A story told by Peter Lengkeek, Chief of the Crow Creek Sioux Nation

When I was a child, my grandmother found another one of her grandchildren stomping on ants he found below a rock. She got upset, told us:

“Come here around the fire and pay attention, I have something to ask you: What do you think would happen if our winged relatives would suddenly disappear?”

For children like us, what came first to our mind was that we would no longer be able to eat chicken nuggets.

Our grandmother continued: “Well, all life would soon perish. And what would happen if our four-legged relatives would suddenly disappear from the Earth?”

We thought then about steaks and hamburgers, but she answered again: “all life would soon perish. And what would happen if all the ants would disappear from Earth?”

By then we started to get used to the answer “all life would perish” but when she went on to ask “what would happen if the two-legged (human beings) suddenly disappear?”, we were suprised by a turn in her answer: “All life would certainly flourish.”

Then she started to share the story of what happened in the past when human beings were destroying mother earth who warned all beings that she would have to get rid of everyone to clean and heal herself.

The animal nations were worried and decided to meet. Some felt it was not fair for them to perish for the actions of the two-legged. They discussed the subject and finally agreed that they needed to get rid of the two-legged and wondered how to do that as the two-legged were so intelligent and strong and have weapons. They finally came up with a solution to avoid that: they decided they would create diseases to give to the two-legged. With this in mind they all came back home. And that is why so many diseases come now from the animal nations.

They did not realize somebody was listening. The Plant nations of that land had been there all along and were not comfortable that they heard so they decided to call for a meeting of all plant nations. And that happened right here, in these American plains. So, all the plant nations met and they had a meal together and they started to share their views. They agreed it was not for the animal nations to decide who have the right to be here and thought about how to help the two-legged. They finally agreed that if the animal nations would produce diseases to get rid of the two-legged, the plant would produce medicines for each one of these diseases. And nowadays, most of the medicine we take comes from these generous plants.

Shared on August 22nd, 2023; published with his consent.