在网上也看到了两个版本的中文翻译。中译文都较简短，相对于英文版有缺失和不确的地方。 多少世纪以来，渺渺苍天一直为我族暗抹同情之泪，这个在我们看来像是永恒不变的苍天还是会变的。今天天色晴朗，明天又阴云密布。但我说的话却像天空的星辰，永远不变。不管我说的是什么，华盛顿的大酋长可以确信，西雅图说的话，正如日自东出，春去秋来。 白人酋长说，华盛顿的大酋长向我们致意，表示友好。我们感谢他的好意，因为我知道他无所求于我们，不用我们以友情回报。他的人民众多，犹如覆盖着广阔原野的青草。我的人民稀少，像风暴席卷后平原上稀疏的树木。那位伟大的——我还假定他是善良的——白人酋长派人告诉我们，想买下我们的土地，但同时也愿意留下足够的土地让我们舒适地生活。这看来确实很公道，甚至很慷慨，因为红人已经再也没有什么需要得到他尊重的权利了，他的交易可能也是合宜的，因为我们现在已经不再需要这么辽阔的疆土了。 我们曾经也象风涌的海水漫过海滩一样遍布大地。但是，那个辉煌的时代早已经一去不复返了，现在留下的只是令人感伤的回忆。我不愿再详述我们民族过早的衰微，也不再为此哀叹，不责备白人兄弟加速了我们的衰败，因为我们或许多少也应该责怪自己。 年轻人是冲动的。当我们的年轻人被一些错误的现实或想象激怒，将自己的脸涂黑的时候，他们的心也黑了，往往会冷酷无情，我们老人也说服不了他们。一直就是这样，在白人赶我们西迁的时候就是这样。但是，让我们祈祷我们之间的敌对永远不要再出现。为此，我们愿意放弃一切。年轻人认为复仇是一种获得，即使为此失去生命。但是在战争的时候，留在家里的老人、将失去儿子的母亲知道得更多。 我们在华盛顿的好父亲－－假设他现在是我们共同的父亲，因为乔治国王已经将他的边界北移了－－我们伟大的好父亲，派人来告诉我们说，如果我们按照他的愿望去做，他就会保护我们。他的勇士象铜墙铁壁，他的军舰布满海湾，我们在北方的世敌－－Haidas和Tsimshians就不会来侵略我们了。他，在事实上，将成为我们的父亲，我们将成为他的孩子。 但是可能会这样吗？你的上帝不是我们的上帝！你的上帝爱护你们，憎恨我们！他伸出强壮的双手慈爱地呵护白人，引领他们象父亲对待他的婴孩。可是，他抛弃了他的红人孩子，如果红人真是他的孩子的话。我们的上帝、大神，好象也抛弃了我们。你的上帝让你的人民一天天变得更加强壮，不久，他们将遍布所有的土地。 我们的人民象迅速后退的潮水一样消失了，不再回来。白人的上帝不会爱护我们的人民，否则，他也该保护他们的。我们的人民象孤儿一样无助。那么，我们怎么能成为兄弟呢？你的上帝怎么能成为我们的上帝、让我们重新繁荣起来并且梦想曾经的辉煌呢？如果我们有一个共同的上帝，那他是偏心的，他只向着他的白人孩子。 我们从没有见过上帝。他制定规则，但对他的孩子、曾经象星星布满天空一样布满这块辽阔土地上的孩子，却没有片言只语。不，我们是完全不同的两个民族，有着不同的命运。我们没有什么共同之处。 我们视祖先的骨灰为神圣，将他们的安息之所视为圣地。你们白人远离祖先，似乎毫无遗憾。上帝用他的铁指将你们的宗教刻在石板上，让你们不会忘记。 红人不懂你们的宗教，也不会去牢记。我们的宗教是祖先的传统－－在夜晚的肃穆时刻大神赐予老年人的梦。我们的世界观，写在我们人民的心里。 你们的逝者走过墓地飘向星辰之时就不再爱你们、不再爱自己曾经生活过的土地了。他们很快就被遗忘，不再回来。 我们的逝者从未忘记这个生养他们的美丽世界。他们依然热爱她青青的山谷、低唱的河流、巍峨的山脉、深邃的沟壑和散布的湖泊与港湾。他们渴望呵护孤独的心灵，常常从狩猎之地回来给予指引和安慰。 白昼与黑夜不能并行。红人曾经逃离白人，就象晨雾在太阳升起时消散一样。然而，你的建议看来是公道的，我想我的人民会接受，退居到你给他们的保留地中。这样我们就能分处两地、和平共存，因为白人大酋长对我的人民所说的话，有如大自然从沉沉黑暗中发出来的声音。 我们在什么地方度过余年已经无关重要了。我们的来日不多了。印第安人的夜晚将漆黑无比，天边不会有一颗希望之星，哀风在远处哭泣。残酷的命运尾随红人，让他无论在哪里都会听见摧残者在一步步逼近，象受伤的母鹿等待着猎人的到来一样，麻木地等待着自己的宿命。 再过一些日子，再过几个冬天，这原来比你们更强大、更有希望的民族，曾经人口兴旺、受大神庇护、在这广阔的土地上安居乐业的民族，再也不会有一个后裔留下在他的墓前致哀了。 但我又何必为我民族的夭折哀叹呢？一个部落没落，另一个部落就会振兴；一个民族衰亡，另一民族便会崛起，像海潮一样，后浪逐前浪。这是自然的法则，悲叹惋惜是无用的。你们衰落的时间可能还很遥远，却必定到来。因为即使是能够同上帝像朋友一样亲密无间的白人，也不能免于同样的命运。我们终究会成为兄弟的，等着瞧吧。 我们会考虑你的建议，等我们做出决定，就会通知你。但是如果要我们接受这项建议，我现在在这里就要提出一个条件：我们要求有权随时不受干扰地扫谒我们祖先、朋友和子孙的坟墓。这里每一寸土地对于我的人民都是神圣的。每一片山坡，每一个河谷，每一块平原，每一丛小树都因往日的哀愁与欢乐而变得无比圣洁。 即使是岩石、在寂静的海边呆于酷热的岩石，也会因我们民族的生存故事而颤栗。地上的尘土在我们脚下比在你们脚下更柔软舒适，因为那上面浸满我们祖先的鲜血，我们赤裸的脚踩上土地之时更觉其上充满深情。甚至只是在这里短暂地居住、嬉戏过的幼童也会热爱这忧郁的荒地。在暮色降临之时，他们会迎接那些幽暗朦胧的阴魂归来。 当最后一个红种人死去，白人对这个部落的回忆已经成为神话之时，我部落的那些看不见的亡灵，仍将密密地聚集在这片土地上。当你们的子孙以为他们独自在田野、仓库、商店、公路或寂静的、无路可通的森林中时，他们也不是四周无人。夜深人静，你以为城镇村落了无一人时，街上将满是归来的故主。他们过去曾住在这里，他们仍然热爱这块美丽的土地。白人永远不会独占这个地方。 愿他公平、正直、善意地对待我的人民，因为死者并没有失去力量。我在说死亡吗？不，并没有什么死亡，只是世界改变了。 The "Alternate Statement" of Chief Seattle ... Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons. The white chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies. My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. The great, and I presume -- good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country. There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind- ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame. Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better. Our good father in Washington--for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north--our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward -- the Haidas and Tsimshians, will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. He in reality he will be our father and we his children. But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial, for He came to His paleface children. We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. 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 moons, 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. Every 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 powerless. Dead, did I say? - There is no death, only a change of worlds.