Vine Deloria, Jr.: "Schools of education are the worst things that ever happened to American education." 1992 photo by Richard Simonelli

Tribal College Journal: It has been 30 years since publication of your book, Custer Died for Your Sins. What is your general impression of the state of higher education some 30 years later?

Vine Deloria, Jr.: Things are very, very prosperous compared to 30 years ago. We have a lot more people in college in increasingly diverse majors, providing leadership in a lot of areas that they weren’t able to before. Now college graduates meet the needs and give direction to Indian communities. Thirty years ago a college education gave you entrée to many jobs on the reservations but not necessarily to ones you were trained in. Now tribes can define the preparation a person should have for a particular job, based on what they should have taken in college, and find such people. Because of this, tribal programs are much stronger now.

Tribal College Journal: Would you speak about the education of Native people who are planning to be teachers?

Vine Deloria, Jr.: Schools of education are the worst things that ever happened to American education. Teacher training for Indians suffers from the same difficulty as that for non-Indians. Education students spend four years taking technique courses but never learn thoroughly any subject they are going to teach. If you are not really interested in the subject you are teaching, you can’t really make any kind of presentation. It would be far better for Indians entering post secondary education with an eye on teaching to think about majoring in a certain substantial field and then pick up teacher’s credentials at the end.

Tribal College Journal: In the early and mid 1990’s you championed the cause of traditional knowledge by sponsoring a series of Traditional Knowledge Conferences with AISES (American Indian Science and Engineering Society). Where do you think traditional knowledge fits in post-secondary education for Indian students?

Vine Deloria, Jr.: The tribal colleges have always been the right place for teaching traditional knowledge. But once you get into that, it leads you more and more to see that Indians had the right scope on a lot of subjects and that this knowledge is in direct conflict with the West. You’ve got to find formats in which you can teach Indian students these things and give them confidence to pursue traditional knowledge so they can really understand what their ancestors were talking about.

Tribal College Journal: There is a lot of discussion these days about education “colonizing” Native people. Does higher education colonize Native people?

Vine Deloria, Jr.: You meet many Indians nowadays who speak through an immense intellectual structure due to their education. It’s common to hear people say you have to de-colonize your minds. But if you’re de-colonizing your mind, why are you using the oppressor’s technical language to do it? A lot of Indians have bought into the current vocabulary. It’s all right to talk outside the group in that way. But if you are going to talk inside the group to other Indians, just use plain, simple language. To solve the problem of being colonized, you’ve got to stop thinking like the colonizers. You’ve got to think like Indians. If you’re going to be an Indian, you’ve got to think like an Indian. And you’ve got to live a simple, humble life with people. To be straightforward. If you go around trying to impress people with technical jargon (which may be useful at the big universities), you’ll never reach people on the reservations or in the tribal council. They are going to look at you like you’re crazy.

Tribal College Journal: What are your wishes and dreams for Indian students of the future as we enter the new millennium?

Vine Deloria, Jr.: I believe that tribal culture, philosophy, and knowledge of the natural world are equivalent to Western science and religion––the whole broad umbrella of the Western mindset––and I believe they are superior in many ways. We don’t produce as many mechanical gimmicks, but we certainly produce better people. I’d like to see Indians in the future get so involved with what the tribe really means, with what the community means, and with what elders mean, that they will be able to get up and articulate things very clearly.

Redeveloping the Indian oratorical style as a means of communication, preserving tribal languages––I think those are the really critical things. Indian oratorical style and its ability to capture history, religion, and culture all in one set of words hold a lot of power in areas Indians don’t realize. Oren Lyons (Onondaga) is the best example of that kind of Indian orator. He can get up and speak in very simple sentences that cover the whole subject, convincing the opponents that they have got to do the right thing. If Indians could redevelop that style by observing people like Oren, you wouldn’t be afraid at all for the Indian future.

Vine Deloria, Jr., (Standing Rock Sioux) is one of the nation’s most visible and influential American Indian scholars. His latest book is For This Land: Writings on Religion in America. The journal published his essay on tribal colleges and traditional knowledge appeared in Vol. 5, N.2. Richard Simonelli is a freelance writer with his own business, Mountain Sage Writing and Publishing, in Boulder, Colo. He has been allied with Native American issues in education, addictions, and cultural recovery for more than 10 years.