eezi-ulgen,
When I integrated into the First Nations ‘tribe’ in Oz, there was no Elder within that ‘tribe’ who would have had the heart to say I wasn’t a member of it. And that is for life - people who know me still regard me as their relative.
The same with you I imagine. That doesn’t make you an Amerind, nor does that make me an Oz-Aboriginal, no matter how much “in one spirit” I/we might feel.
Finding out that I am dna *cousins* to most of the old Kautokeino Saami families in Norway does not make me a Norwegian Saami either. But - now - if I went there and became an accepted, active member of that Saami community – with my dna to match, to prove – that would be a different story.
Yet with the dna testing, many now claim, identify themselves as Saami:
A Saami director, the creator, screenwriter of the film
“Let the River Flow”:
https://www.thewire.org.au/story/ind...for-the-river/
I am not totally convinced 'they' (the fully Norwegian assimilated Saami admixed) speak from the authentic indigenous perspective.
Environmental work doesn’t equate indigenous identity nor does political opposition activism, but for a lot of
“New Identifiers” - those distantly related, well assimilated into Western mode of thinking urban warriors (who have lost their culture) – it does.