Before I go out and weave I felt I must answer this from my Honorary Injun friend. This is going to be painful so make sure you don’t have a wedgie before reading this. Ready? Rain dances don’t actually need weather to permit them! And all they do is induce gas. Ever have a tummy ache? Do a rain dance and that tummy ache will be gone in no time. Trust Mama!
Yep, 3/32 degree of Choctaw and is a member by blood of the Choctaw Tribe. Chicasaw runs deeper, but can’t be reliably confirmed so I just hold the two Choctaw cars (the other is from the Bureau of Indian Affairs).
Chiming in at 1/16th Native American. Great-great-grandmother. Sadly, the family was not proud of the fact and did not record her name or her tribe (nation?). Possibly Cree. Well, the records may not show it but my grandmother definitely looked Indian and my dad does a bit too. I have too much German and English blood mixed in for any trace to show. But I’m proud of it anyway.
At the risk of seeming like a new-ager, I would love to get in touch with this piece of my heritage. So far all I have is a pair of moccasins and I did wear a pair of mukluks all through highschool. I learned a few dance steps at a pow-wow once. Loved the drumming. Uh… I can canoe, does that count?
hmm… how about a small tattoo of a bird in Native artwork?
OK, enough rambling.
rivulus
Back off, dude. I corner the Dutch market around here.
I’m 15/16 Dutch, 1/16 German. But I did see Dances with wolves once.
Does Aztec or Mayan count? I’m 1/4 Mexican, which means that my ancestry has some Aztec and/or Maya in it. For the record my descent is 1/4 Mexican, 1/4 Jewish, 1/4 Polish, 1/8 Japanese, 1/8 African. American Indian is one of the few ethnic groups from which I don’t have any ancestry.
I don’t know what percentage Cherokee or Lumbee I am. My culture is black, but I’d like to trace my Indian heritage.
And here I was merely trying to keep her warm until you showed up…
Yep. On both sides of my family according to my parents. Cherokee, I think… along with a little bit of everything else!
Once again, I can’t be bothered to read this thread as I have too much of a life going on in another thread. I don’t want to miss a single thing ** Ender ** does today so I will make this fast. My injun intuition tells me that one of you has been offering a little Dutch insider! Not in my thread! Not until you admit you have worshipped me and put my picture in your outhouse, then by all means feel free to stick your little Dutchman anywhere you want. The ancestors are whispering to me that one of you wants to know more about your heritage. First of all, get that silly idea out of your head. All our ancestors did was dance around to get rid of gas and wear silly shoes! Now, if you want to impress any Indians around you here’s what you do…go to a class and learn to basket weave, then go up to the closest reservation claiming you just found out you are Indian. While talking innocently pick up some reeds and start weaving a basket, when asked what you are doing say you had a vision of sitting on the ground in front of a teepee while wearing silly shoes and weaving a basket just like this! Trust me, they will take you all over the council house and maybe even put your picture in the paper. All the Indians will be impressed. Trust Mama, I did this to my Grandmother and if begged enough I might just send out the newspaper article about my visions.
It might surprise you to know that most of MamaHen’s relations where not too proud to be known as Indians, it wasn’t until years later when the greedier of the relatives found out you got free stuff that we decided to admit it. By this time it was too late for the Dawes Roll. So what did we do? Since my great-Grandfather wasn’t on the rolls we did the next best thing, we got his brother. If you really want to prove you are Indian there are many ways to do so. Be creative, remember you are just as related to your Grandfather’s sister as you are to him only not in the same way. Plus once you have a CDIB , you can make Indian crafts and you can get these really nifty cards made up that say MADE BY A NATIVE AMERICAN. It’s really neat.So now I must go, things to do and threads to read you know. Til we meet again my little fumbie bisques.
1/16th Flathead tribe here.
According to a Native-American linguist, “Indian” is an acceptable term and predates the country of India. According to this linguist, what happended was Columbus called the inhabitants of the new world something like “One with God.” In Italian, this would be “Un con il Dio.” The Spanish picked up on this, followed by the English. Along the way it was shortened and corrupted to “Indian.”
