C.G. Jung and the Sioux Traditions: Dreams, Visions, Nature and the Primitive

by Vine Deloria Jr., Philip J. Deloria (Editor), Jerome S. Bernstein (Editor)

While visiting the United States, C. G. Jung visited the Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, where he spent several hours with Ochwiay Biano, Mountain Lake, an elder at the Pueblo. This encounter impacted Jung psychologically, emotionally, and intellectually, and had a sustained influence on his theories and understanding of the psyche. Dakota Sioux intellectual and political leader, Vine Deloria Jr., began a close study of the writings of C. G. Jung over two decades ago, but had long been struck by certain affinities and disjunctures between Jungian and Sioux Indian thought. He also noticed that many Jungians were often drawn to Native American traditions. This book, the result of Deloria's investigation of these affinities, is written as a measured comparison between the psychology of C. G. Jung and the philosophical and cultural traditions of the Sioux people. Deloria constructs a fascinating dialogue between the two systems that touches on cosmology, the family, relations with animals, visions, voices, and individuation.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology, Spirituality, Indigenous, History, Nonfiction, Anthropology

226 pages, Paperback

First published July 20, 2009

About the author

Vine Victor Deloria, Jr. was an American Indian author, theologian, historian, and activist. He was widely known for his book Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto (1969), which helped generate national attention to Native American issues in the same year as the Alcatraz-Red Power Movement. From 1964–1967, he had served as executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, increasing tribal membership from 19 to 156. Beginning in 1977, he was a board member of the National Museum of the American Indian, which now has buildings in both New York City and Washington, DC.

Deloria began his academic career in 1970 at Western Washington State College at Bellingham, Washington. He became Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona (1978–1990), where he established the first master's degree program in American Indian Studies in the United States. After ten years at the University of Colorado, Boulder, he returned to Arizona and taught at the School of Law.

Reviews

[Emily Whetstone · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book very interesting, especially the discussions of Sioux beliefs about kinship ties (and the taboos and responsibilities kinship relationships required) and about animals and the nature of the universe. A rather thorough grounding in Jungian psychology is required to fully understand this book, a grounding which I lack, so much of the point of the book was lost on me... Deloria assumes familiarity and begins arguing points almost immediately, but because I am not intimate with Jungian thought those arguments weren't as interesting.

The concepts that stick out to me in the book are the idea of life beginning when a woman understands she has conceived; an expectant mother was believed capable of influencing the personality of her unborn child, and began "child care" while still pregnant. Also the difference between Sioux and Western creation myths: humans are created last in both, but where in the West that's seen as a sign of superiority, for the Sioux it means we are the youngest and least experienced of all the animals. The Sioux relationship with animals, therefore, is humble -- the animals, if they took pity on a person, might be moved to help her.

By contrast: "Perhaps the most extravagant pretense of Western civilization is its tenaciously held belief that only humans matter in the scheme of things. The origin of this unwarranted arrogance is unknown, but psychologically speaking it is Western culture's greatest inflation. In this tradition, humans are created last after all other creatures and are given the privilege of naming, thereby gaining ascendancy over all other beings. This is a subtle but key point in understanding the root psychology and philosophy of Western culture. With this claim to naming, something important has already happened to Western man in relation to the rest of creation.

[...]

Having been created in and initially confined to the Garden, humans come to view the natural world as a hostile environment -- it now seems new and disorderly, as a natural environment can be. Humans hope to eventually return or be returned to their former status in the Garden, living properly with the creator. Although they appear to suffer a common fate with man, other animals and beings are not envisioned as helpers but as slaves or competitors. There is therefore a fundamental separation or dreadful alienation between man and other creatures from the very beginning. For Western people, the fall represents alienation from the earth itself."

Deloria's family history, the son of two generations of Episcopalian clergymen, informs his deep understanding of both cultures. This book can be seen as an attempt to bring these disparate ideologies to a common table; the author mentions the Western tendency to incorporate other cultures and ideologies, rather than having a dialog with them.

I would not recommend this book to someone who is, as I was, mostly ignorant of both Jungian psychology and Sioux traditions. It's an interesting but rather dry read and I had to push through it to find the parts that surprised and spoke to me. But for someone more steeped in either tradition, but particularly in Jungian psychology, it's fascinating. My three stars represent only my own experience of the book, not my prediction of how much another reader would get out of it.

[Jacquie Flecknoe-Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by a brilliant writer and thinker who understands the genius of C G Jung

[S E · Rating 5 out of 5]

brilliant