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Baffled by the stereotypes presented by Hollywood and m...)
Baffled by the stereotypes presented by Hollywood and much historical fiction, many other Americans find the contemporary American Indian an enigma. Compounding their confusion is the highly publicized struggle of the contemporary Indian for self-determination, lost land, cultural preservation, and fundamental human rightsa struggle dramatized both by public acts of protest and by precedent-setting legal actions. More and more, the battles of American Indians are foughtand wonin the political arena and the courts.
American Indians, American Justice explores the complexities of the present Indian situation, particularly with regard to legal and political rights. It is the first book to present an overview of federal Indian law in language readably accessible to the layperson. Remarkably comprehensive, it is destined to become a standard sourcebook for all concerned with the plight of the contemporary Indian.
Beginning with an examination of the historical relationship of Indians and the courts, the authors describe how tribal courts developed and operate today, and how they relate to federal and state governments. They define such key legal concepts as tribal sovereignty and Indian Country. By comparing and contrasting the workings of Indian and non-Indian legal institutions, the authors illustrate how Indian tribes have adapted their customs, values, and institutions to the demands of the modern world. Describing the activities of attorneys and Indian advocates in asserting and defending Indian rights, they identify the difficulties typically faced by Indians in the criminal and civil legal arenas and explore the public policy and legal rights of Indians as regards citizenship, voting rights, religious freedom, and basic governmental services.
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Power and Place examines the issues facing Native Ameri...)
Power and Place examines the issues facing Native American students as they progress through the schools, colleges, and on into professions. This collection of sixteen essays is at once philosophic, practical, and visionary.
God is Red: A Native View of Religion, 30th Anniversary Edition
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First published in 1972, Vine Deloria Jr.'s God Is Red ...)
First published in 1972, Vine Deloria Jr.'s God Is Red remains the seminal work on Native religious views, asking new questions about our species and our ultimate fate. Celebrating three decades in publication with a special 30th-anniversary edition.
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In his new preface to this paperback edition, the auth...)
In his new preface to this paperback edition, the author observes, "The Indian world has changed so substantially since the first publication of this book that some things contained in it seem new again." Indeed, it seems that each generation of whites and Indians will have to read and reread Vine Delorias Manifesto for some time to come, before we absorb his special, ironic Indian point of view and what he tells us, with a great deal of humor, about U.S. race relations, federal bureaucracies, Christian churches, and social scientists. This book continues to be required reading for all Americans, whatever their special interest.
Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact
(Claiming that science has created a largely fictional sce...)
Claiming that science has created a largely fictional scenario for American Indians in prehistoric North America, Deloria offers an alternative view of the continent's history as seen through the eyes and memories of Native Americans.
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Vine Deloria Jr., named one of the most influential rel...)
Vine Deloria Jr., named one of the most influential religious thinkers in the world by Time, shares a framework for a new vision of reality. Bridging science and religion to form an integrated idea of the world, while recognizing the importance of tribal wisdom, The Metaphysics of Modern Existence delivers a revolutionary view of our future and our world.
Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties: An Indian Declaration of Independence
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Originally published in 1974, just as the Wounded Knee ...)
Originally published in 1974, just as the Wounded Knee occupation was coming to an end, Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties raises disturbing questions about the status of American Indians within the American and international political landscapes. Analyzing the history of Indian treaty relations with the United States, Vine Deloria presents population and land ownership information to support his argument that many Indian tribes have more impressive landholdings than some small members of the United Nations. Yet American Indians are not even accorded status within the UN's trust territories recognition process.
A 2000 study published by the Annual Survey of International and Comparative Law recommends that the United Nations offer membership to the Iroquois, Cherokee, Navajo, and other Indian tribes. Ironically, the study also recommends that smaller tribes band together to form a confederation to seek membershipa suggestion nearly identical to the one the United States made to the Delaware Indians in 1778and that a presidential commission explore ways to move beyond the Doctrine of Discovery, under which European nations justified their confiscation of Indian lands. Many of these ideas appear here in this book, which predates the 2000 study by twenty-six years. Thus, Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties anticipates recent events as history comes full circle, making the book imperative reading for anyone wishing to understand the background of the movement of American Indians onto the world political stage.
In the quarter century since this book was written, Indian nations have taken great strides in demonstrating their claims to recognized nationhood. Together with Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations, by Deloria and David E. Wilkins, Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties highlights the historical events that helped bring these changes to fruition. At the conclusion of Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties, Deloria states: "The recommendations made in the Twenty Points and the justification for such a change as articulated in the book may well come to pass in our lifetime." Now we are seeing his statement come true.
