Playing Indian is a 1999 book by Philip J. Deloria

Philip J. Deloria

Philip Joseph Deloria is a historian, the son of Vine Deloria, Jr., and the great-great grandson of Philip Joseph Deloria, or Tipi Sapa , for whom he is named. He is also the great-great-great grandson of U.S Army officer and painter Alfred Sully. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies from...

. In it, Deloria discusses the way in which white American men have adopted Indian traditions, images, and clothing, citing examples like the Boston Tea Party

Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government and the monopolistic East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies...

, the Improved Order of Red Men

Improved Order of Red Men

The Improved Order of Red Men traces its origin to certain secret patriotic societies founded before the American Revolution. They were established to promote Liberty and to defy the tyranny of the English Crown. Among the early groups were: The Sons of Liberty, the Sons of St...

, Tammany Hall

Tammany Hall

Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society...

, Scouting

Boy Scouts of America

The Boy Scouts of America is one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with over 4.5 million youth members in its age-related divisions...

, hippie

Hippie

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

s, and New Age

New Age

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...

rs. Referring to D.H. Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature

Studies in Classic American Literature

Studies in Classic American Literature is a seminal work of literary criticism by the English writer D. H. Lawrence. It was first published by Thomas Seltzer in the USA in August 1923. The English edition was published in June 1924 by Martin Secker....

, Deloria argues that white Americans used the idea of the Indian to create their own national identity, both identifying with Indians as liberated New World inhabitants and opposing them as a savage other

Other

The Other or Constitutive Other is a key concept in continental philosophy; it opposes the Same. The Other refers, or attempts to refer, to that which is Other than the initial concept being considered...

. "Disguise readily calls the notion of fixed identity into question," writes Deloria. "At the same time, however, wearing a mask also makes one self-conscious of a real 'me' underneath." The book is a reworking of Deloria's 1994 Yale

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 doctoral dissertation.

Deloria refers to David Roediger

David Roediger

David R. Roediger is a well-established professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . His research interests include the construction of racial identity, class structures, labor studies, and the history of American radicalism...

's The Wages of Whiteness, a similar book about the construction of the white race in opposition to black slaves; his book has itself been compared to scholarly work on blackface

Blackface

Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...

 and to the work of Richard White

Richard White (historian)

Richard White is an American historian, a past President of the Organization of American Historians, and the author of influential books on the American West, Native American history, and environmental history...

.