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Vine Deloria, Jr., one of the most influential
Native American authors, historians, scholars, political scientists and
activists of all time, passed away November 14th, 2005, after a short
illness at the age of 72.
Mr. Deloria, a Standing Rock Sioux, was born on March 26, 1933, in
Martin, S.D. near the Pine Ridge Reservation. He attended the
reservation school, joined the Marine Corps and graduated from Iowa
State University with a Degree in science. In 1963, Vine earned his
master's degree in theology from the Lutheran School of Theology in
Illinois. In 1970, he received his law degree from
the University of Colorado.
From 1964 to 1967, Mr. Deloria devoted his talents to the National
Conference of American Indians, where he often testified before Congress
as passionate leader of the group.
His first book, "Custer Died For Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto"
published in 1969, made him a National Symbol. He wrote to dispel the
"Indian Myths" which he felt were dehumanizing and shallow.
In "God Is Red" he argued that American Indian spirituality was what
Mother Earth needed instead of Christianity which he felt "fostered
imperialism and disregard for the planet's ecology," and warned
scientists not to continue to dismiss Native American oral traditions as
legends.
While his twenty books were popular with whites, his focus was more on
helping Native People remember who they are and hanging on to their own
spiritual and cultural ways after 500 years of genocide, lies and
altered history.
"We have brought the white man a long way in 500 years," he wrote in an
Op-Ed article in The New York Times in 1976. "From a childish search for
mythical cities of gold and fountains of youth to the simple recognition
that lands are essential
for human existence."
Vine Deloria, Jr. is survived by his wife, Barbara, three children and 7
grandchildren.
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"Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and
morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them
equivalent. Today with an information `superhighway´ now looming on the
horizon, we are told that a lack of access to information will doom
people to a life of meaninglessness -- and poverty. As we look around
and observe modern industrial society, however, there is no question
that information, in and of itself, is useless and that as more data is
generated, ethical and moral decisions are taking on a fantasy dimension
in which a `lack of evidence to indict´ is the moral equivalent of the
good deed."
"In recent years we have come to understand what progress is. It is the
total replacement of nature by an artificial technology. Progress is the
absolute destruction of the real world in favor of a technology that
creates a comfortable way of life for a few fortunately situated people.
Within our lifetime the differences between the Indian use of the land
and the white use of the land will become crystal clear. The Indian
lived with his land. The white destroyed his land. He destroyed the
planet earth."
-------Vine Deloria, Jr., Standing Rock Sioux
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"Scientists, and I use the word as loosely as possible, are committed to
the view that Indians migrated to this country over an imaginary Bering
Straits bridge, which comes and goes at the convenience of the scholar
requiring it to complete his or her theory. Initially, at least, Indians
are homogenous. But there are also eight major language families within
the Western Hemisphere, indicating to some scholars that if Indians
followed the trend that can be identified in other continents, then the
migration went from west to east; tourists along the Bering Straits were
going TO Asia, not migrating FROM it."
-------Vine Deloria, Jr., Standing Rock Sioux
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