Indians of the Pacific Northwest: From the Coming of the White Man to the Present Day
(The Pacific Northwest was one of the most populated and p...)
The Pacific Northwest was one of the most populated and prosperous regions for Native Americans before the coming of the white man. By the mid-1800s, measles and smallpox decimated the Indian population, and the remaining tribes were forced to give up their ancestral lands. Vine Deloria Jr. tells the story of these tribes fight for survival, one that continues today.
Vine Deloria, Jr. is known as a revolutionary thinker, who spoke out against the decadence of U. S. culture and insists that young Native Americans receive traditional teachings before exposing themselves to the philosophies of the dominant Euro-American culture.
Background
Deloria was born on 26 March 1933 in Martin, South Dakota, the son of Vine and Barbara (Eastburn) Deloria. He joined a distinguished family: his great-grandfather Francois Des Laurias ("Saswe") was a medicine man and leader of the White Swan Band of the Yankton Sioux tribe. His grandfather Philip Deloria was a missionary priest of the Episcopal Church. His aunt Ella C. Deloria was a noted anthropologist who published works on Indian ethnology and linguistics. His father, Vine Deloria, Sr. , was the first American Indian to be named to a national executive post in the Episcopal Church.
Education
The younger Deloria graduated from high school at St. James Academy in Faribault, Minnesota, after attending grade school in Martin, South Dakota. He served in the Marine Corps from 1954 to 1956, then attended Iowa State University where he received his B. A. degree in 1958. He also earned a B. D. in theology at Augustana Lutheran Seminary, Rock Island, Illinois, in 1963.
Two circumstances influenced Deloria's decision to return to college and earn a law degree from the University of Colorado in 1970. One was learning of the success of the National Association for the Advancement of Color People's Legal Defense Fund which had been established to help the black community. The second was the realization that local Indian tribes were without legal counsel and had no idea what their rights were. His goal when receiving his law degree was to start a program which would assist smaller tribes and Indian communities to outline their basic rights.
Career
In 1964 Vine Deloria, Jr. was hired by the United Scholarship Service in Denver to develop a program to get scholarships for American Indian students in eastern preparatory schools. He successfully placed a number of Indian students in eastern schools through the program. He served as the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in Washington, D. C. , from 1964 to 1967, an experience he claimed was more educational than anything he had experienced in his previous thirty years. He was expected to solve problems presented by Indian tribes from all over the country, but found that unscrupulous individuals made the task impossible. He was frustrated by the feeling that the interests of tribes were often played against one other.
In addition the NCAI had financial difficulties, and was often close to bankruptcy, so that a majority of time had to be spent resolving funding issues. Increased memberships and a research grant gave the organization enough strength to successfully win a few policy changes in the Department of Interior.
Although Deloria felt the organization had been successful, especially because of the support and hard work of organization members, he realized that other tactics would have to be used to further the cause for Indian rights.
Throughout his career his goal in life has been twofold: to support tribes through affiliation with various advocacy organizations and to educate Native Americans on aspects of the law through teachings and writings which stress the historical and political aspects of the relationships of Indians to other people. His role as an activist in the efforts of Native Americans to achieve self-government has focused on change through education rather than through violence.
From 1970 to 1972 Deloria was a lecturer at Western Washington State College in the division of ethnic studies. While there, he worked with Northwest Coast tribes in their effort to gain improved fishing rights.
From 1972 to 1974 he taught at the University of California at Los Angeles. During the same period, from 1970 to 1978, he was the chairperson of the Institute for the Development of Indian Law, headquartered in Golden, Colorado.
From 1978 to 1991 he was a professor of American Indian studies, political science, and history of law at the University of Arizona.
In 1991 he moved to the University of Colorado in Boulder to join the faculty of the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America. In addition to his teaching positions, Deloria served in leadership positions in several organizations including the Citizens Crusade against Poverty, the Council on Indian Affairs, the National Office for the Rights of the Indigent, the Institute for the Development of Indian Law, and the Indian Rights Association.
Deloria has been an activist writer, dramatically presenting his case for Indian self-determination. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, written while he was attending law school, captured the attention of reviewers and critics and bolstered Native American efforts for recognition. Written at the time the American Indian Movement (AIM) was drawing public attention to Native American rights, Deloria's book was an articulation of the activist goal: to become self-ruled, culturally separate from white society and politically separate from the U. S. government.
