The World We Used To Live In

A Lakota Sioux, Vine Deloria, Jr. is one of the most outspoken figures in Native American affairs. His works promote Native American cultural nationalism and a greater understanding of Native American history and philosophy. In his work, Deloria fights prejudice against American Indians while addressing current issues, such as political and treaty rights. He is also concerned with the struggle between a religious view of life and the secularization that science and industry promote. He warns that people need to re-evaluate their stance to planet earth or humans may be one of the few species that has permanently ruined their habitat.

[@JamalFuckinKilla]

When I was in middle school, I had taken a summer camp class trip to the get to the top of Cheif Mountain. We had a Medicine Man taking us up there. It was still snow packed and icy the more you ascended. Fish! He was way ahead of everyone. My friends and I weren't to far behind him... at first. Every turn we took he ended up like 500 feet ahead of us until he was a dot nearing the top. We stuck to the trail but ran into a glacier. A sheet of ice that blocked like 7 or 8 switchbacks. We attempted the first crossing but we all fell amd slid down like 20 or so feet and no one was able to cross this glacier. I remember getting frustrated because he just was all of a sudden at the top and no one saw him get up there. I was thinking, wtf? How the hell did he do that?!?! How do we get up there?!?! We couldn't make it so we turned around. By the time we got back, he was eating soup with the ladies that stayed and made lunch. Then I got really mad and asked how he did that? He just smiled and said, eat some soup, it's good. Ha! This guy was old even back then! When I was a kid, I swear I saw 2... like warewolf looking type creatures trying to pick up cattle and run away with it. The dogs took off after them right away amd they both got up on 2 legs and were gone in a couple bounds. The dogs wouldn't come back for a minute, but when they did, they kinda wimpered a bit like they were scared. My lil cousin was with me and we told his mom who just said, ooooh! You probably saw a warewolf. I'm like, naw, I know what I saw and it did look like idk, maybe huge dogs wearing buffalo robes that could run on 2 legs like a human. The creatures were like giants, maybe 5 feet taller than the cows they were trying to steal. One literally had its arms wrapped around the cow before it took off and the other one acted like a look out staying close to the ground and closer to a gully it came out of. Strange times.

[@JS-mh1fh]

@UWVideo please correct the description. The late Professor Deloria was Dakota Sioux, from the Standing Rock Sioux reservation. And I encourage the reading of any one of his 20+ books to learn about his scholarship, perspectives and humor, as well as the tributes at the time of his death from Indian Country Today, if they are still available online.

[@mojopeep326]

He was 100% right. The human genome project has proven that. This man got everything right.

[@hurstjames6199]

Hello how're you doing hope you and your family are safe due to the covid 19 pandemic?

[@g.8924]

Remember we're not Indians we're not native Americans we're older than both concepts. We're the people we are the human beings. - John Trudell

[@chrisr6142]

The miraculous medicine men were called Nawalli in ancient Mexico among the Toltecs. The same exact accounts of seemingly miraculous feats.

[@RedCulture49]

That man can really sing.

[@rickg2655]

That was awesome, just too short. For myself, I know the life and land was different 400-500 years ago in the Americas. Even the plant species where different. That means life was different. It was like "eden", still a "new world," meaning... The creator was still playing with species and in direct contact with his humans. I believe this is fascinating, because it will return to that, one way or another, one day. There really is something that man needs to know about the history of this land and it's people's. And that search should not feel impossible. What I see that this great man is on to its that these lands, the Americas, are closest in history to the times of the "garden of eden".. Considering the days of ancient Greece, the beginning of the Tigris and ephrates river, and ancient Africa where so long ago.. That the days when human and God (spirit/s) communed has turned into myth. In these lands, it's forgotten, but still fresh in some of our lives and blood. I will work to continue his works and bring man back into balance.

[@truegirl2anna]

+Rick G I need some help, overall what is Vine Deloria Jr??? Is he anti-creationism and pseudo-science? What does he believe in aka what theories DOES he believe in???

[@rickg2655]

+Truelady2Anna I would be happy to help you and anyone else that doesn't understand his points. My email is [e-mail] Vine Deloria jr is if Lakota decent. I can't speak for him or any other native people but from what I have discerned. There is a difference between knowing and believing. Knowing there is a great Spirit, means direct interactions with spirit. Believing in something places it outside your self. What he's basically saying is native peoples (not just of the Americas btw) commuted with the Creator, but even that word was not used.. Before 1492. It's more like the word Eternal. The eternal sun, the eternal sky and mother earth. They honor that Spirit, talk to that Spirit, acknowledge that Spirit in the land and the animals. It's there for all, all have to do is look, ask and listen to what comes... What he and most are saying is mankind will have to return to that acknowledgement, live in the plane of creation, rather than continue down the road on the illusion of the plane of competition, to survive. We all want to survive, right?

[@truegirl2anna]

Rick G Wow!!! That is a very profound way of viewing life and earth overall! It sounds to me that Deloria was not only an activist for Native American rights but what is the term you would use to call him and those beliefs?? He's not a Christian...I just don't really know what sort of label to define those beliefs in? If that makes sense???

