Vine Deloria, Jr. Quotes

Vine Deloria, Jr. — Sioux Author born on March 26, 1933, died on November 13, 2005

Vine Victor Deloria, Jr. was a Native American author, theologian, historian, and activist. He was widely known for his book Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, which helped generate national attention to Native American issues in the same year as the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement. From 1964–1967, he had served as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, increasing tribal membership from 19 to 156. Beginning in 1977, he was a board member of the National Museum of the American Indian, which now has buildings in both New York City and Washington, DC. He was influential in the development of what scientific critics called American Indian creationism, but which American Indians referred to as defenses against scientific racism... (wikipedia)

Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent.

When asked by an anthropologist what the Indians called America before the white man came, an Indian said simply, 'Ours.'