While blasting America's treatment of Indian people, Deloria explained the concepts of termination and tribalism. Although contemporaneous with the civil rights movement of other American groups, he distinguished between black nationalism and Indian nationalism, explaining that because Indian civil rights issues were based upon treaties they needed to be addressed in a different way.
Deloria's second book, We Talk, You Listen: New Tribes, New Turf, also addressed the issue of tribalism and advocated a return to tribal social organization in order to save society. His third book, God Is Red: A Native View of Religion, again captured a national audience. His later book The Metaphysics of Modern Existence followed up on this theme by questioning non-Indian world views of modern life and recommending a reassessment of reality about moral and religious property.
In all of Deloria's writings, he has emphasized the failure of U. S. treaties to adequately provide for the needs of Indian people. Using his legal training, he has analyzed past relationships between the U. S. government and Native American groups and has continually pressed for renewed treaty negotiation in order to allow more Indian self-control over their culture and government.
His book Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties provided an account of events which led to the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, by supporters of the American Indian Movement.
He castigated the American public for its avoidance of the real Indian world in a series of ironic contrasts between current events of the Indian movement of the 19706 and what the American public was reading.
Deloria's writing style has been consistent. In his books he often attempts to peel away platitudes that his white readers have developed so that they begin to comprehend the issues and the Indian viewpoint. Not without humor, he cynically derides white culture, and then offers his replacement. He commented in an interview that Americans can be told the obvious fifty times a day and revel in hearing it, but not learn anything from it. Some critics have been disappointed that Deloria's books do not describe Indian culture.
His second edition of God Is Red, published in 1992, built upon the arguments against Christianity he wrote in the first edition.
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Vine Deloria Jr., named one of the most influential rel...)
Religion
In Deloria's book God Is Red: A Native View of Religion he offered an alternative to Christianity which he explained had failed both in its theology and its application to social issues. He proposed that religion in North America should follow along the lines of traditional Native American values and seek spiritual values in terms of "space" by feeling the richness of the land. Most critics applauded his presentation of Indian religious practice, but were offended by his attack on the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Views
Another of Deloria's major themes has been concern for the natural environment. He blames contemporary technological society for destroying the earth, and presents an apocalyptic view. He envisions the end of the earth if changes are not made soon to allow the natural environment to recover.
Quotations:
"As long as any member of my family can remember, we have been involved in the affairs of the Sioux tribe. My great grandfather was a medicine man named Saswe, of the Yankton tribe of the Sioux Nation. My grandfather was a Yankton chief who was converted to Christianity in the 1860's. He spent the rest of his life as an Episcopal missionary on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in South Dakota", "One reason I wanted to write it was to raise some issues for younger Indians which they have not been raising for themselves. Another reason was to give some idea to white people of the unspoken but often felt antagonisms I have detected in Indian people toward them, and the reasons for such antagonism", "I suggest in this revised edition that we have on this planet two kinds of people-natural peoples and the hybrid peoples. The natural peoples represent an ancient tradition that has always sought harmony with the environment", "I think New Age shamanism is very interesting. Whites want to take our images, they want to have their Indian jewelry; at the same time, they need our valley to flood for a dam. People are desperately trying to get some relationship to Earth, but it's all in their heads. . New Age shamanism may be one of the few solutions", "I wouldn't delude myself for a minute that I could go back to the reservation and live any kind of traditional life. I've been in the cities too long. I would love to go back to the old shamanism. My great-grandfather was a very powerful man. But here I am in Tucson, Arizona, dependent upon Tucson Electric Power to stay comfortable", "I particularly disappoint Europeans. They come over and want me to share all the tribal secrets. Then I lecture and harangue about the white man", "I happened to come along when they [the media] needed an Indian. The writing is not very good at all. But Indians were new, so everybody gave Custer great reviews. I never fooled myself that it was a great book", "there will be fewer than 100, 000 people on whatever this continent comes up as, there will probably be some Indians and all kinds of new strange animals-the Earth a completely different place, people talking about legends of the old times when iron birds flew in the air".
Membership
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the Institute for the Development of Indian Law, the Citizens Crusade against Poverty, the Council on Indian Affairs, the National Office for the Rights of the Indigent, the Institute for the Development of Indian Law, the Indian Rights Association, the National Museum of the American Indian.
Connections
Deloria married Barbara. They have three children and seven grandchildren.