Playing Indian describes two subsets of the Indian identity in the minds of white Americans: a “material,” and an “ideal.” One being the actual tribes of native peoples and the other being a mental set associated with but not necessarily representative of said peoples. The author, Philip Deloria argues that “Indian ‘Others’ have been constructed at the intersection of real and imagined Indians.” White American conceptions of savagery and primitiveness spring from the former, while high-held ideals such as nobility and nearly anarchic freedom come from the latter. Deloria then goes on to articulate how white colonists used these notions to in part define the North American continent in opposition to Europe, and how their identity has, as a result, been caught in between. The struggle with “Indianness” and white American identity stretches long after colonial times as well. In the Nineteenth century, Indians themselves were forced out of traditional lands both by the government and local groups, while simultaneously being upheld by Romantics of the time as the last indications of society free of technological vice. Similarly in the Civil Rights era, when Indians were largely kept static by the boundaries of their reservations, their imagery was a popular tool for protesters as well as writers like Ken Kesey, who portrayed Indians as a last refuge of resistance against the oppression of societal standards.