(Defining redundant as “able to be omitted without loss of meaning or function” NOT “no longer needed or useful.”)

Also, Farragher recommended Deloria’s Playing Indian (http://books.google.com/books?id=dQFBTKi4aYsC). Anyone read that or have comments on it?

I’ve read it. I’ve assigned it to my grad class on the American West this semester. Deloria traces the history of whites “playing Indian” from the Boston Tea Party up through the hippies of the 70s living in tepees. It is a bit theoretical in parts, but nonetheless insightful on the various contradictory ways in which whites have appropriated Indianness for their own contradictory purposes. For example, the tea party crowd, Deloria argues, was asserting a new American identity for itself, distinguishing itself from its British brothers in going native, at the same time that it also denigrated real Indian peoples as savages. Deloria works through a similar analysis for each of the chronological periods he examines.

p.s. any grad student in my Am West class who attempts to use this post as cliff notes will be forced to walk the plank.

I too am a big fan of Rick’s. He is terrific.

Glen Leonard was there–I hadn’t seen him since his mission, so I made him a bit late for the book signing. Glen is really a gem as well.

PS, for my own research I often wonder how to describe groups of people of various native tribes, so I bothered Dr. Fixico afterwards to ask him. He says that as a Shawnee/Creek and a scholar, he recommends that you specifically identify a tribal affiliation if possible. If not, he suggested, in order of preference, “native peoples,” “indigenous peoples,” and “Indian peoples,” emphasizing the plurality of ethnic identities that Whites have attempted to subsume/extirpate in the single term “Indian.” i’m well aware of the dynamic nature of “preferred” designations for native peoples, but for me at least this was finally useful information for someone who participates in both scholarly and native cultures. I’m going to revise my chapter on Mormonism and native peoples to reflect this terminology.

Also, Farragher recommended Deloria’s Playing Indian (http://books.google.com/books?id=dQFBTKi4aYsC). Anyone read that or have comments on it?

“Devastating” is the right word. Despite my self-image as a broad-minded 21st century Latter-day Saint, and despite my research into the 1855 Indian missions (which I argue had a unique, particularly religious meaning, reaching out from one branch of Israel to our literal brothers in another branch), somehow I had never connected the dots that Rick connected last night. I will never forget it.