So Elizabeth Warren...

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Inbreed yourselves to death or lose your identity, basically?

Yep. Among populations with incest taboos so strong that people were often not allowed to marry within their own clan or village. That's one of the main functions of the modern pow-wow, incidentally; they're basically a hook-up fest where people can meet eligible singles they aren't related to.

I'm pretty sure that the way it's set up, mixing with somebody from a different nation reduces a resulting childs blood quantum. There's people who are full blood NA or close to it (say a mix like Ojibway, Lakota and Navajo) who can't get on tribal rolls. I've also heard of weird rules in some cases like having to be born on the rez or even have both parents born on the rez, things like that. And a lot of kids get yanked and adopted out to white families and never can get any kind of tribal status back. It's called "paper genocide"...making people disappear on paper.

Yes, you can only claim BQ from one tribe, which has created a situation in which people who are full-blood Native are not considered Native at all for legal purposes. It's utter and complete genocidal bullshit.

Rules like being born on the reservation or having parents from the reservation are decided tribe to tribe, and are mostly about keeping resources in the community.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

And yet if your mothers jewish youre jewish. I dunno makes sense to me if youre full na and you dont have a specific tribal affiliation you can claim one of two tribes.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And yet if your mothers jewish youre jewish. I dunno makes sense to me if youre full na and you dont have a specific tribal affiliation you can claim one of two tribes.

Your blood quantum dictates your tribal eligibility, and you are labeled with that blood quantum. Your offspring, too, are labeled with that blood quantum. If you and your spouse are each full-blood indians, from sixteen different tribes, only the blood quantum from ONE tribe is counted, and your children will be full blood indian with not enough blood quantum from any one tribe to be a legally recognized as a tribe member.

Many tribes were left with so few members... only a few hundred, or fewer... that to marry within the tribe without marrying a close relative was impossible. And it only takes four generations to whittle BQ down to 1/16th. Four. That's it.

Many, many tribes have gone extinct due to BQ laws. The tribes who really lucked out are the confederacies, where several tribes were stuck together on one reservation under a single tribal identification.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, and BQ is determined based on being able to trace lineage to someone on one of the census rolls the government took of indians on reservations between 1885 and 1940. If your ancestors weren't on a reservation or for any other reason did not participate in the census, you aren't legally indian. If you only trace to one ancestor and the rest are undocumented, even if they have always lived on the reservation, you are legally only as indian as your BQ from that one ancestor. If your ancestors were for some reason being punished by the US Army, for example they were captured Apache soldiers, then you are not legally indian.

The BIA has all kinds of ways to minimize the indian population. For a while the big thing was "termination"; disbanding tribes and then unrecognizing them when they got below a certain population. There are tribes on the Oregon coast that got terminated in the 1960s that are still fighting for recognition today.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Oh, and BQ is determined based on being able to trace lineage to someone on one of the census rolls the government took of indians on reservations between 1885 and 1940. If your ancestors weren't on a reservation or for any other reason did not participate in the census, you aren't legally indian. If you only trace to one ancestor and the rest are undocumented, even if they have always lived on the reservation, you are legally only as indian as your BQ from that one ancestor. If your ancestors were for some reason being punished by the US Army, for example they were captured Apache soldiers, then you are not legally indian.

The BIA has all kinds of ways to minimize the indian population. For a while the big thing was "termination"; disbanding tribes and then unrecognizing them when they got below a certain population. There are tribes on the Oregon coast that got terminated in the 1960s that are still fighting for recognition today.

Yup. My paternal Grandma was full blooded Choqtaw, biologically. Legally she was white. Something about a deal the Mississippi Choqtaw were offered in the early 20th century, move to a reservation 1/4 the size of the current one, or abandon your culture. Overnight the Mississippi Choqtaw went from tens of thousands to 3 thousand. Anyone not descended from those 3000 is not legally Choqtaw.

I've always wanted to learn about that side of my heritage, but the fear of being seen as a "plastic Indian", like you mentioned, has totally kept me from reaching out to the tribe. I'm not interested in scholarships or stipends or anything...just knowledge of a side of my family I never got the chan,e to know.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, and BQ is determined based on being able to trace lineage to someone on one of the census rolls the government took of indians on reservations between 1885 and 1940. If your ancestors weren't on a reservation or for any other reason did not participate in the census, you aren't legally indian. If you only trace to one ancestor and the rest are undocumented, even if they have always lived on the reservation, you are legally only as indian as your BQ from that one ancestor. If your ancestors were for some reason being punished by the US Army, for example they were captured Apache soldiers, then you are not legally indian.

The BIA has all kinds of ways to minimize the indian population. For a while the big thing was "termination"; disbanding tribes and then unrecognizing them when they got below a certain population. There are tribes on the Oregon coast that got terminated in the 1960s that are still fighting for recognition today.

