Our Indigenous Roots

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This map shows you which Indigenous lands you’re living on.

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BY Rob Brezsny (SUBSTACK)

Our Indigenous Roots

Even if our forebears arrived in what we now call Americas in the 1600s, and our predecessors have lived on the continent for the last 14 generations, we can all trace our ancestry back to some group of Indigenous people.

Maybe your people were Celts who lived in what’s now Austria during the ninth century BCE. Or perhaps your biological line was Jewish Egyptian three millennia ago, or Chinese as far back as the ancient Xia Dynasty, or Mycenaean in the Aegean area of what we now call Greece circa 3200 BCE.

One fact is indisputable: In a literal sense, every one of us has Indigenous roots. At some point, our ancestors fit the official definition of Indigenous: “a culturally distinct ethnic group that is native to a particular place.”

Let’s go further. Mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade tells us that whether or not we know our own Indigenous past, we can and should strive to be in close touch with our inner Indigenous person.

What does that mean? Meade says we can benefit from seeing the world through an Indigenous perspective, with a reverence for nature and receptivity to the teachings available to us from the non-human intelligences of animals and plants as well as the spiritual realm.

Here’s the sticky part. Even if we have not personally participated in damaging the Indigenous cultures of the land we now live on, our destinies are defined and shaped by the fact that those cultures were damaged. Everything we do is built on the results of the damage.

When most of our fellow Americans came of age, our education included little about the calamity committed against the native people. If the evidence for the desecration appeared in our history textbooks, it was dealt with cursorily. We grew up with a carefully cultivated amnesia about the tragic origins of the United States. The story of African American slavery was almost equally suppressed.

Our hypothesis is that this amnesia, this failure to fully acknowledge the roots of our civilization, dampens our ability to be, as Michael Meade recommends, in close touch with our own inner Indigenous person.

We may not feel guilt, remorse, and shame on a conscious level. But like all suppressed emotions, they churn and burn in our deep psyches, alienating us from the Indigenous perspective we all need.

And yes, we need that perspective if we hope to reverse the juggernaut of humanity’s ecocidal ways—and preserve our earthly paradise for the generations to come after us.

On a personal level, we need a full, generous communion with our inner Indigenous person because it has tremendous power to keep us grounded. It potentially provides us with essential support in our lifelong labor to ensure our mind is anchored in earthy practicality.

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Malidoma Patrice Somé was born into the Dagara tribe of Burkina Faso. At a young age, he was kidnapped by Jesuits, but eventually returned to his village to undergo an initiation rite into manhood. Later he emigrated to America, where he taught his unique blend of modern and traditional spirituality.

One of his featured themes was the hardship that Westerners’ souls endure because of the destructive impact of the machine world upon the spiritual world.

He suggested that there is “an Indigenous person within each of us” that longs to cultivate the awareness and understanding enjoyed by Indigenous people: a reverence for nature, a vital relationship with ancestors, and a receptivity to learn from the intelligence of animals.

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To annihilate indigenous populations eventually paves the way to our own annihilation. They are the only people who practice sustainable living. We think they are relics of the past, but they may be the gatekeepers to our future.

—author and activist Arundhati Roy

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These are a few questions our inner Indigenous person longs to know and takes action to discover: How well do we know the land and the ecology of the place where we live, including its history? Can we name ten local species of trees and plants? Ten species of birds and insects? Do we know the story of the geological past? What are five bodies of water near us? Do we know which Indigenous people once dwelled where we do now?

3-Part Series: NEW rules under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

 INDIAN COUNTRY TODAY : FANTASTIC SERIES

LINK

Read ICT's entire NAGPRA series:
—NAGPRA Part 1: A sea change in federal regulations
—NAGPRA Part 2: ‘A state of Gozhoo’
—NAGPRA Part 3: A model for future Indigenous exhibits

Blood Quantum use is controversial

 

How a US colonial notion of ‘blood quantum’ for tribal membership is threatening Indigenous nations

"Blood quantum" is a U.S. colonial notion to identify whether someone is Indigenous and to which tribal band they belong. Its use is controversial.

READ MORE

 

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More: Wisconsin’s story doesn't start with Jean Nicolet. A brief history of forced relocation and 'landcestry.'

