Earlier mentioned Native American Jim Thorpe, Gold Medal-winner at Stockholms Summer Olympics, was declare the World´s Greatest Athlete. Like so many of his race, Thorpe was not a man of many words. Several sources recount that, when awarding Thorpe his prize, King Gustav said, "You, sir, are the greatest athlete in the world," to which Thorpe replied, "Thanks, King."

Later in his life Thorpe played a different starring role when wearing tribe regalia in several Hollywood Movies.

Many famous chiefs and warriors speeches are preserved. Some were profetic.

Wisest of them all and one of the most famous was Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, Native American leader, warrior, statesman.

*I am a Shawnee. My forefathers were warriors. Their son is a warrior. From them I take my only existence. From my tribe I take nothing. I have made myself what I am.

"No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers.

Sell a country?! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?

"As sure as the heavens are above you they are determined to destroy you and your children and occupy this goodly land themselves.

"Then they will destroy these forests, whose branches wave in the winds above the graves your fathers, chanting their praises.

"If you doubt it, come, go with me eastward or southward a few days' journey along your ancient trails, and I will show you a land you once occupied made desolate.

"There the forests of untold years have been hewn down and cast into the fire!

"There the buffalo and deer, the fowl and fish, are all gone.

"There the woodland birds, whose sweet songs once pleased your ears, have forsaken the land, never to return.

"And the wild flowers, which your maidens once loved to wear, have all withered and died.

"You must bear in mind these strangers are not as you — they are devoid of natural affection, loving gold or gain better than one another, their own souls.

"Everything I have told you is the truth. The Great Spirit has inspired me.