The beginning of conflict between Native Americans and anthropologists is hard to determine, though we know that it is tied to the early creation of American anthropology in the United States. According to Native American authors such as Vine Deloria, the conflict is also tied to the history of gruesome collections and expeditions of past grave-robbing. In these cases anthropologists claimed to be saving pieces of information and history, while the Indians claimed they were being treated like pieces of history that needed to be saved. The relationship between the two parties is one filled with distrust, as very few members on either side appear to understand and recognize the rights of the other. Into each life, it is said, some rain must fall. Some people have bad horoscopes;others take tips on the stock market…. But Indians have been cursed above all other people in history. Indians have anthropologists. (Deloria 1969) Vine Deloria was a Native American author, theologian, historian, and activist who was mad at a lot of …show more content…
Most every person who identifies as Native American is fully assimilated into our current society, they go to the same restaurants, drive the same cars, and speak the same way. Yet just because someone has assimilated into the most popular culture, does that mean they lost their past? This is a hot topic being debated in the states today. A case example being explained through an article by James Clifford on the Mashpee Indians. The Mashpee where fighting for their right to be considered an official tribe and receive status, after having lost it in the past. They were fighting against the claim, which ended as the verdict, that since they had been so integrated into modern society by marriage, migration, language, and religion, that they no longer held the tribal culture needed to be considered a legal tribe. A culture that had been decided and discovered by