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A review by kosr
Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto by Vine Deloria Jr.
4.0
I went in looking to understand the Native American, and finished with a greater understanding of the world.
I got something different out of this book that I wasn't expecting. Jane Elliot, the creator of the infamous 'Green Eye / Blue Eye' test (look it up if you on YouTube haven't already, be ready though, it gets rough) has a recommended reading list on her website, and this book was on it. Going in, I wasn't sure what the meat and bone of the book would detail, and I certainly didn't know the nuances of modern Native American culture. On one hand, I had the vague knowledge that Native American culture, above western culture, understands that there is a spiritual aspect to life that transcends monetary value. The earth is not so much ours, so much as WE belong to it. This, along with a few other impactful statements, quotes and general history (thank you Mr. Howard Zinn) had been the extent of my knowledge before being introduced to Vine Deloria Jr .
For anyone reading this, Custer Died for Your Sins will inform you on a number of topics. These range from disseminating the real and unreal perceptions of Native Americans; dismantling the 'The Anthropologist' (laugh out loud chapter); breaking down the Native view on western religion and the missionary situation; understanding the government agencies dealing with the tribes; shedding light on Native humour; contrasting the civil rights movement with the wants and needs of natives; and, last but not least, how Native Americans can move forward from their current situation. However, the most astonishing realisation the reader will have as he/she explores the native world, is how the above mentioned will have the profound ability to make you simultaneously understand the native view, and see your world in a completely different light. I marked the below quote out as an example:
"But the understanding of the racial question does not ultimately involve understanding by either blacks or Indians. It involves the white man himself. He must examine his past. He must face the problems he has created within himself and within others. The white man must no longer project his fears and in securities onto other groups, races, and countries. Before the white man can relate to others he must forego the pleasure of denying them. The white man must learn to stop viewing history as a plot against himself.
It was more than religious intolerance that drove the early colonists across the ocean. More than a thousand years before Columbus, the barbaric tribes destroyed the Roman Empire. With utter lack of grace, they ignorantly obliterated classical civilization. Christanity swept across the conquerors like the white man later swept across North America, destroying native religions and leaving paralyzed groups of disoriented individuals in its wake. Then the combination of Christian theology, superstition, and forms of the old Roman civil government began to control the tamed barbaric tribes. Gone were the religious rites of the white tribesmen. Only the Gothic arches in the great cathedrals, sym bolizing the oaks under which their ancestors worshiped, remained to remind them of the glories that had been."
A note on all of the above mentioned topics (especially the final one). It's a shame this book hasn't received an update on the various issues discussed in its pages. Apart from a preface written in 1987 from the author- something I would recommend reading before AND after finishing- there's little more to find that will sate the interest of the reader (believe me, you'll want to know how certain aspects of the communities spoken of are doing now). I do feel this is important specifically to this book (it is a manifesto after all), as I felt at times I was reading something solely stuck in it's time period, with no additional notes added in it's pages. As such, this does make for slower reading as you feel you may be taking in information that actually doesn't hold precedent in the 'now'.
The only other reason this has four stars is due to a disagreement I had with Delorias on the concept of Corporations, and how he believed the infusion of a Native American tribalism could be combined with the concept of the White Mans attempt at tribalism to make Indian lives better. I won't go into detail seeing that as a white male living in London, I really can't judge concepts being thought up by a man 4,477 miles away, who was trying to better the lives of his people, and who, in turn, were very well aquatinted with the difficulties experienced (and still experienced) on a daily basis with the once imported, now mutated capitalist juggernaut that is the United States government. However, I will say that I found it weirdly contradictory that he mentions Native Americans rising again to their former glory (in some form), only to then talk about the above concept, which, to my eyes, seems like a massive compromise on the behalf of the Native American people to take a white concept, and turn it into something good for the original people of the American land. Another discussion for another time I think.
However, this will not ruin the effect this book will have on the reader, and you will come out a better person for having opened it.
I got something different out of this book that I wasn't expecting. Jane Elliot, the creator of the infamous 'Green Eye / Blue Eye' test (look it up if you on YouTube haven't already, be ready though, it gets rough) has a recommended reading list on her website, and this book was on it. Going in, I wasn't sure what the meat and bone of the book would detail, and I certainly didn't know the nuances of modern Native American culture. On one hand, I had the vague knowledge that Native American culture, above western culture, understands that there is a spiritual aspect to life that transcends monetary value. The earth is not so much ours, so much as WE belong to it. This, along with a few other impactful statements, quotes and general history (thank you Mr. Howard Zinn) had been the extent of my knowledge before being introduced to Vine Deloria Jr .
For anyone reading this, Custer Died for Your Sins will inform you on a number of topics. These range from disseminating the real and unreal perceptions of Native Americans; dismantling the 'The Anthropologist' (laugh out loud chapter); breaking down the Native view on western religion and the missionary situation; understanding the government agencies dealing with the tribes; shedding light on Native humour; contrasting the civil rights movement with the wants and needs of natives; and, last but not least, how Native Americans can move forward from their current situation. However, the most astonishing realisation the reader will have as he/she explores the native world, is how the above mentioned will have the profound ability to make you simultaneously understand the native view, and see your world in a completely different light. I marked the below quote out as an example:
"But the understanding of the racial question does not ultimately involve understanding by either blacks or Indians. It involves the white man himself. He must examine his past. He must face the problems he has created within himself and within others. The white man must no longer project his fears and in securities onto other groups, races, and countries. Before the white man can relate to others he must forego the pleasure of denying them. The white man must learn to stop viewing history as a plot against himself.
It was more than religious intolerance that drove the early colonists across the ocean. More than a thousand years before Columbus, the barbaric tribes destroyed the Roman Empire. With utter lack of grace, they ignorantly obliterated classical civilization. Christanity swept across the conquerors like the white man later swept across North America, destroying native religions and leaving paralyzed groups of disoriented individuals in its wake. Then the combination of Christian theology, superstition, and forms of the old Roman civil government began to control the tamed barbaric tribes. Gone were the religious rites of the white tribesmen. Only the Gothic arches in the great cathedrals, sym bolizing the oaks under which their ancestors worshiped, remained to remind them of the glories that had been."
A note on all of the above mentioned topics (especially the final one). It's a shame this book hasn't received an update on the various issues discussed in its pages. Apart from a preface written in 1987 from the author- something I would recommend reading before AND after finishing- there's little more to find that will sate the interest of the reader (believe me, you'll want to know how certain aspects of the communities spoken of are doing now). I do feel this is important specifically to this book (it is a manifesto after all), as I felt at times I was reading something solely stuck in it's time period, with no additional notes added in it's pages. As such, this does make for slower reading as you feel you may be taking in information that actually doesn't hold precedent in the 'now'.
The only other reason this has four stars is due to a disagreement I had with Delorias on the concept of Corporations, and how he believed the infusion of a Native American tribalism could be combined with the concept of the White Mans attempt at tribalism to make Indian lives better. I won't go into detail seeing that as a white male living in London, I really can't judge concepts being thought up by a man 4,477 miles away, who was trying to better the lives of his people, and who, in turn, were very well aquatinted with the difficulties experienced (and still experienced) on a daily basis with the once imported, now mutated capitalist juggernaut that is the United States government. However, I will say that I found it weirdly contradictory that he mentions Native Americans rising again to their former glory (in some form), only to then talk about the above concept, which, to my eyes, seems like a massive compromise on the behalf of the Native American people to take a white concept, and turn it into something good for the original people of the American land. Another discussion for another time I think.
However, this will not ruin the effect this book will have on the reader, and you will come out a better person for having opened it.