Sunday, November 13, 2005

In Honor of Vine Deloria, Jr. (1933-2005)

The great indigenous visionary, philosopher, author and activist Vine Deloria, Jr. passed over to join his ancestors today, November 13, 2005. Our thoughts and prayers go to his wife, Barbara, to his children and his other relatives. The passing of Vine creates a huge intellectual and analytical void in the native and non-native worlds. He will be greatly missed.
It is appropriate on this website to reflect on the meaning of Vine's contibutions to indigenous peoples' resistance, and to reflect on our responsibilities to maintain and to advance the lessons that Vine gave to us. It is safe to say that without the example provided by the writing and the thinking of Vine Deloria, Jr., there likely would have been no American Indian Movement, there would be no international indigenous peoples' movement as it exists today, and there would be little hope for the future of indigenous peoples in the Americas.
Vine Deloria, Jr. was a true revolutionary when he wrote "Custer Died for Your Sins" in 1969, the first of his scores of books and scholarly articles (for a partial bibliography of Vine's important books go to: http://www.ipl.org/div/natam/bin/browse.pl/A31). He had the courage and the vision to challenge the dominating society at its core. He was unapologetic in confronting the racism of U.S.law and policy, and he was prophetic in challenging young indigenous activists to hone their strategies.
We will write much more about Vine in the upcoming days. He was our elder statesman and mentor. For now, we will share this passage from "Custer Died For Your Sins," as a reminder of our responsibilities, and to ensure that we are more deliberate and strategic in our resistance.

"Ideological leverage is always superior to violence....The problems of Indians have always been ideological rather than social, political or economic....[I]t is vitally important that the Indian people pick the intellectual arena as the one in which to wage war. Past events have shown that the Indian people have always been fooled by the intentions of the white man. Always we have discussed irrelevant issues while he has taken our land. Never have we taken the time to examine the premises upon which he operates so that we could manipulate him as he has us."
-- "Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto," (1969) pp.251-252

and this relevent passage regarding the example of the great Oglala Lakota leader Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse):
"Crazy Horse never drafted anyone to follow him. People recognized that what Crazy Horse did was for the best and was for the people. Crazy Horse never had his name on the stationery. He never had business cards. He never received a per diem. *** Until we can once again produce people like Crazy Horse all the money and help in the world will not save us. It is up to us to write the [next] chapter of the American Indian upon this continent." page 272

For many of us, Vine was a contemporary Crazy Horse. Perhaps we squandered his time with us. We took him for granted, and assumed that he would always be with us. Now, the question is, not only will we produce more Crazy Horses, but will we produce more Vine Deloria, Jr.s?

Vine, we will miss you, but we will continue your work toward freedom for native peoples everywhere. Mitakuye Oyasin.

(For a partial bibliography of Vine's important books go to:
http://www.ipl.org/div/natam/bin/browse.pl/A31)

posted by Colorado AIM @ 7:27 PM

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Vine Deloria Jr. - In memoriam
Posted: November 15, 2005
by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096411933

Burn tobacco today for the wonderful spirit of Vine Deloria Jr., who passed into the world of the ancestors Nov. 13. Our sincerest condolences and warmest embrace reach out to his family and dear friends, and a great commiseration is extended to all of Indian country, where Deloria - author, teacher, lawyer, man - is universally respected and where his memory will live on for the generations.

Deloria, the world-renown Yankton author and scholar from the Standing Rock Reservation, made a huge contribution to the Native peoples of North America and the world. His intellectual output, at once free-ranging with creativity and yet tight with academic rigor, pinned down the legal and historical bases desperately needed by the national Indian discourse. He provided a great piece of the intellectual locomotion upon which a moving platform of American Indian/Native studies research, publishing, production and teaching has been constituted.

His writing is legendary, launched by the classic ''Custer Died For Your Sins,'' which plugged directly into the common imagination of the American Indian Movement in the 1960s and early 1970s. Along with ''We Talk, You Listen'' and ''Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties,'' these early Deloria works informed, during those crucial years, the widest cross-section of activists, students and older community leaders and traditional authorities. For a movement that had disparate and very independent bases in Indian country, where political persuasions ran the full spectrum of left to right and front to back, Deloria's deliberate, well-reasoned tone, backed by acerbic wit and genuine self-effacement, hit the formative chord.

The best of the thinking, and the music of a movement of survival, started then, with Deloria's exquisite ear for media concepts and the lyrics and guitar of a musician brother named Floyd ''Red Crow'' Westerman. Anthems of a movement came out of that collaboration - again, now in Westerman's lyrics, ''Custer died for your sins - a new day must begin - Custer died for your sins,'' and in the old 49er stand-by, ''BIA I am not your Indian anymore.''

Targeting anthropologists, missionaries and bureaucrats alike, Deloria wrote to Indians and was heard by the national audience. He wrote popular narratives on the contemporary Indian world, backing those up with deep and far-ranging academic research, writing and editing.

Deloria went on to write and edit more than 20 books and ranged from Native contemporary issues in law and history to ponder on scientific and theological themes. A considerable risk-taker in an era of prudent assertions in academia, Deloria in his middle years took pleasure in exploding and deconstructing all manner of facile theories by would-be Indian debunkers, such as Sheppard Krech III's critical review of indigenous lifeways in his book, ''The Ecological Indian: Myth and History.'' With his Indian-take dissection of evolutionary theory and its many little-founded claims, Deloria willingly stepped out of the progressive boat and onto his own canoe, daring to follow his instincts into important theological and scientific questions in order widen the field for Indian scholarship. He piqued many in academia and government with his explorations and assertions, but this was the way he seems to have preferred it - in the arena, moving the ground forward for the people.

The author and professor was an impeccable social activist, supporting Indian movement activism in all fields faithfully, always giving of himself through lectures and strategic seminars and court testimony wherever Indian tribal people called upon him. Executive director of the National Congress of American Indians early in his career, Deloria radicalized and activated the foremost Indian advocacy organization while creating lobbying campaigns and providing strategy for court cases: often while also defending major community treaty activists such as Nisqually elder and fishing rights legend Billy Frank Jr.

Deloria straddled the generations and carried the perspectives and perception of the generation of leaders who saw Indian country through the Depression, World War II and termination. He often reminisced fondly about the old-timers of his formative years.

We remember the beloved teacher for his generosity of spirit. As a professor, Deloria mentored and touched many people across all ethnic and religious persuasions while always managing to teach and guide the work of scores of Native graduate students and young activists, many of whom went on to gain success and prominence on their own. He wrote prefaces and introductions and recommendations by the dozens in careful assessments of the work at hand, but was always ready to add his considerable gravity to the work of newer hands. He would not tolerate fuzzy thinking, however, and could and would hold his students to task.

No strangers here to the inspiration extended by the existence of Vine Deloria Jr., we are ever-thankful to have had the opportunity to have celebrated his accomplishments earlier this year at the ceremony for the 2005 American Indian Visionary Award, which Deloria received in March.

In every generation, to paraphrase the late Creek Medicine Man Phillip Deere, there is one who hits the click-stone just right, and sparks the fire. In his generation, Vine Deloria Jr. sparked the intellectual fire of political, legal, historical and spiritual illumination. He lighted the path to the fountainhead of knowledge, which points the way ahead.

We are deeply thankful for the gift of this man who taught, in the evidence of his own life, that a gift of intellectual power is only given spirit by service to the people