Assertion Analysis #5- John Lame Deer

   America always argues that they saved the Native Americans in a way of making them ideal, making them civilized, and imposing what they think made them an actual person.  The Natives on the other hand had already established their own society, their own customs, and their own culture. John Lame Deer, in an excerpt of his book Seeker of Visions, expresses satirically that before the white man, "white brothers" invaded their land to "make them civilized men" they had no idea what being civilized was, and they were seen as savage. Throughout history we've learned that the customs of Natives were very different from those of the English settlers. While the English settled everything with death or captivity, the Natives had a system and discussed issues as a community. He explains his community as one that would've been completely fine without the "help" of the english settlers. While Native American culture is considered more as one with free spirit Euro-centric culture is more   stringent. While Europeans spent their time judging and changing the Natives it wasn't realized that in actuality they were the ones who were uncivilized and needed help.

     John Lame Deer ironically and satirically conveys understanding towards the reasons on why the Europeans imposed their own customs and laws on the Native Americans. Deer does this when he says he doesn't "know how to explain how we were able to live without these fundamental things...". He articulates how the English "gave" then what they didn't have in their own society to make them civilized, things such as prisons, locks, and keys. His tone of sarcasm throughout the whole excerpt indicates that nothing was ever needed from the Europeans. The natives had no need for any prisons because they believed in declaring everything as a community and they had no delinquency in their society. They had no need for locks and keys if thievery wasn't a present factor in their life, Natives believed in sharing and hospitality, they helped and pitched in for those in need. John Lame Deer repeatedly uses the term "we" signifying that he isn't only talking about himself but the whole Native American culture and community as a whole and how they were all affected by the oppression of the Europeans and their unjust customs.

      The satirical manner in which John Lame Deer treats the arrival and "assistance" of the Europeans to the Natives conveys the idea of reality. The Europeans disrupted an already established and working community. The Natives had the right idea and outlook on life and how issues should be handled. The Europeans made the excuse of "civilizing" the Natives when the Europeans themselves weren't civilized at all. The Natives had morals and hospitality unlike Europeans thus making them the real savages in history not the Native Americans.