More: 28 site names that slur Indigenous women are being removed in Wisconsin. Here's what's happening next.

Indigenous academics argue that all First Nations in the U.S. will soon have to address blood quantum to deal with declining enrollments.

Quick Note: Google is harvesting data - but as far as we know, there is not another platform to use for this blog... STAY TUNED!

[Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: Link between Adoption and Suicide is Real

[Birth Mother] First Mother Forum: Link between Adoption and Suicide is Real: photo: Daughter Jane and Lorraine 

Link between Adoption and Suicide is Real

Daughter Jane and Lorraine

It was a bracing morning being brought back to reality about how the world see the woman who gave up a child for adoption. Not nicely is the short answer. 

A ten-minute morning interview for drive-to-work radio show in the New York/New Jersey area led to be being mentally whacked for having a relationship with a married man, which I did, and his having an Irish Catholic background was another reason to pile on the  criticism.  She gave the listeners advice--don't have an affair with a married man, look where that led for this stupid person I'm interviewing.

We did cover that I found her, that her adoptive parents had already tried to find me, that her epilepsy was almost certainly caused by the birth-control pills I took when I was pregnant but did not know...and then she asked how my relationship with my daughter was today.

I had to say that she died.  Since the next question was going to be about that--I told the truth.  She died by suicide.  Mincing words is not my style.  I was able to say some more but since people listening today might come to the blog to read about suicide, 

I'm excerpting a small section of Hole In My Heart below: 

    While there are no good statistics on adoptees who actually commit suicide, research on adopted populations shows that a disproportionate number are likely to. No matter how you slice the numbers, adoption increases the probability of suicide, no matter how many adoptees never have a thought of it, no matter how many adoptees are successful, smart, and may one day end up on the Supreme Court. It is unlikely there will ever be good statistics on how many adoptees commit suicide because “adopted” is not noted on death certificates. 

    What we do know is that more adoptees than non-adoptees think about suicide quite often.  Google “suicide and adoption” and what pops up is an entry from the medical journal Pediatrics, “Adoption as a Risk Factor for Attempted Suicide during Adolescence.”  That study unequivocally states, “Attempted suicide is more common among adolescents who live with adoptive parents than among adolescents who live with biological parents.” The connection between adoption and suicide persisted even after the researchers adjusted for depression, aggression, and impulsive behavior.  Not surprisingly, “family connectedness,” whether among the adopted or non-adopted, did decrease the likelihood of suicide attempts. 

    Researchers at the University of Minnesota reported that adopted teens were almost four times more likely to attempt suicide than those who lived with their natural parents, even after adjustment for factors associated with suicidal behavior, such as psychiatric disorder symptoms, personality traits, family environment, and academic disengagement.  Girls were more likely than boys to attempt suicide.  About 75 percent of the adopted teens in the study (more than 1,200, all living in Minnesota) were adopted before the age of two and were foreign born—mostly from South Korea.

    This deep dive into suicide and adoption followed a study by the lead researcher and others who concluded that being adopted approximately doubled the odds of having a disruptive behavior disorder and having contact with a mental health professional. Interestingly, international adoptees were less likely to exhibit behavior disorders.

B. J. Lifton wrote that at a seminar for adoptive parents when she brought up the fact that the percentage of adoptee suicide was statistically high, a prominent psychiatrist asked if that nasty bit could be deleted from the tape, which was to be later sold as a record of the talk.  Lifton agreed but later wrote she was sorry she had. --from Hole In My Heart.

The Great Divider: How the Baby Veronica case was the sign

 REBLOG from February 24, 2014

By Trace Hentz

OK, as promised, I have more thoughts after I went to the hallowed halls of Yale Law School last Friday to hear a review of the Baby Veronica Case - and to hear what NCAI, NARF and the Tribal Supreme Court Law Project at Yale were doing while this major case was going on... and I reported to you yesterday what they said essentially…

There weren't any surprises for me unless you count how these panelists didn't use the time to discuss the genocide that actually occurred prior the passing of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 and the child abductions by social workers and missionaries - nor did they mention human trafficking and the Nightlight Adoption Agency dealings with Maldonado, the birthmother.  They did mention boarding schools.

