Product Description
Historians have long been aware that the encounter with Europeans affected all aspects of Native American life. But were Indians the only ones changed by these cross-cultural meetings? Might the newcomers' ways, including their religious beliefs and practices, have also been altered amid their myriad contacts with native peoples? In Encounters of the Spirit, Richard W. Pointer takes up these intriguing questions in an innovative study of the religious encounter between Indians and Euro-Americans in early America. Exploring a series of episodes across the three centuries of the colonial era and stretching from New Spain to New France and the English settlements, he finds that the flow of cultural influence was more often reciprocal than unidirectional. ... Read more

Product Description
Deloria, a prominent Native American educator, lawyer, and philosopher, has updated his classic work on native religion. In God is Red Deloria argues convincingly that Christianity has failed today's society, and describes basic tenets that underlie Native religions. His other works include Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties and Custer Died for Your Sins. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (31)

God is Red
Very pleased with purchase. Shipped and received as stated.Book in better condition than ad stated.A+++

Excellent and insightful.
I don't think there has ever been a book that has made an impact on me like this one has. It's an astounding point of view. I've always looked for things to "make sense", and this book absolutely "makes sense". Please read!

Loved It!
I absolutely loved this book - I've bought copies for friends and family members, and shared it with my husband. I'm of Lakota heritage, and while my family assimilated a few generations back, I was raised with a great deal of the ideology that is expressed in God Is Red. My husband has Iroquois blood, but was raised by white-folk, so he didn't get much exposure to Indigenous American culture. Shortly after we started dating I demanded that he read it.

Custer Died For Your Sins is another favorite of mine... Vine Deloria is a great writer - rock on!

Excellent summary of cultural war
This is written from the point of view of an intellectual well versed in Western philosophy and religion but who is also well versed in American Indian Native religion. The chapters detail the stark differences between what he develops as warring cultures as he step by step describes the impact of Greek philosophy on Christian religion and how that molds the sense of individuality viewed as the modern individual in the West today. In contrast to this he describes the nature of community as seen through the eyes of natives and native religions that are land based instead of abstract conceptual systems. I find it interesting because other books such as Charles Taylor's "The Sources of the Self" make much the point he does in describing the nature of the modern individual and what brings it about. We might also see this in other books that deal with the subject. Of importance are several insightful points regarding the difficulties native communities face and how they have reacted to these culture wars. For example, regarding suicide he says, "Many people are trapped between tribal values constituting their unconscious behavioral responses and the values they have been taught in schools and churches, which primarily demand conforming to seemingly foreign ideals. Alcoholism and suicide mark this tragic fact of reservation life. People are not allowed to be Indians and cannot become whites. They have been educated, as the old-timers would say, to think with their heads instead of their hearts." (p 242) On the chapter between Natural and Hybrid Peoples he describes the Native religions as based on a sense of place - the importance of the land where "The soil you see is not ordinary soil - it is the dust of the blood, the flesh, and the bones of our ancestors. We fought and bled and died to keep other Indians from taking it, and we fought and bled and died helping the Whites. You will have to dig down through the surface before you can find nature's earth, as the upper portion is Crow." (p 148 quoting Curley, a Crow Indian Chief). (p. 247) "Education and Religion apparently do not mix."

Powerful Discourse on Native American Spirituality
Originally published in 1972, and revised completely since then, it remains the "the flagship book on Native American spirituality." Deloria asks questions about our species and our ultimate fate, and reminds us to learn "that we are part of nature, not a transcendent species with no responsibilities to the natural world."

You will see the world differently after reading this book -- a powerful discourse. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Christianity and Literature, published by Conference on Christianity and Literature on March 22, 2004. The length of the article is 1744 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: American Lazarus: Religion and the Rise of African-American and Native American Literatures.(Book Review)
Author: Walter A. Hesford
Publication: Christianity and Literature (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 2004
Publisher: Conference on Christianity and Literature
Volume: 53Issue: 3Page: 411(4)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Church History, published by Thomson Gale on December 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1029 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: American Lazarus: Religion and the Rise of African-American and Native American Literatures.(Book review)
Author: Joel W. Martin
Publication: Church History (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 75Issue: 4Page: 941(2)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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"So little has heretofore been done in this field that it has yielded a very scanty harvest for purposes of general study. It has not yet even passed the stage where the distinction between myth and tradition has been recognized. Nearly all historians continue to write about some of the American hero-gods as if they had been chiefs of tribes at some undetermined epoch, and the effort to trace the migrations and affiliations of nations by similarities in such stories is of almost daily occurrence. How baseless and misleading all such arguments must be, it isone of my objects to set forth." ... Read more