Red Earth, White Lies
Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact
Vine Deloria, Jr.
Fulcrum Publishing, 1997
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.
Vine Deloria, Jr. is professor of history, law, religious studies, and
political science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the
author of numerous books, including God is Red, Custer Died for
Your Sins, and Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties.
"This is Vine Delora'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
(The text above comes from the back of the book)