A New Historicist Study of American Indigeneity in Deloria's The World We Used To Live In

Abstract

The nature of history is one of the interpretations rather than irrefutable facts. When historians interpret historical events, they simultaneously generate a range of ideas about that particular historical narrative. This is why history is deemed a text, not an absolute fact. New historicists assert that both primary and secondary sources of historical information are textual narratives. The primary source is the text, and history is perceived as text, while the secondary source comprises interpretations provided by other historians on a given text. This study focuses on the historical truths embedded in the cultural stories Vine Deloria Jr, a Native American historian, compiled in The World We Used to Live In to highlight the multiple perspectives of Native American primitive ways of being.