I had to deduct one star just for the ancient aliens support but otherwise this book amazed me. Without a background in anthropology (its relevant theories as well as its bloody history) and growing up catholic I definitely would’ve found this book extremely difficult to understand, but thankfully I was able to digest a lot of it. As a Canadian I knew virtually nothing about American history with its Indigenous peoples prior to reading this book, and it poked further holes in the church and its history for me than already existed (and there were a fair amount). The portrayal of the shakiness of Christian identity and the influence of a desperate search for it on how people interact with Indigenous religions was probably one of my main takeaways from this. It is so deeply true, and reminds me deeply of the conversations in the book Becoming Cherokee. American (and Canadian) folks need community so badly, and not community as we currently define it in order to heal our relationships with Indigenous peoples and the land we occupy.