Reddit reviews Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto
We found 10 Reddit comments about Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
University of Oklahoma Press
Some suggestions:
Oral History/Stories
Historical/Educational material
Native Authors
Non-Native Authors
Region Specific
And just for fun, a Movie
Feel free to point out any mistakes, I'll add more should I think of them.
These are just suggestions.
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I remember reading this one in a college history class and thinking it was pretty powerful:
Custer Died For Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr.
Mods: I'm not Native but I found these books immensely helpful when I had the same questions over the years. Please delete if this if it's not allowed.
If you want to know about America's indigenous people, go to the source. I suggest avoiding books written by non-Natives, although there are of course special exceptions. This is because history, research, and literature by non-Natives tends to have an underlying motive heavy with inaccuracies or romanticism. It's also written from a Eurocentricm perspective where European culture is the standard against which difference is measured. There is an excellent post over on /r/AskHistorians that breaks the difference down at length, which illustrates why these texts are often not representative of the people they're discussing. In particular, an indigenous perspective "places the emphasis of understanding on the actual relationship between two things" whereas a non-Native emphasizes the "understanding on the actual object rather than the relationship." The distinction is important and, in my experience, it's been difficult not to see the faults in non-Native written information afterward.
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People is a really good place to start. Yes, it's written for young folks, however, it doesn't dress up American history and instead presents it as is. You can use this book as a springboard for other topics. A lot of American history books present a cleaned up narrative that glosses over the human atrocities in favor of "unity." You see this jargon time and time again, even recently. So You Want to Write About American Indians? is also excellent, even if you're not a writer because she breaks down many of the self serving reasons behind non-Natives' discussions of Native America. And Custer Died for Your Sins is a classic in this discussion. This book was probably the most instrumental in peeling the romanticism away from my worldview. The chapter Anthropologists and Other Friends is an honest, raw, and direct dressing-down of non-Natives "studying" Native populations. And Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science has been one of the foremost books I've read (aside from the first one I linked) that dismantled my understanding of history and colonized misconceptions we take as fact when it comes to the social and historical misrepresentations of cultural, racial, ethnic, and national ideas of America's indigenous peoples. All of these items were written by indigenous people, from varying different cultural backgrounds and tribes. There are over 560 different federally recognized tribes, and they all have their own cultural backgrounds, languages, and history. Everyone is different. Try and be mindful of that when it's otherwise easy to say, "Native Americans believe that/Native American beliefs say/etc/etc."
1491 by Charles C. Mann
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiesson
Custer Died For Your Sins by Vine Deloria Jr.
Those are the three that I always answer this question with.
The Florentine Codex is a document of Aztec knowledge compiled by the Spanish. It's a really interesting read. When I read it I focused on parts which detail some pretty sophisticated medical knowledge--hampered of course by the Spaniard's lack of such knowledge.
I would say the Aztecs definitely surprised Europeans in their ways of life, what with human sacrifice and all.
Regarding Native Americans in the present day US, an idea of the "noble savage" emerged and played a large part in philosophies of romanticism.
This is a great book I read recently regarding Native issues in American today from a Native perspective. Truthful and good-humored too. You can get a sense of what Native Americans may feel about their historical interactions with white Americans, what they think that the white people wanted from them.
>it's just surreal that the natives of this land only gained the right to vote in it less than one century ago and it's kind of sickening to think about how archaic this time is.
I don't want to look like I'm forming a pity party, but the Civil Rights Movement didn't really help out Indian Country. We had to have our own round of protests and fighting in the 1970s. Check out the American Indian Movement, the Occupation of Alcatraz Island and especially the Alcatraz Proclamation, among others. What really stunning is that the American Indian Religious Freedom Act didn't come about until 1978, let alone the fact that they had to pass it at all!
>Are there any books, movies, or another form of media that are true stories or realistic fiction that depict American Indians in a way that you find to be interesting and faithful?
Anything by Vine Deloria, Jr. is awesome, although he is more historian and scientist than he is story-teller. A short list of my favorites:
If you want to read some great fiction that depicts American Indians accurately, start with Sherman Alexie:
Outside of those authors, some popular picks are Black Elk Speaks and Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee.
As far as movies go, any self-respecting Indian has seen the movie Smoke Signals dozens of times. Powwow Highway is a favorite of mine, and Dance Me Outside is movie gold, although it doesn't get enough attention.
>I'm thinking - why hasn't HBO or some big network done a drama that focuses on American Indians? This could be a very interesting book, as well... Or is this idea something even somewhat appealing to you as a young American Indian?
I'm not sure what you are thinking, but I have my own ideas. I'd like to see a series that focuses on a single reservation for each episode, and details the hardships that the people of that reservation deal with on a daily basis. Call it a pity party, but there are children in the United States right now that live in houses with dirt floors and sleep on pallets and go to school on 30-year-old school buses on unkempt dirt roads (and sometimes off-road) where they learn a curriculum outdated for a decade or more........ I can go on and on. Get in your car and drive to Pine Ridge Reservation RIGHT NOW, you'll be convinced that you walked into a third world country in the middle of a war. Its not pretty. The corruption in the tribal government needs to be put in the spotlight, and the part that the Federal and State governments have played in this tragedy need to be righted. That's the facts.
Try reading Custer Died For Your Sins by Vine Deloria.
I am only answering further because I looked at your artwork and it is nice, and it seems you did not pursue the anthropology thing further, which is a good thing. So there's the possibility you're not completely aligned with the US anthropology cult, with its known problems, prejudices and motivations.
I am glad you pointed out various Maya are still around, this is important to educate people on. After all, if they weren't around any more, who would the US have to finance the assassination of in central america through ongoing genocidal schemes?
Your follow up statement that "I'm led to believe that their view of the downfall would be as varied as the countries across which they are spread" does suggest that you have in fact talked to Maya people, and are aware that there was no "collapse" at all, and are aware there is no single Mayan people, and are aware that the ongoing changes in various Maya cultures in history, like the histories of most cultures, aren't particularly sudden or mysterious. These were the main issues with your previous post.
Maya peoples know their history, have maintained their oral and written records, and there is no huge mystery of their history.
There is only the american anthropologists and archaeologists who continue to claim that there is a mystery here or there, while they ignore actual history kept by non-white and non-american peoples. (I qualify this with 'white' because the non-white american anthropologists I know do not have this belief, nor do the non-american white anthropologists.) These are bizarre claims and are among the many reasons that american anthropologists are regarded with skepticism and ridicule by much of the rest of the world anthropological communities.
Worthwhile reading to decolonize the minds of those who have been through US or similarly minded anthro programs.
Weaponizing Anthropology: Social Science in Service of the Militarized State
From Racism to Genocide: Anthropology in the Third Reich
Darkness in El Dorado
Custer Died for Your Sins
Indians and Anthropologists
Read all these. Then proceed.
Maybe it's time to try something else? Beware the white liberal.