I appreciate the “warming up,” fellas, but I much prefer llamas (particularly deadly ones) to Dutch boys.
Carry on. 
If you believe the family myths, we’re part Navajo (father’s father’s side), and probably part Cherokee (father’s mother’s side), too. My Grandmother certainly LOOKED it, but heaven forfend anyone suggest a good southern WHITE woman had a mixed heritage (she shut up real fast when my mom told her that the Mongolian Blue Spot birthmark most of us kids inherited probably came from someone of mixed blood in our background…). She looked it more and more the older she got, though. My Grandfather’s side is the one with the possible Navajo, but it could also be from any of the little tribes in the San Gabriel area. That side seems to have intermarried pre-Rolls, though, by a decade or so, so no luck on identifying (so far). My dad says his father’s grandmother (I think) was full-blooded something, but she didn’t talk about it, and folk didn’t ask, and she died. He guessed that she was Navajo, based on some other stuff, but he admitted to me that he’s not at all positive. She settled with her husband in the San Gabriel (CA) area, though, so I’m hoping to track down something more on her…
Our best ‘evidence’ is in our faces, but you know genetics - not exactly proof. Small eyes, high cheekbones (with the rounder cheeks over them), hugely barrel-chested men (the Navajo side), very very dark hair, lots of dark brown eyes and fairly dark skin showing up in the siblings (I’m the lightest, by far). I’ve been told (by people with a more significant lineage than mine) that I look mixed-blood (though my eyes are green and my skin does not even tan!). The rest of my heritage is Scottish, German, and Swedish (the vast majority of them, according to the photos I have, being blonde)…
One of these days I’ll track down enough of the genealogy to be able to say for sure who/what/where. Until then, I’m ‘probably’ descended from at least one Native American tribe. That good enough to count?
Disclaimer: I know that MPSIMS is the place for fun stuff, chatty stuff, games, flirting, etc. I am still new here, so please forgive any breach of forum etiquette. I wasn’t going to respond to this thread because I thought it was just a fun discussion thread, and so relatively harmless. It was only after people started posting somewhat serious questions that I thought some kind of clarification (or at least another perspective) was necessary. I don’t want to be rude or overly critical, nor do I want to turn this into a GQ or GD thread. I just wanted to point out a couple of things. Moderators, please accept my advance apologies if my post is inappropriate.
IIRC, this only applies to tribes who base their membership on the Dawes or the Guion Miller Rolls.
For SDMB members who are interested in investigating their tribal ancestry, please see the following link:
How do you claim membership in an American Indian or African tribe?
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=60285
In that thread Hazel made an excellent post that sums up my feelings on the subject better than I could.
This thread has a couple of links concerning tribal history and law:
Indian Rights Legislation
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=57790
Since a few folks are trying to trace their Cherokee ancestry, please see:
Cherokee History
http://www.tolatsga.org/Cherokee1.html
(thanks to Sofa King for providing the link in another thread)
I have to disagree with this. If a person is genuinely interested in learning more about his/her heritage (and attempting to claim tribal membership), I think that it would be essential for that person to learn as much as possible about his/her tribal history. I must also say that “our” ancestors did not dance around to rid themselves of gas. I use quotes around the word “our” because each tribe used dancing or singing or whatever cultural activity for their own specific ceremonial/community needs. All tribes have their differences. It would be unwise (not to mention inaccurate) of me to state that the cultural or ceremonial activities of my tribe (Mojave) are the same for other tribes. But, not knowing much about the Creek nation (and since nothing turned up through online searches), I’ll take your word that Creek people danced to get rid of their gas.:rolleyes: As far as wearing silly shoes goes, I’m sure they also were quite functional and not everyone thought they were silly.
