“Once I was in Victoria, and I saw a very large house. They told me it was a bank, and that the white men place their money there to be taken care of, and that by and by they got it back, with interest.
We are Indians, and we have no such bank; but when we have plenty or money or blankets, we give them away to other chiefs and people, and by and by they return them, with interest, and our hearts feel good. Our way of giving is our bank.”
Nootka Chief
Excerpted from: Nerburn, Kent and Louise Mengelkoch, eds. Native American Wisdom. San Rafael, CA: Classic Wisdom Collection, 1991.