Yup. My paternal Grandma was full blooded Choqtaw, biologically. Legally she was white. Something about a deal the Mississippi Choqtaw were offered in the early 20th century, move to a reservation 1/4 the size of the current one, or abandon your culture. Overnight the Mississippi Choqtaw went from tens of thousands to 3 thousand. Anyone not descended from those 3000 is not legally Choqtaw.

I've always wanted to learn about that side of my heritage, but the fear of being seen as a "plastic Indian", like you mentioned, has totally kept me from reaching out to the tribe. I'm not interested in scholarships or stipends or anything...just knowledge of a side of my family I never got the chan,e to know.

People are usually very willing to talk to people in your situation... they can be suspicious at first, but that's really close kin and you may be able to find some cousins you can talk to, or maybe even visit.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Nigel's right, people generally ARE helpful with this kind of thing and will offer all kinds of suggestions. Everybody knows there's lots of lost birds out here.

Maybe a jerk like Elizabeth Warren would have trouble, but as long as you don't act like you're trying to presume on anything (and I don't think you would) you should do fine.

[Telarus]

You have a good handle on this, Nigel. My girl has also dealt with this bullshit. Her family can't make the single link required to the native founder of one of the towns near the Grande Ronde Reservation because a church burnt down 60+ years ago with the "only known" records.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Oh, and BQ is determined based on being able to trace lineage to someone on one of the census rolls the government took of indians on reservations between 1885 and 1940. If your ancestors weren't on a reservation or for any other reason did not participate in the census, you aren't legally indian. If you only trace to one ancestor and the rest are undocumented, even if they have always lived on the reservation, you are legally only as indian as your BQ from that one ancestor. If your ancestors were for some reason being punished by the US Army, for example they were captured Apache soldiers, then you are not legally indian.

The BIA has all kinds of ways to minimize the indian population. For a while the big thing was "termination"; disbanding tribes and then unrecognizing them when they got below a certain population. There are tribes on the Oregon coast that got terminated in the 1960s that are still fighting for recognition today.

Here's another one. They basically hyped a great life in the city and stranded people in slums. And yeah, it impacted blood quantum...a lot.
http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/history/relocate.html

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oh, and BQ is determined based on being able to trace lineage to someone on one of the census rolls the government took of indians on reservations between 1885 and 1940. If your ancestors weren't on a reservation or for any other reason did not participate in the census, you aren't legally indian. If you only trace to one ancestor and the rest are undocumented, even if they have always lived on the reservation, you are legally only as indian as your BQ from that one ancestor. If your ancestors were for some reason being punished by the US Army, for example they were captured Apache soldiers, then you are not legally indian.

The BIA has all kinds of ways to minimize the indian population. For a while the big thing was "termination"; disbanding tribes and then unrecognizing them when they got below a certain population. There are tribes on the Oregon coast that got terminated in the 1960s that are still fighting for recognition today.

Here's another one. They basically hyped a great life in the city and stranded people in slums. And yeah, it impacted blood quantum...a lot.
http://www.pbs.org/indiancountry/history/relocate.html

Yeah, relocation was part of the termination program, which was ended by Nixon in 1970. It did a LOT of damage. The BIA basically shipped hundreds of thousands of indians into cities and dumped them on the street with no support at all. When I was a kid, downtown Portland was FULL of homeless indians. Portland isn't even one of the relocation centers, but what I heard is that San Francisco was getting so many indians that the BIA office there started giving them bus tickets to Seattle and Portland.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Huh, weirdly I was just on my new workplace's website and it references a "mass forced relocation from reservations to Portland in the 1950's" so there's probably someone there I can ask about it.

[hirley0]

maybe not  SUNNY DAY 10 CHICCHAN 6:54:53.52
7:07:07.?
7:11:??

[Nephew Twiddleton]

maybe not  SUNNY DAY 10 CHICCHAN 6:54:53.52
7:07:07.?
7:11:??

Villager's cooking chicchan tonight for dinner. I like chicchan. Especially buffalo chicchan.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

maybe not  SUNNY DAY 10 CHICCHAN 6:54:53.52
7:07:07.?
7:11:??

Villager's cooking chicchan tonight for dinner. I like chicchan. Especially buffalo chicchan.

I have some chicchan legs in the fridge, but my oven broke so I'm not roasting them as planned.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Huh, weirdly I was just on my new workplace's website and it references a "mass forced relocation from reservations to Portland in the 1950's" so there's probably someone there I can ask about it.

I don't think you can ever get to the bottom of all the fucking over. The more you dig, the more you keep finding, no end in sight. And you never hear about the shit that's still being pulled unless you follow news sources that never make it to major media.

Because Real Amurkins^TM know that all indigenous peoples have a fuckload of casino money and need to shut up about stuff that happened a long time ago.