Indians in Unexpected Places

Deloria, with his analytical survey, Indians in Unexpected Places, recounts the synthesis of western white expectations, and American Indians. The book takes its title from the general thesis, which explores not only the relationship between Indians and their introduction into an alien culture, but also the expectations that we have of Indians and how they “should” interact with our white western culture. According to Deloria, the common notion is that, “Indian people, corralled on isolated and impoverished reservations, missed out on modernity- indeed, almost missed out of history itself.” (Deloria p. 6) This falsified expectation that we have of the Native American peoples causes us to balk at the anomalies of an Indian when combined with Western culture.

Deloria, in the introduction, begins with the picture of an American Indian using a modern bubble-style hair dryer at a hair salon. This image often evokes a chuckle, as Deloria states, because of our inherent expectation for an Indian to be wearing buckskin in the plains, rather than in a hair salon. Often, once the topic of stereotype, malice, and expectations are brought up, the chuckle or grin is gone. The preconceived ideal of what an American Indian should be is so deeply ingrained within us that we do not even give it a second thought when judging a supposed anomaly as the woman under the hair dryer. Deloria organizes his work into five sections, in the form of essays. These tackle the issues surrounding the stereotypes and expectations that we have for the Native peoples, in a variety of different aspects. The first one focuses on the idea of violence, and the popular notion of a savage depiction of the Indians. The second focuses on the Native American view of themsel...

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...perception of Native People, as the current state is less than satisfactory.

Deloria succeeded in his argument and presentation during this work, and enabled me to realize my expectations that may have been latent and subconscious. My personal favorite essay in the book was the one that focused on technology and automobiles in Native American culture, until that chapter, I had not realized how anachronistic “savage and primitive” Indians looked when depicted in an automobile or with a gun. This realization in my mind was truly interesting to see, as I had always thought it strange to see a headdress next to a man made machine, yet couldn’t articulate why this was before the analysis by Deloria. The unnaturalness of the anachronism was due to my own personal expectations of where an Indian should be, and even a latent superiority that caused me to judge the picture.