Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact

Though Deloria (Custer Died for Your Sins) has a broad academic brief--he teaches history, law, religious studies and political science at the University of Colorado--here he ventures into a new area, attacking the way scientists have created ``a largely fictional scenario describing prehistoric North America'' and suggesting that Indian lore may offer better explanations. Given Deloria's not-so-temperate tone--``Christianity has been the curse of all cultures into which it has intruded''--it is hard to judge all his arguments. He finds flaws in scientific accounts of how Indians once traversed the Bering Strait land bridge; he also reports that geological evidence suggests an earlier Indian presence and notes that no tribal creation stories reflect such a migration. Similarly, he criticizes scientists who argue that Indians killed off North American megafauna of the Pleistocene era. Deloria's fiercely argued study sometimes overwhelms as a narrative, but his charges should provoke more evaluation, as well as examination of the consonance of science and Indian tradition. (Oct.)