Assertion Analysis #5: Seeker of Visions

      As the story tells, the the White Man saved the native American. Prior to the arrival of white people in the Americas, the natives were savages. The White Man comes, and now with the help of the White Man, they are civilized. However, to John Lame Deer in the excerpt, Seeker of Visions, this does not hold true. Lame Deer suggests that native Americans did not need the "help" that the White Man offered.
      In this excerpt, Lame Deer provides a lot of examples of how the the white men did not need to "help" native Americans. "Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men," Lame Deer says, "we didn't have any kind of prison. Without a prison, there can be no delinquents". The native Americans were a well-structured society, and they did not need a prison system for discipline. "When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse . . . he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift", Lame Deer continues. The native society was a communal society, and poverty was not an issue taken lightly. Another example says that people did not have money, so the person was not determined by wealth. Finally, Lame Deer says that the natives need prisons and laws, "or so [the white men] say", to function as a civilized society. Lame Deer uses these to prove a point.
      Lame Deer primarily uses verbal irony and sarcasm to convey that native Americans did not need white "help". He goes through all these examples of the native American society, and how it was structured, showing that native Americans were well off. In the final paragraph, though, he says that laws were necessary, "or so [the white men] say". Without laws, money, or prison, a society would be uncivilized. Lame Deer shoots this down, and uses the examples that he listed to show that native Americans were a well structured society.
      The native Americans, without laws or money, seemed to work perfectly fine. They did not need the "help" of Europeans. However, the arrival of Europeans rid the native Americans of this culture. Had they not intervened the way they did, perhaps they would have flourished and reached a high level of advancement. One can only imagine how far they would've went.