Vine Deloria, Jr.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vine Deloria, Jr. (March 26, 1933 – November 13, 2005), a Native American of Standing Rock Sioux origin, was an author, theologian, historian, and activist.

Deloria was born in Martin, South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation, and was first educated at reservation schools. Deloria originally sought to be a minister, like his father, and in 1963 received a theology degree from the Lutheran School of Theology in Rock Island, Illinois. (He had first graduated from Iowa State University in 1958.) 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 in 1970. He started his career as an eloquent and often highly provocative spokesperson for Indian identity and social change. From 1964 to 1967, Deloria was Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians.

In 1969, he published his first of more than twenty books, entitled Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. This book became one of Deloria's most famous works; he looked to shatter Indian stereotypes and challenged white audiences to take a hard look at the brutal history of American western expansionism. His prose and ideas were charged with biting wit, as well as with incendiary statements that were meant to startle audiences out of their state of complacency. The American Anthropological Association sponsored a panel in response to Custer Died for Your Sins, and many sacred artifacts and human remains were later returned to tribes as a result.

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, and was a board member of the National Museum of the American Indian beginning in 1977. Deloria taught at the University of Arizona from 1978 to 1990, and then taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1999, he received the Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year Award in the category of prose and personal/critical essays for his work Spirit and Reason. He was honorably mentioned on October 12, 2002 at the 2002 National Book Festival and also received the Wallace Stegner award from the Center of the American West in Boulder on October 23, 2002. He was the winner of the 2003 American Indian Festival of Words Author Award.

Even though Deloria retired in May of 2000, he continued to write and lecture until he died on November 13, 2005. Vine Deloria, Jr. will be remembered as a renowned author, historian, scholar, political scientist, and activist who had a profound impact on awareness of Native American wars and dispossession.

[edit] Quotations

"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."

"The twentieth century has produced a world of conflicting visions, intense emotions, and unpredictable events, and the opportunities for grasping the substance of life have faded as the pace of activity has increased." -from the intro to Neihardt's "Black Elk Speaks."

"The massive amount of useless knowledge produced by anthropologists attempting to capture real Indians in a network of theories has contributed substantially to the invisibility of Indian people today." -paragraph 22 of chapter 4, titled "Anthropologists and Other Friends" from "Custer Died for Your Sins."

[edit] Works

Aggressions of Civilization: Federal Indian Policy Since The 1880s, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984. ISBN 0-87722-349-1.
American Indian Policy In The Twentieth Century, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985. ISBN 0-8061-1897-0.
American Indians, American Justice, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983. ISBN 0-292-73834-X.
Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence, New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1974.
A Better Day for Indians, New York: Field Foundation, 1976.
A Brief History of the Federal Responsibility to the American Indian, Washington: Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1979,
Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, New York: Macmillan, 1969. ISBN 0-8061-2129-7.
For This Land: Writings on Religion in America, New York: Routledge, 1999. ISBN 0-415-92114-7.
Frank Waters: Man and Mystic, Athens: Swallow Press: Ohio University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8040-0978-3.
Genocide of the Mind: New Native American Writing (with Moore, Marijo), New York: Nation Books, 2003. ISBN 1-56025-511-0.
God Is Red: A Native View of Religion, Golden, Colorado: North American Press, 1994. ISBN 1-55591-176-5.
The Indian Affair, New York: Friendship Press, 1974. ISBN 037700023.
Indians of the Pacific Northwest, New York: Doubleday, 1977. ISBN 0-385-09790-5.
The Metaphysics of Modern Existence, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979. ISBN 0-06-450250-3.
The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty, New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. ISBN 0-394-72566-2.
Of Utmost Good Faith, San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1971.
Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact, New York: Scibner, 1995. ISBN 0-684-80700-9.
The Red Man in the New World Drama: A Politico-legal Study with a Pageantry of American Indian History, New York: Macmillan, 1971.
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.
The Right To Know: A Paper, Washington, D.C.: Office of Library and Information Services, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1978.
A Sender of Words: Essays in Memory of John G. Neihardt, Salt Lake City: Howe Brothers, 1984. ISBN 0-935704-22-1.
Singing For A Spirit: A Portrait of the Dakota Sioux, Santa Fe, N.M.: Clear Light Publishers, 1999. ISBN 1-57416-025-7.
Spirit and Reason: The Vine Deloria, Jr., Reader, Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Pub, 1999. ISBN 1-55591-430-6.
Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations (with Wilkins, David E.), Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999. ISBN 0-292-71607-9.
We Talk, You Listen; New Tribes, New Turf, New York: Macmillan, 1970.
Evolution, Creationism, and Other Modern Myths, Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Pub, 2002.