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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Religions & Faiths > North American Indigenous Spirituality

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  #11  
Old 04-09-2018, 10:10 PM
SpiritualLobster SpiritualLobster is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sentient
My own ‘Native American DNA’ belongs to that ‘error’ category.
Even though Mr. McD. genetically identified me as a “Russian Saami” and nowadays I am fully aware of which particular group my cousins come from, I could not present myself as that group representative nor wear the clothes that identify them as such. Because - unless you were brought up or now fully belonged to that specific group - it is just not done.
I do have a Saami drum t-shirt though, that is a bit of traumatic family history we have carried and I do have a piece of clothing with fringes (which has nothing to do with Native Americans).

Though at one stage I was curious about the potential commonalities we and Native Americans might share. The Earth Diver myth for example, some artefacts and because some overseas anthropologists had paralleled our old culture with the North West Coast Indians.

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.

Racism / hatred is a very extensive problem amongst native american and metis communities... but don't let that stop you from embracing your true ancestry.

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.

I just try to separate myself from that racist mindset personally, it just doesn't resonate with me anymore.
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.
It's not going to work to try and separate people further, the only way to fix these issues is reconciliation of all races and nations and creating new customs that bring all people together.
And you'd think the Metis Communities would embrace reconciliation, but they are the most racist of all, which is understandable given the very deep pain and trauma they carry as a people who feel abandoned by native culture and white culture.

My point is, your heritage is not something someone can tell you that you don't belong to, your heritage has nothing to do with culture and you may still be deeply connected to certain customs of your ancestors.

For example, genetics are very strong! With the increase of adoptees finding their biological families with these DNA testing sites, they are starting to realize that a lot of personality traits people once thought were caused by upbringing are really just genetic!
I noticed it in myself too, as an adoptee! I have so much in common, such as shared interests, with my biological family! I wasn't raised around them, never met them at all, and yet somehow I still share common interests with them. Obviously a lot of things are genetic, even very tiny things.

I also always knew I was native, even before I could prove it. I was deeply spiritual and connected to that way of life. I joined native culture, learned medicine practices, got into fire tending for sweat lodges etc before I even had factual proof that I belonged there, I mean I already knew.
My elders could spiritually sense that I was from their tribe as well.
My main spirit guide is also Native American and taught me many native customs too.
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  #12  
Old 06-09-2018, 12:12 AM
sentient sentient is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SpiritualLobster
I also always knew I was native, even before I could prove it.
For me the situation felt like being ‘a lost soul in the world’, when you know you are something ‘other’ than what (even with the best of intentions) you have been told you are, and then you just cannot fit that mold either, (what you are supposed to be) because everything within you is screaming against it.
Such an inner conflict.

Quote:
I was deeply spiritual and connected to that way of life. I joined native culture
Same here, actually there are 4 of us living in my area (all sort of genetic relatives of mine) who integrated into different Aboriginal groups, because we can relate to that way of being better since it reflects our indigenous roots too. Being/living in a kindred community also stopped the internal struggle or fight.

When you have been brought up with strong collective and egalitarian values, it is difficult to adjust to the hierarchical ego-competitive situations.
Like one lawyer I knew who couldn’t take the big cut-throat corporate lawyer world (or whatever it was) and thought there was something so ‘wrong’ with him.
I saw an Aboriginal person superimposed upon him and asked him about his heritage. He didn’t know, but it did strike a chord and he didn’t take a DNA-test, instead he confronted his mother who had always told him his dark complexion was from his South European background. Which it wasn’t, and he finally learned about his Aboriginality and came to a total ease within himself about his internal value system.

But then I don't know whether the above story relates to finding out that you are part Native American (?)

*

Nowadays I feel quite at ease moving between both black and white cultures, but the ease is there because both are present with lots of good people from both sides on that reconciliation bridge.
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  #13  
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

Quote:
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

Quote:
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.


Quote:
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

Quote:
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

Quote:
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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Now is the time to Stand up and be Counted for we are being watched by the Spirit World -- Joanna Shenandoah
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  #14  
Old 07-09-2018, 11:00 PM
sentient sentient is offline
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As an outsider looking in, so in my imagination only here since I don’t know the real reality of it and am here to learn - to me it sounds like if you are a white American - it is so very cool to have a distant Native American ancestor story:

http://www.rootsandrecombinantdna.co...-not-that.html
Quote:
Let me guess! You have an "Indian Princess" story in your direct family line? Or your great-great-grandfather was rumored to be half-Cherokee? Or you've got photos, census records, tribal enrollment papers and other anecdotal evidence proving your direct ancestor was Choctaw? In fact people tell you all the time that you and especially your grandmother have features like the Rosebud Sioux Tribe? So when you decided to take a DNA test, you were either mildly expecting or hastily anticipating Native American to show up in your DNA ( = ethnicity admixture percentages)? And now your results are in and ...you got ZERO percent? OR a disappointingly low amount? OR another surprising ethnic component altogether? Yikes!

But if you are Metis, the reality of the situation can be quite different. Page 231:
https://books.google.com.au/books?id...page&q&f=false

*
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  #15  
Old 09-09-2018, 02:46 PM
KorneyTaino KorneyTaino is offline
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I join. And I have faced it. We can communicate on this theme.
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  #16  
Old 09-09-2018, 04:50 PM
sentient sentient is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KorneyTaino
I join. And I have faced it. We can communicate on this theme.
So - what is it like being Taíno or part Taíno in or from the Caribbeans?
What did you face?
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  #17  
Old 20-09-2018, 07:48 AM
sentient sentient is offline
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“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” ― Oscar Wilde

No point in becoming Indigenous or Aboriginal with some romantic ideals - they/we have more unresolved traumas than you can poke a stick at.
Realize that.

Or do I speak out of turn?
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  #18  
Old 20-10-2018, 05:54 PM
Little Creek77 Little Creek77 is offline
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It is all learned. The world we live in, molds who we are. Thus blood quota is meaningless.
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  #19  
Old 20-10-2018, 06:51 PM
linen53 linen53 is offline
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Join Date: Sep 2013
Posts: 14,332
 
I had my DNA testing through 23 and Me and they were able to pinpoint what part of Africa my black heritage originated from. Not sure if they can do that with Native Americans. BTW, I'm only 1% black.

23 an Me has ongoing research going on continually in figuring out human genetics/dna. And they can tell me many of the diseases that I am prone to get or not get (I opted to know, you don't have to).

Like I said, they continue to research with their members. They are always emailing me to take tests to measure this or that which I always do for them. I also get emails telling with new results all the time. We have a great partnership.
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