This one author brought to me the value of who I am as a Native American and how much value that living within the spiritual realm of the Native American people.  That indigenous peoples all over the world heralded him as a tireless leader in the human and civil rights fight to insure fairness, openness and honesty when dealing with the indigenous populations is a credit to his outstanding desire to improve the lives of all indigenous peoples.  

 I still remember the first book of his that I read, Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties.  I have included a link to many of his books, some are easier to read than others, yet all of them encompass one central theme, the continued fight to regain human and civil rights denied the Indigenous peoples around the world.  Vine Deloria ceaselessly fought to insure that Indigenous peoples could and would have self rule and reliance upon themselves in how they lived their lives.  Thank you Vine for all your hard work and efforts.

 Please burn some tobacco and offer a small prayer to Great Spirit for the joy of having had Vine Deloria in our midst for these 72 years.

You will be sorely missed my brother,

Wado

Mitakuye Ayasin

Books by Vine Deloria Jr.




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A little more below the fold

Tuesday, 15 November 2005, 5:27 pmPress Release: The Maori Party
15 November 2005

“The passing of Vine Deloria, Jr. a prominent Native American scholar, whose research, writings, and teaching have encompassed history, law, religious studies, and political science is indeed a sad occasion for the international indigenous community,” said Tariana Turia co-leader of the Maori Party, on the death yesterday of a favourite son of the Standing Rock Sioux.

Hailed by Time magazine as “one of the eleven great religious thinkers of the twentieth century”, Vine Deloria a retired Professor Emeritus of history at the University of Colorado and the author of many highly praised books, including Red Earth, White Lies, and God is Red “shone as an intellectual beacon amongst indigenous people”. said Mrs Turia.

Vine Deloria, Jr., Standing Rock Sioux, 1970, 1994

“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.”

“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 familied 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 east to west; tourists along the Bering straits were going TO Asia, not migrating FROM it.”