So, I was truly upset. From what I heard, it appears American Indians are eons behind in civil rights and we can't seem to win a case in the Supreme Court.  I’d heard that warning years prior but this time at Yale was a bit more in my face. This case was about adoption by non-Indians, something I lived myself.

We had Justice Alito writing an opinion that Veronica is 1.2% Indian.  NARF attorney Joel West Williams asked the Yale audience, "Who in America is 1/16 or 3/256th anything?"  Yet we have a judge issuing his opinion by measuring an Indian for their Indian-ness which equates to measuring a child’s blood? This is still happening?

·        JUSTICE ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court:

This case is about a little girl (Baby Girl) who is classified as an Indian because she is 1.2% (3/256) Cherokee. Because Baby Girl is classified in this way, the South Carolina Supreme Court held that certain provisions of the federal Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 required her to be taken, at the age of 27 months, from the only parents she had ever known and handed over to her biological father, who had attempted to relinquish his [**736]parental rights and who had no prior contact with the child. The provisions of the federal statute [*2557] at issue here do not demand this result.

 

·        Jun 25 2013: Judgment REVERSED and case REMANDED. Alito, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Thomas, J., and Breyer, J., filed concurring opinions. Scalia, J., filed a dissenting opinion. Sotomayor, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg and Kagan, JJ., joined, and in which Scalia, J., joined in part. Read more here

·         

I couldn’t sleep ... Dusten Brown never had a chance. He went to Iraq knowing the Capobiancos had his daughter but he had to serve a year and a JAG lawyer took his case.  The puzzle remains why Maldonado mysteriously breaks up with him and severs all communication. Was she punishing her high school sweetheart Dusten by selling his baby or was she manipulated by the adoption agency to take their money?

Then it hit me - keeping America ignorant of Indians, culture, actual history - this all works to take Indian children.  Judgment is easy.  Third World poverty (which we didn’t create) somehow equates to abuse of children.  Add their general ignorance of sovereignty and culture, what it means to be Cherokee or Lakota or Navajo or any tribe - and it means you can't win public opinion polls or cases before the Supreme Court? 

Ignorance about Indians? Exactly!

It's been going on since colonial contact.  Please, let's not call them settlers anymore but invaders.  America has always been the Great Divider, building its fences, writing its laws, counting on classism and racism to divide us. 

America wins every time when it perpetuates this ignorance of Indians.  Do Indians do a good job of educating others about culture, or what's important to us?  Not really.  We're way behind in any civil rights movement.  We've had movies romanticizing us over 100 years and it's hard to kill those "savage" “redskin” stereotypes drilled into all our heads!  

What do Americans know about Indians? Nothing.  Practically zilch.

America's "taking care" of Indians only works to create HATE among Americans who view us as privileged in some way that they are not.  Like why do we even have a law that keeps nice white people from adopting Indian babies?  Trust me, ICWA is under attack.

I do know that Indians are way ahead in surviving every broken treaty and then fighting each other over small scraps of power.  Some tribes even subscribe to "blood quantum" as if they need to purge their citizen rolls of those who may be too white or too black.

We have Supreme Court Justices using the blood quantum argument and you see that is not entirely their fault (they all went to law school but didn’t even have a course on Indian Law at those Ivy League schools) but it tells me - do not go anywhere near them.  They are not even aware of their ignorance.  Dusten Brown didn't have a chance, not in that court.

We Indians shouldn't go anywhere near that court or any court with that level of stupidity.  No, you can't tell Americans they are stupid.

What the panel did say was each and every tribe needs to create and have their own child protection network. I agree since it's pretty evident that you can't trust any non-Indian social worker to go to the reservation and use their mother- father “family unit” example.  Only Indians can decide who the right people are to care for its children.  That person might be an auntie, grandmother or another relative, depending on who in the tribal family is willing and able.

And the panel said we need more American Indian lawyers who become judges - because the way it is now - Indians can’t win.

For many years Vine Deloria and others did try very hard to educate others (with their brilliant books) on the white man’s level, even earning degrees in white man’s colleges like Yale and Harvard, but it all comes down to this:  whites don’t really care.

And if we really think about it, this is a very dangerous situation to be in.

