The people who first discovered and lived in the Americas were called Native Americans. Native culture was wiped out when Europeans came to this country and labeled them as "Savages". Native Americans survived in uncivilized conditions. John Lame Deer asserts natives were not "savages" but in fact more advanced.
John Lame Deer is insinuating that before the Americans ( White people) came to their land they were civilized. For them the value of a human being was not determined by their wealth. "We had no written laws laid down". They were too uncivilized and didn't give importance to wealth, private property, etc. When someone was too poor to buy something they would be given it as a gift. "Without a prison, there can be no delinquents." They didn't need to have a prison because anything they needed would be given to them as a gift, their was no need to steal. John also states that the white men make them believe that without them they were in really bad shape, questioning how they were able to manage without those fundamental things.
The author John Lame Deer, uses satire toward the end of his paragraph when he says "We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived" throughout this paragraph he is talking about how his native people were uncivilized but they were doing very good before white men arrived and this sentence contradicts what he was explaining earlier. "among us there were no thieves." "Without a prison, there can be no delinquents". John also uses Anaphora in the word "We". He uses "we" in the beginning of some of his sentences to establish he is part of the Native American culture. Native Americans never needed a civilized culture they were forced into it.
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