Walking in the Shadow of Greatness: Vine Deloria Jr. in Retrospect

I watched closely at a small church conference on religious diversity a quarter century ago as Vine Deloria Jr. intentionally upset the applecart. He took a serious but obtuse theological discussion between White churchmen and, with his persuasive eloquence and ever-sharp wit, thoroughly turned the participants inside out using their own language against them. Later that evening I jokingly called him "Coyote Old Man," to which his only response was a wry smile. To understand the analogy, one has to remember that Coyote always functions in our cultures as a teacher. He can shift from stark wisdom to abject foolishness and back to wisdom, yet even the foolishness is intended to teach a deeper wisdom. Coyote is always committed, in the final analysis, to the well-being of the people, even when his example seems to be the opposite of what people would expect, even when he affects foolishness and individualism, the bane of all Indian cultures. Some call this important cultural figure the trickster.

Deloria was never foolish in that sense, but he did turn the white world, the academic world, and the sociopolitical world of North America upside down. He generated ideas and solutions that flowed against the accepted truths of the White colonizer's world. Like Coyote, Deloria was always the commensurate teacher, a wily man of the world who combined perspicuity, clear and convincing critical analysis, vision, and intuition with a keen sense of the ironic and a sharp sense of humor. Deloria was not Coyote Old Man, yet his intellectual gift to the Indian world has inspired younger and older Indian intellectuals and activists alike and will continue to do so for another century, even as his ideas sometimes appear as unimaginable heresies to incredulous non-Indians. For some four decades Deloria was the very best of public Indian intellectuality—he was the dean of Indian academics in higher education. One result of Deloria's own accomplishments was an explosion of Indian scholars finishing doctoral degrees and landing jobs teaching in universities and colleges. Indeed, one of his personal strengths was the invaluable guidance and support he provided to countless younger Indian scholars.

Deloria left this world and crossed over to join his ancestors on November 13, 2005. It is important that all Indian people and all those who are impacted by or participate in this hybrid phenomenon of modern higher education called "Indian studies" mark Deloria's passing by remembering his towering intellect and the ways in which he has indelibly impacted what we, Indians and non-Indians, do as scholars in the field. Time once reported Deloria as one of the most influential religious thinkers of the time (1978).¹ Certainly he was the key American Indian intellectual figure of the twentieth century, not only in terms of religious thought but in legal theory, history, and indigenous philosophy, and in terms of an indigenous critique of euro-western scientific thought, and in indigenous social thought. Some of his last projects included a critique of the psychological theories of Carl Jung and a critique of both the theory of evolution and religion-based notions of intelligent design and creationism.² At the time of his death, the Colorado American Indian Movement Web site characterized Deloria as the American Indian equivalent of "Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thurgood Marshall combined. With his twenty books, hundreds of articles, and thousands of talks, Mr. Deloria transformed the way in which the world was forced to interact with indigenous peoples."³

Deloria was indeed a legal scholar, an American Indian philosopher, a historian, and a social thinker. His critique of euro-western science marks him as a philosopher of science, as well.⁴ These are just some of the disciplines in which he conversed freely and with a great deal of expertise. Outside of the academy his leadership was generously given over the years to both American Indian organizations and to non-Indian groups that had impacted or had the potential to impact Indian people. Throughout his illustrious academic career, Deloria was equally a social and a political...