To the victor go the spoils and the telling of history. But occasionally, the truth seeps out anyway. Consider this short story based on a famous quote by Vine Deloria, Jr.:
Sometime after the turn of the century, before the Great War in Europe, a gray-whiskered anthropologist approached a small group of Lakota Indians tending horses on a grassy Dakota plain. After greeting them, he opened a worn leather-bound notebook. The anthropologist made precise entries as he questioned the Lakota men asked about their ancestral culture. He ignored the tales he found too fanciful. Finally satisfied after an hour or so, he closed his notebook and thanked them. As he turned to leave, a last question occurred to him. “This land, all of it, is America,” he said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. “What did the Indians, your people, call America before the white man came here?” The Indians exchanged bemused looks. Finally, the oldest Lakota faced the anthropologist and simply said, “Ours.” [© 2010 EJ Perkins]
Vine Deloria, Jr. (March 26, 1933 – November 13, 2005) was an American Indian author, theologian, historian, and activist.
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