Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto

This is an anthropological term describing an individual or group whose way of life juggles two different cultural traditions. Certain anthropologists have declared Indigenous Americans as “bicultural.” Deloria sees this as the type of overly simplistic analysis that leads to ineffective aid to tribal people.

One of the “five civilized tribes,” the Chippewas are used as an example of an Indigenous group that largely assimilated into white culture very early in the United States’ history.

Deloria gives a specific definition of “culture” as most Native people understand it: “a lifestyle by which people acted. […] it was the expression of the essence of a people” (185). To many white people, especially anthropologists, culture was defined more materialistically and comprised mostly the physical and performative expressions of that essence.

The IRA was passed in 1934 with the aim of allowing Indigenous tribes more rights to self-government and decreasing federal participation in tribal affairs. Deloria is generally in favor of the IRA but says that its one major flaw was the inability of tribes who chose not to operate under it to ever reconsider their enrollment in the future.

The Menominee people of Wisconsin are another commonly referenced Indigenous American tribe in Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto. At the time of writing, they were an economically successful tribe with a productive lumber mill and a strong relationship with the BIA. They were one of the few fully self-sufficient tribes in the mid-20th century, but still faced termination and had much of their forest cut down by government loggers. Deloria compares the Menominees to the Klamath tribe in Oregon to show that even in different geographic areas, tribes often face the same issues.

Deloria closely examines the concept of paternalism. He argues that the term is not an accurate descriptor of the BIA. In Deloria’s view, Native people and white allies who argue for the BIA’s destruction because it is “paternalistic” do not understand that term accurately. To Deloria, the BIA is a necessary organization to mitigate harm that has already been done, not a way to infantilize tribal people.