I’m not quite sure what to say about this, except to ask if you’re joking. The general tone of all of your posts in this thread makes me question your seriousness. Now, I understand that this is MPSIMS, and if you just want to have a silly thread full of your silly Indian stories and observations, then great! But, it sounds like you are offering advice to other dopers, advice that IMHO is pretty offensive.
MamaHen, I’m not trying to hijack your thread, and from reading some of your other posts, I can see you have a fun online personality. So I’ve said the above only because I wanted other dopers to see another perspective. I am more than happy to describe my Indian heritage and share stories with other NA dopers. I just have a hard time doing it when, apart from posts asking how to establish tribal membership or describing the difficulty involved in tracing Indian descent (all very worthy of discussion), we have all of your posts describing your family’s quest for free stuff, perks, commodities, etc.
Please know that I am not trying to be overly critical. I don’t post much, and I’m still a little shy about doing it, so I’m really not trying to be rude. Thanks for the thread. I’ve always wanted to know if there were any other NA dopers, and this is a great way to find out.
one_madJack, thanks for the information you provided in your post. I agree with you and with what Hazel posted in one of the links you provided that there’s more to being an Indian than blood. One of the things I admire most about Indians is the strong sense of community that they have. I’m in no way trying to say that if I do find evidence beyond what my folks tell me that I’m __ percent Cherokee or whatever, I’m going to just stop being black overnight. I’d just like to know for my own edification because it’s probably one of the few parts of my heritage I might have some success tracing, and part of the fun of the search would be learning more about Indian cultures.
Thanks for your post, celestina. I admire people who want to explore their heritage. I really do think that an important part of any exploration begins with understanding that, in addition to the history or the culture of any particular Indian tribe, we are talking about vibrant communities. I think that you should try to explore your NA heritage and I wish you luck. It can be a challenging endeavor, but still enlightening.
I also wanted to mention that some resources do exist outside of reservations. There are Indian groups and organizations in many urban cities. Lots of tribes even have their own websites!
http://www.primenet.com/~itca/Tribes/mojave.htm
(note: this isn’t an official Mojave web page, just gives a brief overview.)
So there I was laying in my sick bed just back from the Emergency Room when it hits me, has anyone worshipped me in my Native American thread? So I limp into the kitchen and log on and what do I see? Someone taking me seriously! OH yes one_madjack I know who you are, you are the one they call dances with pink feather boas! Get out of my thread. But first read this and maybe learn something. MamaHen (that’s me) Has a SENSE OF HUMOR! MamaHen (still talking about me here) makes jokes. I thank you for answering the other Indian tribe questions truely I do. Were this in GQ or some other forum I can see how out of line my jokes would be. I could see your point but instead my little thread is in a little place called MPSIMS where there are ALOT of jokes. I notice you liked to pull up my Indian relations jokes but did you mention me looking like a super model or wanting my pictures hung in outhouses? No and that just makes you look silly. If you will take a look back through the thread you will notice the ancestors told me to only answer posts that were somewhat jokey and I was serious when there was a serious subject. If you notice the OP you will see that I never claim to have knowledge of any trible but the two civilized tribes I mentioned. If you think I didn’t really read the thread and the ancestors spoke to me then you need help, start with prozac it works like a dream.
Having said all of this I must stop and textually (is that a word? e-mail me with your thoughts) slap you. I do not have a fun jokey online personality. I am really this way. Ask my poor Grandmother who has more than once been horrified by my jokes in person. This is true, she refuses to go to Wal-Mart with me because of the time I screamed out, “hey Granny the lube you are looking for is over here!” She’s so sensitive. Or the time we were picking out my Grandfather’s headstone and I posed in front of all of them as a corpse asking how I looked and could I make a lay away plan on one of them. This is the type of person I really am. I don’t try to be anything online I am not in person. I type much better in person though!
And the last thing, your posts did not bother me at all. I am an Indian which I think I first addressed in the OP and I know that most Indians do NOT have a good sense of humor. And if you are NOT an Indian, where the hell did you leave yours? I can understand being new and if you noticed I am newer than you here! I did want to know other Indians on the SDMB so that’s why I started the thread. I am sure the Indians out there real or imagined will forgive me for claiming they had silly shoes as they understand that it is a joke. Now excuse me while I go sit in my teepee and mourn the loss of my car.
