Speaking of Indians by Ella C. Deloria

Abstract

Reviews 235 Speaking of Indians. By Ella C. Deloria. Introductory notes by Agnes Picotte and Paul N. Pavich. (Vermillion: Dakota Press, 1979. 108 pages, $5.95.) In reprinting Speaking of Indians, published originally in 1944, the Dakota Press has done scholars of Native American life a genuine favor. The reprint makes available a book which is important for several reasons, primarily as an articulate expression on the part of an educated and Chris­ tianized Sioux who, in addition to (not in spite of) her education and religion, retained close ties with her native traditions. But the book also provides a plea for assimilation to be done in the right way, with due respect for those people who must be assimilated into a larger group and with a sympathetic, accurate understanding of how those people have lived and felt in the past. Ella C. Deloria was a Yankton Sioux whose father became an Epis­ copal missionary among the Tetons. She was educated at the University of Chicago and at Columbia, where she began a career of ethnological and linguistic work under the guidance of Franz Boas. She was also a teacher and a YWCA worker among several tribes. Always, it seems, she was able to keep in balance her tripartite identity as Indian, Christian, and social scientist. She died in 1971, at age 82. Speaking of Indians is an elo­ quent testimony of her understanding of Sioux culture and her deep con­ cern for the future of Indians. The book was written primarily for white Christian readers who wanted — or needed — to understand Indians, particularly those who had left reservations to serve in the military or work in war-related industries. Draw­ ing extensively upon Ella Deloria’s own experiences and her fieldwork with Teton Sioux, her pages first describe traditional Indian social relations as “A Sheme of Life that Worked.” Deloria emphasizes the central and essen­ tial role of kinship as “practically all the government there was. It was what men lived by.” Repeatedly she uses nouns like courtesy, graciousness, cordiality, discipline, and responsibility to identify the results of govern­ ment by kinship. In explaining how reservation life affected the Sioux, Deloria tells a familiar story of tragic misunderstanding. Bureaucrats were simply ignor­ ant of Indian society. Yet Deloria’s own point of view is not tragic; in 1944 at least, she clearly felt that it could have worked, that a proper under­ standing of Indian devotion to kinship could have made it possible for assimilation to occur without the poverty, landlessness, and blighted lives that she observed around her. Furthermore, her book recognizes “a native shrewdness in meeting new conditions.” Many readers will want to argue with Deloria’s open approval of assimilation; likewise, they will wince at some of her recipes for the melt­ ing pot, look skeptically at her uncritical acceptance of Christianity as a replacement for native religion, and feel regret at her belief that Indians 236 Western American Literature must move towards a “New Community” of national rather than tribal identity. But no one should fail to see that Speaking of Indians is a sincere and intelligent attempt by one Native American to formulate realistic goals for her people. Nor should anyone fail to realize that the perspective in the book is also female. WILLIAM BLOODWORTH, East Carolina University Of Wolves and Men. By Barry Holstun Lopez. (New York: Charles Scrib­ ner’s Sons, 1978. 309 pages, illus., index, $14.95.) Of Wolves and Men is a book which needed to be written. It asks questions that no one has answers for. It demands soul searching. Man must abandon his misconceptions and half-truths and search the woods for the wolf’s identity. Lopez admits that he is no authority on wolves. Yet his research for the book included the review of scientific, political, historical, religious, and literary written records. He interviewed people in the field from Minne­ sota trappers to Alaskan Eskimos. At his home in Oregon he raised two wolf pups, a project he reviews with regret, and yet he claims he is not an authority: no one is an authority on wolves. There is no one definitive study of the wolf. And...