Deloria brings into focus the moods and habitat of the contemporary Indian as seen by a Standing Rock Sioux, not by a research anthropologist or a jobber in the basketry trades. He peels away layers of tinsel and feathers heaped upon the Indian by misinformed whites (beginning with Columbus), and he reveals an uncanny ability for impaling them on the fine points of their own illogic.

Cecil Eby, "Tonto Was an Uncle Tomahawk," in Book World—The Washington Post (© 1970 Postrib Corp.; reprinted by permission of Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post), October 4, 1970, p. 4.