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Vine Deloria Jr.

1933–2005

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Native American religions are rooted in sacred places, while Western religions revolve around time and history – and the two cannot simply be merged.

Placement

Indigenous Philosophies · North America · Religion, Metaphysics, Society & History

Standing Rock Sioux scholar: “God Is Red” contrasts Native religions rooted in sacred places with Western religions organised around time and history.

Key ideas

  • Place over time
  • Critique of Western religion and science
  • Tribal sovereignty

Students: Brian Burkhart

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Influence

Influenced by 1

  • C. G. Jung

    influenced by

    Deloria studied Jung for decades; his last book, published posthumously, compares Jung’s psychology of dreams, visions and the “primitive” with Sioux traditions, noting affinities as well as limits. V. Deloria Jr., C. G. Jung and the Sioux Traditions: Dreams, Visions, Nature, and the Primitive (ed. P. J. Deloria and J. S. Bernstein, 2009)

    Evidence: AI draft

    C. G. Jung › 1875–1961

Influenced 4

  • Anne Waters

    influenced

    In ‘Ontology of Identity and Interstitial Being’ (2004) Waters drew on Deloria’s God Is Red for the importance of identity tied to geographic place. A. Waters, “Ontology of Identity and Interstitial Being”, in American Indian Thought (2004); V. Deloria Jr., God Is Red (1973)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Anne Waters › contemporary

  • Glen Sean Coulthard

    influenced

    Coulthard followed Vine Deloria Jr. in treating land as an ontological framework for understanding relationships, not merely a resource (Red Skin, White Masks, 2014; God Is Red, 1973). G. S. Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (2014); V. Deloria Jr., God Is Red (1973)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Glen Sean Coulthard › b. 1974

  • Brian Burkhart taught

    taught

    A university profile calls Deloria Burkhart’s mentor; Burkhart’s own academic profile lists Deloria among the advisers of his doctorate at Indiana University, beside Paul Vincent Spade and James G. Hart. A mentorship, not documented as classroom teaching. California State University, Northridge, College of Humanities newsletter, “University Research Fellow Dr. Brian Burkhart” (2014); B. Burkhart, profile on academia.edu

    Evidence: AI draft

    Brian Burkhart › contemporary

  • Kyle Powys Whyte

    influenced

    Whyte’s contribution to Of Living Stone (2024), a volume on Deloria’s work, examines his warnings about science and about Native peoples being researched rather than researching. D. E. Wilkins & S. H. Wilkins (eds.), Of Living Stone: Perspectives on Continuous Knowledge and the Work of Vine Deloria, Jr. (2024)

    Evidence: AI draft

    Kyle Powys Whyte › contemporary

Works

  • 1973God Is Red

    Native religions are bound to sacred places, Western religions to time and history – with consequences for ecology and justice.

Position

Deloria became widely known with Custer Died for Your Sins (1969), a witty critique of anthropologists, missionaries and federal Indian policy, and a call for tribal self-determination. God Is Red argues that Western religions are organised around time – a single history of creation, fall and salvation – while Native religions are rooted in space, in sacred places and the relation of a people to its land. Christianity’s indifference to place, he held, contributed to ecological destruction. In Red Earth, White Lies he attacked scientific orthodoxy and defended oral traditions against theories such as the Bering Strait migration; critics found his treatment of geology and archaeology unreliable.

Life & context

Vine Deloria Jr. was born in 1933 in Martin, South Dakota, near the Pine Ridge Reservation, into a prominent Dakota family and was an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe; his father was an Episcopal priest. After the Marines he studied at Iowa State, then theology, and finally law at the University of Colorado. In 1964–67 he led the National Congress of American Indians. He taught at the universities of Arizona and Colorado and died in 2005.

Further main works

  • Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1969)
  • Red Earth, White Lies (1995)
  • Spirit and Reason (1999)

Appears in

Sources: Wikipedia · Wikidata

As of November 2026 · Sources · Improve this page · How Agora is made

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