Rumors of Our Demise

They came from across the great water  
On ships many times larger than our dugout canoes    
We welcomed them and showed them our ways    
What to plant, what to eat, how to hunt, how to survive    
They brought their horses, their thunder sticks, and firewater    
Their brought measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, and tuberculosis    
To the Iroquois, the Delaware, the Shawnee, the Creek, and the Cherokee    
There were stories and rumors of our demise    
    
They moved west in wagons coming more and more    
They killed off the buffalo herds and trapped the beavers    
They spoke with forked tongues and took our land    
We fought with bow and arrows on painted ponies    
They brought cavalries, Gatling guns and iron horses    
They rounded us up and choked us out on a trail of tears    
The Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Blackfoot and the Crow    
There were stories and rumors of our demise    
     
We settled on reservations, became fat and drunk, yet    
We fought in their wars, spoke our language they called code    
We built their skyscrapers high because we had no fear    
We struggle to live, struggle to teach our children our ways    
We banded together, held pow wows, became a forgotten nation    
We built casinos to prosper from their vices in gambling halls    
The Comanche, Navajo, Apache, the Shoshone and Arapaho    
There were stories and rumors of our demise    
     
We still worship the great Spirit, the earth is our mother and the sky our father    
We are still brother to the bear and all that live in the forest, we are all interconnected    
We still smoke our pipes, beat our drums, play our flutes the way we always have    
Our dreams still get caught in dreamcatchers which hang from your rearview mirror    
Our turquoise jewelry is still made by hand and sold to you as fashion    
You use our names on your vehicles; Dakota, Comanche, Cherokee, Pontiac      
We are still here, we have not faded away, our cries have not been carried off by the wind    
Those are only stories and rumors of our demise that you tell yourself