[@deborahalissa]

+Truelady2Anna He's Native. It's not something we can package up and have and understand completely. Read Deloria's essay, Indians today the real and the unreal, in Custer Died For Your Sins and see if you can get a glimpse of other visions, other destinies that are not whitechristian settlercolonial views of life and land.

[@rickg2655]

Truelady2Anna yes truelady Anna, it is unfortunate that we don't have a label for it... I understand what you mean completely. Because honestly, for me, I would like to go to a church and be around people that think like this, but that's just not the case right now. As far as I can tell, natives don't really have terms for it, they or we say ceremony, and Lodge. You see everything is sacred to us, every action or conversation or interaction.. Because it only happens once! There is something close to this in the western world, I've looked and found very similar thought.. It's called new thought religion. Which to me is not really new, but at least they are on the right path. I believe there are christians that think the way the natives do, it's just not in the mainstream. Wallace waddles, Dr Joseph Murphy, Dr Thurman Fleet (of concept therapy), and Dr bj Palmer are a few examples of american writers/philosophers/doctors that were making the point that God is not done with man or creation. I don't understand the Christian view that God created man, and then just walked away.. They condemn man (themselves) because of "sin". That is not what the Creator says, but western man somehow sees it that way. You are alive, I am alive.. The great Spirit is alive because it animates our body. This is just truth. It is in all things. Someone or something changed the books of the Bible back around 308 ad.. For one thing.. Control. The powers that be just want you to believe you are alone... They want you to feel separate from all things. They don't want you to be in your power. They don't want you to question life itself.. They want you to just go on, and feel small. Because then you'll be a good consumer, filling the whole in your heart with stuff that's not real... In a never ending cycle. This is what we revolt against. Because it is detrimental to all life on this planet, not just the human race. It is good that you question.. Don't stop.. I'm here with you on that journey ;)

[@CreeCarnivore]

FYI, the year of this talk was 2006, hence the "moron" in office was George Bush Jr.

[@MercurialAscent]

Raven Sinclair That's interesting because he walked on in 2005

[@JB-uv4hm]

Raven Sinclair - and the current moron makes that moron seem very minor league.

[@johnbarham6406]

It wasn't 2006.... he died in 2005. However, I do believe this was during the early 2000s.

[@MrBezza1979]

Only just heard of this guy linked when Klaus Donna mentioned him I really like this.

[@Kyrnist]

There are stories of Dene hunting a small herd of Mammoths not known to science at the time. They killed an Old bull and one cow, they left the rest of the herd alone. Up in Yukon Territory in northern Canada. These dene retold this story to one the Ivory buyers when the ivory buyer asked why there seemed to be blood and fur on the tusk.

[@johnbrian118]

When did these hunters kill this mammoth?

[@LoonahNoom]

I heard this story many many years ago! I almost forgot about it, thanks for the reminder!

[@booboobear5710]

PAULETTE JORDAN is who I'm voting for again...this time as IDAHO SENATOR.

[@KA-sr5jy]

37:16

[@Pamela.B]

Date of this event please?

[@206two604player]

April 17,2003 I was in attendance at the lecture. I remember because I was invited last minute and had to rush to find a parking spot then find the lecture hall. As I got in, I there was this old man shuffling along and I all I could think was hey this guy is gonna make me late. Security had stated that the lower level was closed already and here I am stuck behind this guy. When they introduced Vine Deloria Jr. I was shocked, he was the old guy in front of me. I guess he was running late too! I got to share several Smokes with him on the balcony after the lecture. Very kind man.

[@Arron413]

He is not an engaging speaker. He prattles a bit for my liking. However, I love the topic. I need to delve into it more.

[@PsychicSoulJourney]

Dragon not a snake.

[@truegirl2anna]

I need some help, overall what is Vine Deloria Jr??? Is he anti-creationism and pseudo-science? What does he believe in aka what theories DOES he believe in???

[@deborahalissa]

+Truelady2Anna read Custer Died for Your Sins. look up his Wikipedia page. you sound so ignorant about a very illustrious person. educate yourself!

[@asamiyashin444]

+Truelady2Anna I prefer to ask these kind of questions: Is Richard Dawkins a pseudo-sciencist corrupted by politics and arrogance? Was Darwin a pseudo-sciencist with a bunch of victorian prejudices in his mind and no one fact supporting his racist theories? Is darwinism bullshit? Is it only a cult sect with science clothes? Of course, I end answering all of these questions with a single word: yes. The battle is not between Darwinism and Christian "creationism", that is a false debate to hide the real one, which is between the Western destructive bullshit and Native respect for the land and the planet. Darwinism and Christianity shares more than they disagree. In other words, you shouldn't ask yourself if you are with Darwin (or Richard Dawkins) or with the Pope, you should ask yourself if you are with those two and the destructive hierarchical thinking, the ideology of death, or if you are with Crazy Horse and the defense of life and dignity.

[@doylebrooks9318]

he's a Native American human being. That's his faith, his belief system, his religion, see, we natives don't have all those silly labels and titles y'all have.....were just...Indians. It's not rocket science....very simple.

[@Texicana_512]

@@doylebrooks9318 exactly

[@connieschuiling979]

@Guy Montag Your comment tells me more about you, than about him.

[@dubthedirector]

Just because you have some good ideas, doesn’t mean you only have good ideas. Spoiler alert, Evolution is understanding 101! Rip