Vine
Deloria, Jr. was a Native American author, theologian, historian,
and activist. He is best known for his book Custer Died for Your
Sins (1969), in which he attacked the treatment of Native Americans
by the United States government and by anthropologists.
The
American Anthropological Association sponsored a panel in response
to Custer Died for Your Sins, and many sacred artifacts and human
remains have been returned to tribes as a result.
A
member of the Standing Rock Sioux, Deloria originally sought to
be a minister, like his father, and received a degree from the
Lutheran School of Theology after graduating from Iowa State University.
Deciding that he could do more good for other native Americans
as a lawyer, he went on to earn a law degree from the University
of Colorado. From 1964 to 1967 Deloria was executive director
of the National Congress of American Indians.
Deloria
wrote and edited many subsequent books, focusing on many issues
as they relate to Native Americans, such as education and religion.
He was involved with many Native American organizations, was a
board member of the National Museum of the American Indian beginning
in 1977, and taught political science at several universities.
Quotes
"Western
civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality
but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent."
"The
problems of Indians have always been ideological rather than social,
political or economic ... [I]t is vitally important that the Indian
people pick the intellectual arena as the one in which to wage
war."
Works
1. Aggressions of Civilization: Federal Indian Policy Since The
1880s, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984.
2. American Indian Policy In The Twentieth Century, Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1985.
3. American Indians, American Justice, Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1983.
4. Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration
of Independence, New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1974.
5. A Better Day for Indians, New York: Field Foundation, 1976.
6. A Brief History of the Federal Responsibility to the American
Indian, Washington: Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1979,
7. Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, New York: Macmillan,
1969.
8. For This Land: Writings on Religion in America, New York: Routledge,
1999.
9. Frank Waters: Man and Mystic, Athens: Swallow Press: Ohio University
Press, 1993.
10. God Is Red: A Native View of Religion, Golden, Colorado: North
American Press, 1994.
11. The Indian Affair, New York: Friendship Press, 1974.
12. Indians of the Pacific Northwest, New York: Doubleday, 1977.
13. The Metaphysics of Modern Existence, San Francisco: Harper
& Row, 1979.
14. The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian
Sovereignty, New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.
15. Of Utmost Good Faith, San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books,
1971.
16. Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific
Fact, New York: Scibner, 1995.
17. The Red Man in the New World Drama: A Politico-legal Study
with a Pageantry of American Indian History, New York: Macmillan,
1971.
18. Reminiscences of Vine V. Deloria, Yankton Sioux Tribe of South
Dakota 1970, New York Times oral history program: American Indian
oral history research project. Part II; no. 82.
19. The Right To Know: A Paper, Washington, D.C.: Office of Library
and Information Services, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1978.
20. A Sender of Words: Essays in Memory of John G. Neihardt, Salt
Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1984.
21. Singing For A Spirit: A Portrait of the Dakota Sioux, Santa
Fe, N.M.: Clear Light Publishers, 1999.
22. Spirit and Reason: The Vine Deloria, Jr., Reader, Golden,
Colorado: Fulcrum Pub, 1999.
23. Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations (with Wilkins,
David E.), Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999.
24. We Talk, You Listen; New Tribes, New Turf, New York: Macmillan,
1970.
25. Evolution, Creationism, and Other Modern Myths, Golden, Colorado:
Fulcrum Pub, 2002.
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