Silently I watched - as death defiled my world.
Their bloody bodies left - broken where they fell.
But I could not have known - how much had truly died.
Like vermin from the land - a people had been destroyed.
(Chorus)
I've been forced to witness - the butchered innocents
I was witness to...the Death of the Old Ways!
(Repeat Chorus 2x)
Their screams had cut like steel - blades across my flesh.
I fought to hide my face - but they'd crawled inside my head.
I was pulled away - from the carnage at my feet,
With the echoes of their pain - resounding endlessly.
(Repeat Chorus 3x)
I could see the women, I could see the children
Lying heaped and scattered, butchered and discarded.
But something else had died there in the bloody mud.
Something else had died there in that bloody mud.
I held my mother's hand as her body fell to the ground,
And touched her frozen skin as her life drained away.
I watched that desecration through the pristine eyes
Of a frightened child kneeling in his mother's blood.
The hoop of life destroyed by the dying of the dream.
The journey of the spirits...
Was started by the blood spilling from our flesh and covering their hands.
Their prejudicial slaughter was forgotten by the years...
And so it was done.
When I turn to see the past - from the hill of my old age,
I see the slaughtered tribe - discarded in the mud.
The nation was destroyed - the sacred tree is dead.
And so it was done - and so it is over.
I was forced to witness - the butchered innocents.
I can not forget - the Death of the Old Ways!
I was forced to witness - the butchered innocents.
I forever see - the Death of the Old Ways!