Webinar | Playing Indian Revisited with Philip J. DeLoria
Yesterday, I watched this year’s Robert C. Baron Lecture hosted by the American Antiquarian Society. The talk was given in memory of Robert “Bob” Charles Baron, a pioneer of computer science who passed away in April 2026 at age 92. These talks examine how a written work changed the field, how the field has further changed since the work was published. The speaker was Philip J. DeLoria, the first tenured professor in Native American history at Harvard University who has known Yankton Dakota ancestry. He originally published Playing Indian in 1998 as a reworking of his thesis from 1994. His numerous accolades include serving as a trustee at the National Museum of the American Indian and being a member of the American Philosophical Society, although he regards himself as “just a guy who kinda just does his best.”
DeLoria was interested in Native American history from childhood, as he learned about Native American culture while in Boy Scouts, stopped near a lodge for “The Improved Order of Red Men” during family vacations, and grew up while New Age culture built sweat lodge and worried about Maya prophecies. As a young adult, he and his wife would write a play about the Boston Tea Party for fourth and fifth graders in her classroom. DeLoria would later describe the event from a more academic perspective in the recent Ken Burns documentary, The American Revolution.
DeLoria drew on existing literature when writing his dissertation, including The White Man’s Indian by Robert F. Berkhofer (1978), The Return of the Vanishing American by Leslie A. Fielder (1969), The Savages of America by Roy H. Pierce (1953), and Studies in Classic American Literature by D.H. Lawrence. DeLoria wanted his work to be modern and created a diagram to better understand how Native American culture is viewed by mainstream American culture. His graph included a continuum of “nobility” versus “savagery” and “close” versus “distant”. For example, Iron Eyes Cody crying at a polluted stream might be viewed as noble, while a mascot caricature might be savage. DeLoria even included a reference to “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin, a stable in both new media studies and material culture studies. The work focuses on the “notion of aura”, or the concept that a handmade work of art is unique, and the culture in which it is produced makes the work authentic.
DeLoria also let the audience know what he has been up to during the 250th anniversary of American Independence. “I found myself in some slight demand…” he joked, noting that he was generally seen by producers as “the guy who will do the Boston Tea Party for us”. Besides the documentary, he was a guest on the 1A radio show produced by WAMU, the second episode of First America podcast produced by Pushkin, and Native America Calling podcast. Previously he has appeared in three documentaries: Imagining the Indian, More than a Word, and Red Fever. DeLoria admits that at this point “I don’t have that much more to say.” He does note that the Northwood League baseball teams of the upper Midwest have fun, unique logos without resorting to stereotypes and would be a great model for other leagues.
At the end of the presentation, DeLoria noted that the number of people claiming to have Native American ancestry has sky rocketed now that people can claim multiple racial identifiers on the census. Many of these appear to be “Pretendians” who claim to be Native American in order to benefit from scholarships and jobs without having any of the hardships. A slide of non-indigenous people wearing Native American regalia or using “native” products included the fairly well-known picture of Calvin Coolidge wearing a Sioux headdress, as the 30th president passed the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924 and believed he had Native American ancestry on his father’s side, although this cannot be proven. The question and answer period had some rather strange questions, but I appreciated the reference to Hiawatha and “Finnish national poetry”, my old friend the Kalevala. Overall, the talk blended history, humor, and imagery to give a quick yet comprehensive understanding about the harms of appropriating Native American culture.