Deloria was a noted anthropologist who published works on Indian ethnology and linguistics; and his father, Vine Deloria, Sr., was the first American Indian to be named to a national executive post in the Episcopal Church. Deloria's own comment about his family gave context to his first major book. In its afterword he wrote: "As long as any member of my family can remember, we have been involved in the affairs of the Sioux tribe. My great grandfather was a medicine man named Saswe, of the Yankton tribe of the Sioux Nation. My grandfather was a Yankton chief who was converted to Christianity in the 1860's. He spent the rest of his life as an Episcopal missionary on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in South Dakota." From 1923 to 1982 the Indian Council Fire, an organization in Chicago, presented fifty-four achievement awards to recognize quality of Indian initiative and leadership. Of these awards, three were to members of the Deloria family: Vine, Sr., Ella, and Vine, Jr.
After attending grade school in Martin, South Dakota, the younger Deloria graduated from high school at St. James Academy in Faribault, Minnesota.
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