Also those who are asking if you count, yes you all count and remember Mama loves you all. If anyone asks tell them Mama said you are an Indian and if they have any questions tell them to call me at 1-800-Fuq-Mama. I’ll handle it for you all my brothers and sisters. one_madjack, my little fumbie bisque, relax, smoke the peace pipe and let me feel your man boobs. 'Nuff typed! I am off like a tomahawk
Let me just say that I did preface my remarks and mentioned in my post that if you wanted to have a silly thread where you make your silly jokes, then that is great. I tried to make a distinction between a silly thread and a thread that starts out silly only to become one where some serious misinformation is spread. As for getting out of your thread, ummmm, I think we’re on a public message board. You also called out for other NA dopers to respond to you. I did.
Again, I made a point of prefacing my remarks and added that I didn’t want to turn this into a GQ or GD thread. I can appreciate that you have a sense of humor. I had hoped that you might stop for a moment and put it on pause so that you might see that other dopers were looking for information. I provided it. I also wanted to put out another perspective. Remember, you did ask for other Native Americans to chime into this thread, “or forever be thought of as a non-Native American.”
Joke threads are usually labeled as such and your OP gave no indication that you were looking to only make jokes about Indians. I thought that you might be reaching out to other NA dopers, looking for conversation, or just wanting to start a thread to share stories.
Ummm, I thought this was a thread about NA dopers? I was responding to the remarks you made because–get this!–I didn’t know if you were joking! In fact, a very careful reading of my post would show that I did * ask if you were joking!*.
Now, I have to ask again. Are you joking? Look, I really don’t understand your response. It really sounds rude, and that puzzles me. I made a point to be polite with my comments. You made no mention of only answering “jokey” posts.
Lemme guess! You’re joking right? You don’t really want to slap me, do you? You don’t know me well enough to make jokes about slapping me, “textually” or otherwise.
Glad to see that I’m not the only one who doesn’t “get” your sense of humor. Besides, I don’t know you IRL, so I can only comment on your online persona.
Okay, you’re joking now, too, right? Most Indians don’t have a good sense of humor? Maybe you should move back to the reservation as soon as you can. You seem to be missing out on all of the truly funny people who also happen to be Indian.
See, this is where I begin to wonder if you even read my post. Or the one that followed it.
Oh! I thought it was just to make Indian jokes! Remember, you’re not interested in the non-“jokey” responses? I responded to the thread because I wanted to know if other Indians were on the board, too. In fact, if you’ll re-read my post, * I even thanked you for starting this thread so that NA dopers could respond*.
There were other “jokes” you made. As a NA I don’t have to think they, or you, are funny. In fact, if you have to explain that you were joking, it’s a pretty good indication that your jokes aren’t funny.
Ummm, okay, whatever. I’ll state this again. I tried to be polite in my responses to you. I tried to help out a couple of dopers who appeared to have some non-“jokey” questions, or just wanted to share some non-“jokey” experiences. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but your response seems rude and more than a little puzzling.
The Mescalero reservation is a beautiful, mountainous area in southern New Mexico. Come visit! They have a fascinating history. Stay at the “Inn of the Mountain Gods.”
Jill
Oh Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, Jack!
I was giving you the benefit of the doubt in your first post, but your reply to the Hen just blows my mind. You didn’t think talking about pictures in outhouses and pink boas was a strong enough indication of it being a joke post? Sometimes, if you have to tell someone it was a joke, the joke isn’t very funny.
I am sure people (including mama) appreciated the informative links you provided. But your complete inability to recognize that mama was joking about the shoes and the gas dancing and the garage teepees makes me wonder if you were just spoiling for a fight.
one-dumbjack, I’m waiting for you
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=1494690#post1494690
Mad STD love to you