Joseph Bruchac

“Every year, I travel extensively in the autumn and the spring. I set most of the winter and summer aside for my family and my own tribal relatives. But during that traveling time, I often find myself visiting other native communities around the continent - perhaps a dozen or more each year.”

“My grandfather, Jesse Bowman, was of Abenaki Indian descent. He could barely read and write, but I remember him as one of the kindest people I ever knew. I followed him everywhere. He showed me how to walk quietly in the woods and how to fish.”

“My own special knowledge is about the Abenaki people and, to some degree, my Iroquois neighbors. But whenever I write anything about another tribal nation, I always get a lot of help. Not just from books, but from people who belong to that tribal nation.”

“Strong words outlast the paper they are written upon.”

“I did not walk every step of the Trail of Tears at one time. Instead, over the last 20 years, I have walked various segments of it in Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.”

“I was a very avid reader when I was a child, and I also was a good listener.”

“Another of the hard things about being in a war, grandchildren, is that although there are times of quiet when the fighting has stopped, you know you will soon be fighting again. Those quiet times give you the chance to think about what has happened. Some of it you would rather not think about, as you remember the pain and the sorrow. You also have time to worry about what will happen when you go into battle again.”

“The best teachers have showed me that things have to be done bit by bit. Nothing that means anything happens quickly--we only think it does. The motion of drawing back a bow and sending an arrow straight into a target takes only a split second, but it is a skill many years in the making. So it is with a life, anyone's life. I may list things that might be described as my accomplishments in these few pages, but they are only shadows of the larger truth, fragments separated from the whole cycle of becoming. And if I can tell an old-time story now about a man who is walking about, waudjoset ndatlokugan, a forest lodge man, alesakamigwi udlagwedewugan, it is because I spent many years walking about myself, listening to voices that came not just from the people but from animals and trees and stones.”

“My family is Abenaki Indian on my mother's side. My father's side of the family is Slovak, and we also have some English ancestry.”

“I'm inspired by many different things. Often, I'm inspired by experiences I've had, books I've read, people I've met, stories I've heard.”

“The Trail of Tears should teach all of us the importance of respect for others who are different from ourselves and compassion for those who have difficulties.”

“The Cherokees tried to do everything within the law and wished only to live in peace on their own lands. Yet they were cheated out of their birthright and treated as if they were less than human.”

“It is amazing to me that so little is still known about the Trail of Tears or the lives of the Cherokees themselves.”

“I was raised by my grandparents, who had a little general store. My grandmother, Marion Dunham Bowman, was a graduate of Albany Law School. Although she never did practice law, she kept the house filled with books. It's because of her that I was always reading.”

“Very good records exist about the Trail of Tears. Journals and other records kept by Cherokees and non-Indians tell such things as which people were where on which day.”

“To begin with, I want to tell a good story, a story that people will listen to and that they'll think this is true, even if it is a story that might be defined as - as myth or legend or even fanciful.”

“Over the years, I found myself traveling parts of the Lewis and Clark Trail, putting my hands in the river where they set out from St. Louis, viewing the Great Falls of Montana, standing by the same Pacific Ocean they saw with such joy.”

“I often find myself unsatisfied with books 'about' Indians because they are written from the viewpoint of non-Indians.”

“The special skills necessary for being a storyteller are really very simple. I actually talked about them in a book of mine called 'Tell Me a Tale.' Those basic skills are to listen, to observe, to remember, and to share.”

“One of the things I've been taught by Native American elders is the importance of patience, of waiting to do things when the time is right.”