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Old 06-09-2018, 06:16 AM
magdna magdna is offline
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I felt compelled to add some stuff here so...

Colorado

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I can feel the Indian side of me instinctively, but I’m not 200% sure which or if there is more than one tribe I partially descended from....all that side of my family is light blonde haired and baby blue eyes.

Blue-eyed, blonde haired, Native Americans did and do exist. They are the Mandan who are a Plains Indian. They have lived for centuries in what is now the North Dakota region. Though not all Mandan share these characteristics, many do. It has fascinated scholars since the Mandan were first encountered by outsiders. It is interesting to note, that there are legends about a Mandan Ancestor and his encounters with the Red Haired Giants. Good Hunting Colorado. This site is a good starting point.

https://nativeheritageproject.com/20...29/the-mandan/


Ankhesenamun

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I have noticed that too that everybody who claims to have Native American ancestry always seems to be Cherokee - maybe there is more truth to it than we know though since it was the Cherokee who were displaced from their ancestral land (during the Trail Of Tears).

It is refreshing to run into someone who realize's the connection. Most people have heard of the Trail, but there are few who understand that the Indian Removal Act that became the Trail of Tears consisted of no less then 7 different Tribes of the Southeast and also Tribes from further North. The number of Native Americans forced into relocation numbered in the tens of thousands. As many as 4,000 died on the Trail. When those who did survive arrived in Oklahoma and were registered, their names were stripped from them and they were re-named by the Army personnel assigned to register them and the Native names and Tribal affiliation were never recorded. My maternal grandmother Walked the Trail when she was a child.


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I suspect though that my ancestry could possibly be Apache, Navajo or Hopi (these nations are all related)

The Hopi Nation has no connection with the Navajo or Apache Nations. The Hopi are descended from the Ancient Pueblo Peoples and have inhabited The Four Corner region for over 10,000 years. The Navajo and Apache came from the North (Canada and possibly Alaska) over 4,000 years later.


sentinent

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So when I accidently met a person who identified herself as North West Coast Indian, I was full of curiosity and blurted out that we are supposed to have some old cultural similarities or parallels. To which comment she with no-holds-barred let me have the ton-of-bricks wannabe hate speech.
Since I had never ever heard of any ‘wannabees’ I simply could not comprehend her reaction at all.

I have encountered this reaction personally, right here in this forum. As well as elsewhere. While I am aware of The Nations and The Elders attempt to 'close' their Ceremonies and understand completely why this is being done as I have spent many years in communication with them through familial ties, I find that those who scream the loudest about 'wannabes' are those who are the furthest from their own culture. There is a clear danger and disrespect in appropriation of Ceremony and I have spoken of that. This kind of encounter is not about that.

As Native Spirit quoted "If you have one drop of blood in your veins then you are Native" -- Black Elk. The other side of that coin is, you can have millions of drops and not be Native. Native American is not just a culture, it is a Spirituality. If you are practicing that Spirituality, you are attending Ceremonies and learning from The Elders, not out screaming about ownership and using The Nation's as your own personal free pass to be a dumb a*s.


SpiritualLobster

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It is a sad truth, that native american culture and metis culture are dying cultures (already dead depending on how you look at it) and the people are full of trauma and pain because of that.

Hardly anyone is full blooded native anymore, and there are hardly any real medicine people anymore, natives are not following the old ways anymore, that's just what happens with colonization, and as much as people want to pretend colonization never happened and try to preserve things, Native America was destroyed a long time ago. Issues on the reservations are very real and overwhelming. I worked amongst these issues for many years.

I respectfully disagree here. Native Americans are not a dying culture. They existed here tens of thousand of years before Europeans arrived and they will exist as long as the Planet stands. Over 200 years of attempted assimilation has been repelled and denied over and over, at a terrible cost to The Peoples. But still, they are The Nations. I have no idea how many full blooded Native's there are left, there is not much meaning in that argument. There are over 500 Federally recognized Tribes in this country and the Native American population numbered 5.4 million in 2014. This number is expected to double in the next 40 years.

It is also an assumption and a mistake to consider that there are no 'real' Medicine Men and Women anymore. There are many.

I agree there are issues on the reservations and that they are very serious issues. These same issues will be found in any country or Nation or community spanning all cultures, where there is poverty. So this is a generalization and truthfully a little racist.

When you speak of not understanding why Indigenous Peoples do not embrace reconciliation, what you are really saying is why not assimilate. In a perfect Utopian world all races and cultures would band together as one and create a new and better whatever. In reality, that's not ever going to happen. What does and will happen is the forced assimilation of all into the Culture belonging to the strongest. That's been going on since the beginning of time. It's called slavery.

These are my views. I offer them respectfully and in defense of The People's.
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