Footnote:  I attended white schools like most everyone else - Really nothing I learned was true or real about Indian culture or history. I learned more sitting at the kitchen table of my friend Ellowyn who is Oglala Lakota, who gave me an education about Indians not written about anywhere.  Then there was my one adoptive aunt (a first-born American) who calls me a liar when I told her there were Indian Boarding Schools, and this was right after I visited Haskell in Kansas.  No, Americans are not learning about Indians or the truth of our history. 

The Baby Veronica case is the sign, whether we wish to see it that way or not - but we can no longer ignore the ignorance or the danger surrounding this case. 

 

THIS BLOG HAS MANY POSTS ABOUT THE BABY V CASE... Yes, she was adopted out...

 

BLOODISM? READ THIS

Does adopting make people high? #WonderDrug

reblog from 2013

By Trace A. DeMeyer  Hentz

I’ve been reading blogs by Christian folks who saved an orphan and plan to do it again.  Apparently using the words “Christian” and “Orphan” somehow makes this adoption business holy. “Doing God’s work,” some potential adoptive parents (PAPS) are blogging how they are so compassionate and defend it’s the Christian thing that they adopted babies - because these babies were orphans and in need and “born in another womb” decreed by God to be adopted by them.  Really.  Really?

A few PAPS were upset that no one understands how difficult it is for them as married couples to cope with infertility and no one feels sorry for them. So that makes it perfectly alright for them to go out and buy adopt that baby.  (Yup, it’s always a baby they want. They get angry if you argue with them.)  

So adopting makes them feel good. It doesn’t really matter a woman will have to sacrifice her baby for them. (Some birthmothers may also feel euphoric they gave a couple a precious baby. Maybe a few did it for cash.)  It’s a mind bender that it doesn’t enter their minds that the baby hurts and is devastated losing their mother (or father) and this wound lasts a lifetime…

There are thousands upon thousands of PAPS who want only a baby and defend their reasons why.  Adoption agencies are more than happy to make their dreams come true.

I have a new theory.  It’s a crazy world out there.  People want to feel better so they’ll rescue someone, in this case a baby, and this “giving” back will create euphoria in their brain chemistry.  I think the adoption industry has manipulated and used “adopting babies” as the wonder drug that clouds the mind from adoption reality. (They also steer clear of the adoptee perspective or Nancy Verrier’s Primal Wound in their adoption propaganda.)

So these righteous saviors of babies are on a mission to feel better about themselves. Adopting makes them high.

Read this:

Giving and Brain Chemistry

Norm at normblog quotes a piece in the New York Sun about giving:

…the surprising conclusion is that giving affects our brain chemistry. For example, people who give often report feelings of euphoria, which psychologists have referred to as the "Helper's High." They believe that charitable activity induces endorphins that produce a very mild version of the sensations people get from drugs like morphine and heroin.

Norm offers a thought experiment: if a pill reproduced exactly the same brain effects, wouldn't people still give? I agree this suggests there's more to it.

Adding to that, and reflecting on my own thought processes related to giving, I think this is a good case illustrating the interactions between levels of causes in human behavior. Proximately, I often go through with a charitable act despite fretting that it will be boring, too much trouble, too costly, or otherwise unpleasant. But upon doing it, or soon afterwards, I feel a sort of euphoria I would associate with the endorphin effect described in the NY Sun article.

I will suppose that the euphoria and the associated brain chemistry register somehow in my mind -- in behaviorist terms, an association is reinforced between the feeling and the act of giving -- and this association comes into play the next time a choice for giving arises.  But even if so, the association is barely liminal, and I don't reflect along the lines of 'I'll get a nice endorphin rush if I go through with this.' Rather, I think along the lines of 'good people do things like this, and I want to be a good person despite the short-term fuss I will have to endure' -- and I think the euphoric brain chemistry is a bonus (and should be seen as a second-order cause) that keeps acts of giving on the list of thinkable, possible alternatives. The next time I am faced with a choice to give or not to, I will have inarticulate impulses pushing for it, and these impulses will be rooted in brain chemistry.

