INTERVIEW WITH
VINE DELORIA JR.
AUTHOR OF GOD
IS RED
Vine
Deloria Jr., named by Time magazine one of the greatest religious thinkers of
the 20th Century, is a prominent Native American scholar and author
of 24 books (such as God is Red, Custer Died for Your Sins, Evolution,
Creationism, and Other Modern Myths, etc.). A retired Professor or Political Science at the University of
Arizona, and Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Colorado, he
has been executive director of the National Congress of American Indians and a member of the National Office for
Rights of the Indigent.
As the editor of Wilderness Way
magazine, I interviewed Vine Deloria Jr. so that the publication of the
interview would coincide with the 30th
anniversary edition of his God is Red: A Native View of Religion
[Fulcrum Publishing, Golden, Colorado] I interviewed Deloria in January of 2004; he died in Novemeber
13, 2005 at age 72. In fact, the
interview was never published because the publisher/owner of the magazine
believed the title of Deloria’s book, “God is Red,” would offend Christian
readers, a position that I found absurd.
God is Red is a vast narrative, broad in scope.
Deloria begins with the “Indian unrest” of the 1960s,where younger Indians
began to assert their land rights, which had long been abused or ignored. He
then proceeds to explain the many counterfeits of Native American Religion, as
well as explaining some of the core principles of Native American
religion. According to Wilma Mankiller,
former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, “The flagship book on Native
American spirituality remains Vine Deloria’s God Is Red. He does an outstanding job of translating
complex spiritual issues into very simple truths.”
Here
is the text of that interview, minus some sections that I found uninteresting,
or where Deloria felt that he had little to say.
WW: Your wealth of knowledge is
vast. I was constantly amazed as I read God is Red at the scope of your
references in diverse fields. First, I’d like to know if you’ve ever gotten
negative feedback from anyone thinking the title was either racist or
exclusive?
DELORIA: Oh, I hardly got any kickback about the title at all. In fact, the book escaped with very little
criticism. Of course, you should
attribute some of the lack of criticism to the fact that it deals with Indians
-- an exotic commodity.
WW: When you discussed the
aftermath of the 1960s, you mentioned that many non-Indian youth were attracted
to Indian-ness but settled for the counterfeits. You referred to the shamans
popping up all over the place and charging outrageous prices for “religion.”
You mentioned the great popularity of authors such as the non-Indian Lynn Andrews,
the probably fictitious works of Carlos Castaneda, and the “new tribe” of Sun
Bear’s – among others. Can you comment on the significance of their popularity,
and what’s wrong with these examples and others like them?
DELORIA: In the world of ideas, American and appropriators, Indian culture becomes a kind of deli where
people pick and choose what they want to practice. Much of the appropriation is the projection of wishful thinking
on different Indian symbols, such as Vision Quest, Sweat lodge, using the pipe,
etc. People take the symbol and endow
it with their own personal beliefs about who Indians are. My fear was that with
so many Indians living in the cities with no experience with reservation
communities, some of them would begin to think that the frauds actually
represented the true tribal cultures. I
can remember how popular the Billy Jack movies were and many Indian youths
thought the "ceremonies" in that movie were what people actually did. A lot of it sounded good to people who knew
nothing about real Indian culture. And simply being an Indian in the urban
areas does not somehow magically mean you know anything of the traditional
tribal culture.
WW: In Custer Died For Your
Sins, you stated that the reason “the hippies” failed was that (though they
were interested in things Indian), they failed to grasp the value of organizing
tribally, and ignored the value of customs.
Since they were also taking drugs, and had little work ethic, would you
agree that that “movement” failed due to laziness? That is, was it their very
laziness that led to so many in that movement seeking an “easy” religious path?
