Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact

by Vine Deloria, Jr.

Overview

Vine Deloria, Jr., leading Native American scholar and author of the best-selling God is Red, addresses the conflict between mainstream scientific theory about our world and the ancestral worldview of Native Americans. Claiming that science has created a largely fictional scenario for American Indians in prehistoric North America, Deloria offers an alternative view of the continent's history as seen through the eyes and memories of Native Americans. Further, he warns future generations of scientists not to repeat the ethnocentric omissions and fallacies of the past by dismissing Native oral tradition as mere legends.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781555913885
Publisher:	Fulcrum Publishing
Publication date:	08/01/1997
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	400,766
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	9 Years

About the Author

Vine Deloria Jr. is a leading Native American scholar whose research writings, and teaching have encompassed history, law, religious studies, and political science. He is the former executive director of the National Congress of American Indians. Named by Time magazine as one of the eleven greatest religious thinkers of the twentieth century, he is the author of numerous acclaimed books, including God is Red, Custer Died for Your Sins, Power and Place, and Red Earth, White Lies. Mr. Deloria lives in Golden, Colorado.

Editorial Reviews

"This is Vine Deloria's best book yet... Red Earth, White Lies shoots down a whole herd of sacred cows—from Charles Darwin's cow to Samuel Eliot Morison's bull." —Leslie Marmon Silko, author of Ceremony


"Vine Deloria, Jr., started the whole modern American Indian renaissance... Now, in Red Earth, White Lies, he is lambasting scholars and scientists for filling our heads with nonsense while they ignore the traditional knowledge of native tribes. Bound to be controversial, bound to start readers rethinking old concepts." —Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee


"This is Vine Deloria at his very best—challenging, taunting, acerbic and powerful." —Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., author of Now That the Buffalo's Gone

From the Publisher

Though Deloria (Custer Died for Your Sins) has a broad academic brief-he teaches history, law, religious studies and political science at the University of Colorado-here he ventures into a new area, attacking the way scientists have created ``a largely fictional scenario describing prehistoric North America'' and suggesting that Indian lore may offer better explanations. Given Deloria's not-so-temperate tone-``Christianity has been the curse of all cultures into which it has intruded''-it is hard to judge all his arguments. He finds flaws in scientific accounts of how Indians once traversed the Bering Strait land bridge; he also reports that geological evidence suggests an earlier Indian presence and notes that no tribal creation stories reflect such a migration. Similarly, he criticizes scientists who argue that Indians killed off North American megafauna of the Pleistocene era. Deloria's fiercely argued study sometimes overwhelms as a narrative, but his charges should provoke more evaluation, as well as examination of the consonance of science and Indian tradition. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Deloria, one of the most outspoken Native American voices of the century, is back-this time to take on the scientists. Demonstrating that a theory is just that until it has been solidly proved, the author of Custer Died for Your Sins (Univ. of Oklahoma, 1988) takes the scientific community to task for insisting on uniformity of opinion within academia while neglecting Native oral traditions about such events as the peopling of the Western Hemisphere and the disappearance of the giant animals of the Pleistocene era. While many will challenge Deloria's arguments, the author's insistence that scientists investigate non-Western knowledge in their search for the truth echoes a cry heard through Native American communities. An important addition to all collections.-Mary B. Davis, Huntington Free Lib., N.Y.

Library Journal

Deloria (history, law, religious studies, political science, U. of Colorado-Boulder), author of the best-selling Custer Died For Your Sins, examines modern science as it relates to Native American oral history and exposes the myth of scientific fact, defending Indian accounts of natural history and population movement. He demonstrates how scientists manipulate data to fit their theories and documents traditional knowledge of Indian tribes in areas such as evolution, planetary history, the origin of humans, and natural disasters. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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