Source: http://danceswithanxiety.blogspot.com/2007/12/giving-and-brain-chemistry.html 


I do expect some people will disagree so please leave a comment... (Unless you are HIGH!)  Trace

Seed Beads and Porcupine Quills

the first pair of earrings I made

REBLOG from 2011

 

No one knew what ancestry I had growing up. It mattered more to me than it did to the family who adopted me. As adoptees grow up, we realize we are a mystery; sadly our adoptive family may not know anything or share anything with us about our true identity. That is a hard way to live, not a good way to live. It hurts when people call you a bastard or orphan. It happened to me often – I was asked why I was adopted. I didn’t know the answer. How could I know? I was relying on lies and half-truths, like it was better I didn’t know the truth about me and my mother. I hated the way I was treated: like I was someone who did not deserve to know the truth, as if it should not matter to me!

I did follow my spirit when I started to make beaded jewelry, long before I knew I had any Indian blood. I still have the first pair of earrings I made when I was 20. Something drew me to seed beads and porcupine quills. Blood is embedded with our genetic code. No one can alter that. I didn’t know about my Shawnee ancestry until I was almost 40.

Here is a something else to consider: “…Before Europeans arrived, Indian education taught children how to thrive. Social education taught responsibilities to the extended family and the clan, band, or tribe. Vocational education taught about child rearing, home management, farming, hunting, gathering, fishing, and so forth. Children learned about their place in the cosmos through stories and ceremonies. Traditional Indian education emphasized learning by application and imitation, not by memorizing information…” This is from Path of Many Journeys, The Benefits of Higher Education for Native People and Communities, published in February 2007.

So Indian Country taught by example. Children watched and learned. I wanted to learn the peyote stitch, so I call this an interest by instinct and blood. When I think back, I prayed while I beaded. Each bead I strung, I would pray. No one in my adoptive family ever said to do this. No one taught me or encouraged me to bead. My first husband actually discouraged it since he said I wouldn’t make money selling them. He missed the point. I made this jewelry to give away as gifts. Edie, my adoptive mother, often wore hers to church.

I did a radio interview on Sunday Sept. 25 (See Interviews & Readings 2011 on the left sidebar) and a friend asked me to answer this on air: “If you love someone you want to know everything about them… Why don’t adoptive parents want to know everything about their child?” (Since we ran out of time, I was not able to answer this.)

Here is my answer: I think some adoptive parents did and do want to know. I know some were told personal details in meetings with social workers and lawyers. (For example, Edie saw paperwork on my brother and saw his real name in the 1950s.) Before the 1950s, the adoption system believed in openness so adoptive parents had more details about blood and the child’s birth family; this was the era of eugenics and fears of “Bad Seed” in certain children put up for adoption. Openness changed when the adoptive family started to demand total privacy in adoption, obviously to calm their anxiety and fears of losing a child they adopted. To seal the deal, adoption records were closed in most states so baby and birthmother would never meet or be able to know each other. We know some parents spent thousands of dollars to adopt a baby (or babies) and didn’t want to ever lose that child. We also know social workers created stories and myths so adoptees would appear perfect and very smart. Imagine the disappointment if a child starts to act anxious or traumatized and “acts out” over this mystery they are forced to accept for life. A few adoptees told me they heard details growing up that were later found to be lies, especially about ancestry.

Another question was: Do adoptive parents disown children if they open their adoption and find their birthfamily? Yes. It happens frequently.

State systems and religion-based adoption groups still control information and secrecy with sealed records. Secrecy prevents future reunions. Secrecy would also protect some birthmothers from future judgment or scandals concerning their immorality. We also know that information collected was purposefully vague to prevent adoptees from finding their birthparents or vice versa.

Why adoptive parents do not tell adoptees anything is simply their preference, and their belief that we are theirs legally. They don’t believe blood matters. This is a very flawed way of thinking. I am living proof that blood matters greatly.

I will be answering more questions in the next blog posts… If you have a question, click on the  "Contact" tab on this page... Trace

$1.3 billion in damages: #60sScoop get their day in court

REBLOG from 2016

August 23, 2016

 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Michelle Siu

Thousands of First Nations, Métis and Inuit across Canada who were ripped from their homes as children are getting their day in court after a years-long struggle in what has become known as the “Sixties Scoop,” a painful, but little-understood chapter of Canadian history.

