Abstract
The lyrics of the Curtis and Westerman song, dating from circa 1960 (printed in Vine Deloria's Custer Died for Your Sins) exemplify the then prevailing attitude of a number of politically active and vocal Native Americans toward anthropologists in general and, in particular, those of us who have "worked with" American Indians. The social distance between researcher and researched community as suggested by the lyrics' invective has approached, in some instances, the ultimate semantic contrast set, that is, the social distance that separates "us" from "our enemies." Their words suggest an Indian view of anthropologists as, at best, unrealistic Romanticists to, at worst, exploiters and intellectual imperialists. In no sense do the lyrics concede that anthropologists "do" anything of worth for their American Indian subjects.
Published Version
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