DELORIA: I think the Hippies failed for lack of discipline
and commitment. People tried to
create communities from scratch and it didn't work. People were sincere, but they often lacked anything in common
except a rebellious spirit. And, in
fact, a lot of Indian communities today have the very same problem! Extreme individualism is chaos and unjust
to everyone.
|
WW: Wallace Black Elk died in
January of this year. What do you think about his teachings, and his work
establishing lodges in diverse parts of the world?
DELORIA: Well, Wallace made some flamboyant claims, more so with a
non-Indian audience than with a predominantly Indian audience. I can't find anywhere in the Sioux tradition
that says medicine men have to become missionaries and spread the tribal
religion . I got along with him
personally but was not a follower. It
is difficult to criticize the man when he had so many disciples who were ready
to fight if you questioned him. Poor
things -- many of them had only Wallace as their example of traditional Sioux
ways - and he wasn't that traditional.
WW. Would you say that you
wrote God is Red to waken up Indian people, or did you write it to all
peoples?
DELORIA: I wrote it mostly to try and build a context to explain the
religious motivation behind some of the activism. People said they wanted land restored, but deep down they
really wanted the Old Ways restored.
But the Old Ways were declared superstitions by most scholars, so I
tried to demonstrate that the rejected topics of interest in the modern world
were in fact pointing at a more spiritual understanding of the world that
could be found in the tribal traditions.
|
WW: You bring up a very
thought-provoking point in your book when you mentioned how Oral Roberts told
his followers (some years ago) that he needed something like $10 million for a
new building or God would “take me home.” As I read it, your analogy is that
televangelists and cults, etc. are to mainstream Christianity as the modern
traveling shamans are to traditional tribal religion. Would you agree with that assessment?
DELORIA: Yes, except the televangelists are much
worse. They thirst for political power
whereas the medicine men, even the phoneys, simply want some public recognition
and status.
WW: To what have you attributed
the non-Indians great interest in things Indian? Do you feel that the Christian
and other churches are failing?
DELORIA: Belief in Christianity has been eroding
badly all through the 20th century. Much of it now is mindless recitation of
the old story and unquestioned belief or a strange amalgam of contemporary
culture and the effort to perpetuate institutional loyalties and activities. Aside from self-induced experiences of
fundamentalists, people rarely find
emotional assurance for themselves.
Indian religions are seen by non-Indians as a way to have real religious
experiences -- although I doubt that they have any experiences in depth. Beneath everything, however, is the
desperate need to feel at home.
WW: Where
would you direct someone who wanted to find a way to follow the Red Way, the
Native American Religion(s). Are there paths where anyone is welcome?
DELORIA: Well, I don't make recommendations that would
encourage people to bother Indians in that regard. A real involvement with
traditional religion is quite exhausting and requires immense concentration
and almost continuous presence in an Indian community. I doubt that most villages would welcome
outsiders for the necessary period of time.
|
WW: What
advice, if any, do you make to Native Americans who seem to have lost their own
cultural roots?
DELORIA: A
significant number of Indians have lost not only cultural ties but an
appreciation for the powers of real medicine people. I sponsored some
conferences on traditional knowledge a decade ago and we began to learn the
power and reality behind some of the knowledge. It changed the views of almost
everyone who attended. Since then, I
have been working with younger people who are serious about the recovery of the
old knowledge and am quite optimistic that they will radically change the way
Indians see themselves.
WW: Are you familiar with the
book The Pipe and Christ ? The
author -- a priest -- attempted to
define many similarities between Christianity and Native American religion(s).
Do you feel that Native American religion is essentially in conflict, or
complementary, to Christianity (or for that matter, to Buddhism, Judaism, any
mainstream religion).
DELORIA: The task of theologians and religious
scholars is to draw comparisons between religions. Unfortunately, they treat
beliefs and customs as if they were doctrines and dogmas and generally miss
the whole point of a religion. He is
not the first nor will he be the last to draw these comparisons, thereby distorting both religions for the
sake of logic. Joseph Epes Brown
already did it in THE SACRED PIPE -- it didn't change a thing.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment