George Catlin’s Creed
George Catlin was an American painter, author and traveler born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. After a brief career as a lawyer he set out to record the appearance and customs of America’s native people. He produced two major collections of paintings of American Indians and published a series of books chronicling his travels among the native peoples of North, Central and South America. The following is an excerpt from his book, Last Rambles.
George Catlin’s Creed
- I love a people that have always made me welcome to the very best that they had.
- I love a people who are honest without laws, who have no jails and no poorhouses.
- I love a people who keep the commandments without ever having read or heard them preached from the pulpit.
- I love a people who never swear or take the name of God in vain.
- I love a people “who love their neighbors as they love themselves”
- I love a people who worship God without a Bible, for I believe that God loves them also.
- I love a people whose religion is all the same, and who are free from religious animosities.
- I love a people who have never raised a hand against me, or stolen my property, when there was no law to punish either.
- I love and don’t fear mankind where God has made and left them, for they are his children.
- I love a people who have never fought a battle with the white man, except on their own ground.
- I love a people who live and keep what is their own without lock and keys.
- I love a people who do the best they can.
- And oh how I love a people who don’t live for the love of money.
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