Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific FactIn this latest work by the prominent historian, Deloria turns his audacious intellect and fiery indignation to an examination of modern science as it relates to Native American oral history and exposes the myth of scientific fact, defending Indian mythology as the more truthful account of the history of the earth. Deloria grew up in South Dakota, in a small border town on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. There he was in a position to absorb the culture and traditions of Western Europeans, as well as of the native Sioux people. Much of the formal education he received about science, including how the earth and its people had formed and developed over time, came from the white, Western world; he and his fellow students accepted it as gospel, even though this information often contradicted the ancient teachings of the Native American peoples. As an adult, though, Deloria saw how some of these scientific "facts", once readily accepted as the truth, now began to run against common sense as well as the teachings of his people. For example, the question of why certain peoples had lighter or darker skins posed an especially thorny problem - one that mainstream journals and books failed to answer in a way that was satisfactory to this budding skeptic. When he began to reexamine other previously irrefutable theories - of the earth's creation, of the evolution of people, of the acceptance of the notion that the Indians themselves had been responsible for slaughtering and wiping out certain large animals from their habitat over time - he also began to reconsider the value of myth and religion in an explanation of the world's history and, in the process, to document and record traditionalknowledge of Indian tribes as offered by the tribal elders. |
Contents
Behind the Buckskin Curtain | 1 |
Science and the Oral Tradition | 23 |
Evolutionary Prejudice | 47 |
Copyright | |
10 other sections not shown
Other editions - View all
Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact Vine Deloria Limited preview - 1997 |
Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact Vine Deloria, Jr. Limited preview - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
Alaska American Indians animals Bakker believe Bering Land Bridge Bering Strait big-game hunters bison bones Brea carnivores catastrophe cited Clark Clovis Clovis point continents creatures Cro-Magnon dinosaur discussion doctrines Earth eruption event evidence evolution existed explain fauna flood stories fossil geological geologists geomythology giant beaver glaciation ground sloths H. E. Wright herbivores human Human Migration hunting Ibid Ice Age idea Indian accounts Indian Legends Indian traditions Jared Diamond killed Klamaths knowledge lake living mammals mammoth Martin mastodon megafauna migration million modern Mount Mount Multnomah mountain move non-Western North America northern oral tradition origin orthodox overkill Pacific Northwest Paleo-Indians plants Pleistocene Extinctions question radiocarbon dating religious River rocks saber-toothed cat scablands scenario scholars scientific scientists Siberia simply Sioux society species spirits Spokane strata suggest theory thesis tion tribal tribes University Press Vitaliano volcanic Western Hemisphere