Playing Indian

Dianne Zuckerman

Whether the focus is on the Boston colonists whooping it up, or on new age, counterculture types setting up tepees in back-to-nature settings, Deloria makes a convincing case for ways in which Americans have used Indian symbols and items for their own purposes and identities. -- Denver Post

Mark Anthony Rolo

Deloria delivers — proving himself to be a serious and relentless researcher....a scrutinizing historical study of America's bizarre fascination with Indians. —The Progressive

Michael Kenney

[A] convincing study....Deloria builds his case with caution and precision, careful to avoid sweeping claims. -- The Boston Globe

Library Journal

Americans need Indians in order to define themselves as Americans, asserts Deloria (history, Univ. of Colorado). Beginning before the Boston Tea Party, and continuing into the present, Americans have adopted Indian attire, images, and traditions for both political and individual needs. These acts separated us from our European forebears while creating a unique American identity with which we are only partially comfortable, declares the author. As the country evolves, the ways in which Americans identify with Indians also change. Deloria, who is the son of Vine Deloria (Red Earth, White Lies), follows a strong family tradition of critically examining Indian-white relations. He demonstrates how "Indian play" has always taken on new shape and focus to engage the most pressing issues of a particular historical moment, and he notes that American views of Indians tell us much more about Americans than they do about Indians. -- Mary B. Davis, Huntington Free Library, Bronx, New York

Rose Miller has it all: wealthy husband, gorgeous little girl, lavish house, great success as a novelistand a stalker who knows about her shady past.

Rose Miller has it all: wealthy husband, gorgeous little girl, lavish house, great success as a novelistand a stalker who knows about her shady past.

Library Journal

Americans need Indians in order to define themselves as Americans, asserts Deloria (history, Univ. of Colorado). Beginning before the Boston Tea Party, and continuing into the present, Americans have adopted Indian attire, images, and traditions for both political and individual needs. These acts separated us from our European forebears while creating a unique American identity with which we are only partially comfortable, declares the author. As the country evolves, the ways in which Americans identify with Indians also change. Deloria, who is the son of Vine Deloria (Red Earth, White Lies), follows a strong family tradition of critically examining Indian-white relations. He demonstrates how "Indian play" has always taken on new shape and focus to engage the most pressing issues of a particular historical moment, and he notes that American views of Indians tell us much more about Americans than they do about Indians. -- Mary B. Davis, Huntington Free Library, Bronx, New York

Mark Anthony Rolo

Deloria delivers -- proving himself to be a serious and relentless researcher....a scrutinizing historical study of America's bizarre fascination with Indians. -- The Progressive

Kirkus Reviews

A provocative study of the role of American Indians in forming the character of the US. Following D.H. Lawrenceþs observation that the American character is essentially paradoxical ("wanting to savor both civilized order and savage freedom"), Deloria (History/University of Colorado) traces the tendency, apparent since the arrival of the first colonists, of Anglo-Americans to appropriate Native American dress, customs, and habits. It was no accident, Deloria writes, that the perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party donned Indian headdresses before sending British cargo into the drink; they at once wanted to disguise themselves and proclaim a kind of solidarity with the continentþs first inhabitants. It allowed the restrained New Englanders to enjoy freedoms, and even a certain licentiousness, that wouldnþt have been possible in plain clothes. Indian societies were deconstructed and imagined in American literature, in secret societies like the Tammany and Cayuga Wolf all-white "tribes," and in more open organizations like the Boy Scouts, whose American founder, Ernest Thompson Seton, suspected real Indians of harboring þunpatriotic sentiments.þ Deloria turns up fascinating oddments, including the story of one Colorado Boy Scout troop that went native to the point that the national organization tried to reeducate them, but the scouts managed to reconstruct the secret Shalako ceremony of the Zuni Indians so convincingly that Zuni elders built a special kiva for the masks the young men had made. Deloria notes that—although the Boy Scouts of La Junta were not Indians, they were also more than simple, straightforward white boys.—He is less admiring of thehippies, Deadheads, and modern New Agers who continue to appropriate elements of Native American religion and culture today. But in the end, he concludes, Indianness "was the bedrock for creative American identities, but it was also one of the foundations for imagining and performing domination and power in America." A valuable contribution to Native American studies, and worthy of attention by readers in many fields.