The so-called scoop happened between the 1960s and the 1980s and saw thousands of aboriginal children taken from their homes by child-welfare service workers and placed with mostly non-aboriginal families. In some cases, children were sent to live with families in other provinces, the United States and the U.K., often without the consent of their parents.

A  legacy of  ‘cultural genocide’

The fallout from the practice has negatively impacted generations of aboriginal Canadians.

The final Truth and Reconciliation Commission report stated “the effects of the residential school experience and the Sixties Scoop have adversely affected parenting skills and the success of many Aboriginal families.”

“By the end of the 1970s, the transfer of children from residential schools was nearly complete in Southern Canada, and the impact of the Sixties Scoop was in evidence across the country,” the TRC said.

“In 1977, Aboriginal children accounted for 44 per cent of the children in care in Alberta, 51 per cent 

of the children in care in Saskatchewan, and 60 per cent of the children in care in Manitoba.”

READ MORE: Indigenous community shares stories of survival decades after the ’60s Scoop

The “Sixties Scoop” has not received the same attention as another dark chapter in Canada’s history: the issue of residential schools. And unlike survivors of the residential school system, adults who went through the Sixties Scoop have never received an apology from the federal government. Last June, the Manitoba government formally apologized to those affected.

Marcia Brown Martel, a member of the Temagami First Nation near Kirkland Lake, Ont., was taken by child welfare officials and adopted by a non-native family as a child.

Martel has described what happened to her and thousands of others as “cultural genocide.”

“I lost everything, including my name. I lost my family. I lost my language. I lost everything about my culture,” Martel told The Canadian Press. “This should never have happened. It was wrong.”

Dozens of supporters rallied outside a Toronto courtroom Tuesday where an Ontario Superior Court judge will hear opening arguments for a summary judgment in a class action lawsuit against the federal government by survivors of the Sixties Scoop.

At the heart of the Ontario lawsuit, is a federal-provincial arrangement in which Ontario child welfare services placed as many as 16,000 aboriginal children with non-native families from December 1965 to December 1984.

WATCH: Indigenous community shares stories of survival decades after the 60’s Scoop

The claim, which has not been proven in court, alleges the children suffered a devastating loss of cultural identity that the federal government should have protected. The suit alleges plaintiffs suffered emotional, psychological and spiritual harm from the lost connection to their aboriginal heritage.  

They are seeking $1.3 billion in damages, or $85,000 for each affected person.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs will argue they have enough evidence to forego a trial and prove that Canada had an obligation in law to ensure that indigenous children removed from their homes retain their cultural identity and heritage.

READ MORE: ’60s Scoop plaintiffs finally to get day in court

Tuesday’s hearing comes after seven years of delays due to appeals by the federal government, which has fought the claim since it was launched in 2009.

“Today I stand with the survivors of the Ontario Sixties Scoop as they fight for justice and acknowledgement after decades of heartache,” said AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde, in a statement. “Survivors of the Sixties Scoop deserve just resolution and restitution without further delay.  The federal government said recently that they would prefer to resolve this issue outside the courtroom.  If they are serious then they should work with survivors of the Sixties Scoop to get a respectful, acceptable process in place.”

Sixties Scoop survivor Dokis Thibault is emotional as she gathers with supporters at a rally in Toronto on Tuesday, August 23, 2016. Scores of aboriginals from across Ontario rallied in Toronto today ahead of a landmark court hearing on the so-called ’60s Scoop.

Calls on Ottawa to recognize an ‘immense wrong’

A number of indigenous leaders called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an open letterto resolve the issue without further delay and to “recognize and right an immense wrong — with both words and deeds.”

“This case is about Canadian values – past, present and future,” the letter says. “This moment is an opportunity for Canada to put an ugly legacy behind us, for the government to take steps to reform its conduct so that the injustice does not continue and build a better future for all. It’s a chance to open the door for future generations to grow up healthy and proud of who they are.”

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennetthas said she wants to see the lawsuit over the Sixties Scoop taken out of court.

“We, as you know — as a government — would like to get things out of court and to a table where we can make those kinds of agreements together, as a way forward,” Bennett told reporters in Winnipeg in August.

“We want to work together with all of the litigants that are presently in court and try and get to the table.”

*With files from the Canadian Press