Custer Died For Your Sins Essay

There are two books that are particularly important for students learning about Native Americans to read, Custer Died for Your Sins by Vine Deloria and “All the Real Indians Died Off” and 20 Other Myths about Native Americans by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker. But before even reading the books, its vital to understand who the authors are. What their backgrounds are, who they wrote the book for and why, and arguably the most important: their authority to be writing the books. Without this knowledge, it is impossible to fully understand a book, since an author ingrains pieces of themselves into everything they write. The author of the first book Custer Died for Your Sins is Vine Deloria. He is a man with a long and very extensive past, which includes numerous higher education schooling, and even a portion of time in the US Marines. However, some parts of his past are more relevant than others in
terms of giving him credibility to write his book. For a while, he was the Dean of Indian Academics in higher education and has had many Native doctoral students get their degrees and land jobs teaching in universities and colleges under him (Tinker 168). Tinker also details Deloria as a “legal scholar, an American Indian philosopher, historian and social thinker” (Tinker 168). Aside from his history in Native American education and heritage, which gives him plenty of credibility, many thought well of him. Tinker calls him “the very best of public Indian intellectuality,” while a Colorado American Indian Movement website called him “one of the most influential religious thinkers of his time” and at the same time “characterized him as the American Indian equivalent of Fredrick Douglas, Martin Luther King Jr., and Thurgood Marshall combined” (Tinker 168). As Tinker puts it, Vine Deloria was “writing for American Indians to help them develop ‘their own intellectuality’” (Tinker 170). He also says that Deloria’s writing act as a “starting point for young Indian students for another hundred years as they begin their own intellectual journey,” which this stance can easily be argued to be the reason why he wrote his book (Tinker 170). According to Revontule, some common themes that Deloria touches on are the fact that they have no need of help from non-natives to survive, that their affairs need to be left alone and not meddled with, and that there is a lot of misconceptions about Native Americans (Revontule 1). He writes all of this in an educational manner that is laced with satire throughout. The second book, “All the Real Indians Died Off” and 20 Other Myths About Native Americans, was co-authored by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio-Whitaker.
Starting with Roxanne, she got her Doctorates in history at the University of Los Angeles. She then worked as an activist, and traveled extensively within the United States, Europe, Mexico and Cuba for her work (Locklear-Bilek 1). Dina, the co-author, earned her MA in American studies from the University of New Mexico. She now does research for the Center of World Indigenous Studies (Locklear-Bilek 1). Both women have plenty of credibility from their education and pasts to write this book. According to Locklear-Bilek says that the main reason of them writing the book is to “dispel the most common and some not so common myths about Native Americans,” basically to “expose common myths” to the general public and show them where their thinking goes wrong (Locklear-Bilek 1). The book is unique for how they wrote it, being that the chapters are short and concise, and there is a mix of formal and informal
writing. Overall, through looking into the authors past and their reasons for writing their books, the reader can gain insights into the content before even reading a single page of it. They can gain important context, which without it something is lost. Context is vital to understanding anything, and without it many misconceptions can unintentionally arise. Researching the authors also provides them credibility, so the reader can take what they are saying in earnest, without subconsciously doubting every word they read. By reading about the authors, the reader can find the little pieces of them in their works and can better connect with and understand the text.