Half Breeds: The Plight of "Invisible Indians"

Invisible Indians: Mixed Blood Native (Americans) Who Are Not Enrolled in Federally Recognized Tribes, by David Arv Bragi (Muscogee/Seminole) is a book about people like me. We constitute two-thirds of the Native population in the United States, and sadly, we are not recognized by the United States government, and worse, sometimes by other Natives, as Natives. Ward Churchill, who is himself, like Bragi, mixed blood but enrolled, has cut through the confusion by defining a Native as anyone who has Native ancestry. Thus, my self-identification as Native is, in Churchill's definition, quite accurate - accurate enough to give my entirely Native life-style, including my spirituality, my culture or way of life - my way of thinking, feeling, acting, and speaking - my politics, my dress, my hairstyle, my jewelry, my attending Native political activities, spiritual Ceremonies, spiritual/social/cultural gatherings, my choice of reading, my choice of music, my choice of a traditionalist Native mate..."credibility" - a basis or foundation in my ancestry. I am not a dreaded "wannabe" - someone of European ancestry who "wants to be" a Native. HOWEVER, because I am "ONLY" an Ieska - a Mixed (Half) "Breed" rather than a Full "Blood" and because I look European more than I look Native, and because I was adopted out and raised by Europeans and because I was given a European name...I am viewed with great suspicion. Am I a spy? Am I an FBI (agent)? Am I a contemptible "wannabe"? The hated enemy who is at the same time a pathetic imitator and a reprehensible thief of culture as well as land, and worse, a distorter and perverter of that sacred, ancient culture, all Natives have left and cling to and attempt to resuscitate feverishly and fervently? Ward Churchill refers aptly to the appropriation and destruction of Native culture by Euroamericans and Europeans as cultural genocide. And after the physical genocide of 95% of the Native populations of Turtle Island, "North America" and "South America" to destroy the descendants of the remaining five percent by destroying their very group identities, their very existence as definitive cultural groups, is to complete the genocide of Natives of Turtle Island one hundred percent. So the cultural struggle, the cultural war, to protect Native cultures from forced assimilation, from voluntary assimilation to European culture, and to protect it from being lost and forgotten, and to recall it and revive it and live it again, in its traditional purity as it has been thought and felt and believed and spoken and acted for thousands of years, WITHOUT being stolen by others, without being used by others, without being ALTERED, CHANGED, DISTORTED, PERVERTED, INFLUENCED, TAINTED, by ONE DROP of EUROAMERICAN or EUROPEAN THOUGHT, BELIEF, BEHAVIOR, CULTURE, by CHRISTIAN RELIGION or MORALITY, by WESTERN POLITICAL THOUGHT or PHILOSOPHY is the struggle, the war, for the survival of Native people, the struggle, the war, against genocide, against the official policies of physical genocide, then cultural genocide of the United States government. And I remind my Native relatives of this threat, this death threat, this genocidal policy of Boarding Schools, and Relocation ("Kill the Indian, Save the Man") and I remind them of the way Native culture is stolen by whites who attend Ceremonies and visit Spiritual Men and Spiritual Woman and learn Native languages and "study" Native culture...and of the way that culture, that way of life where the sacred is everwhere and everything, reappears MIXED, IMPURE, DISTORTED, PERVERTED, and thereby ABSOLUTELY DESTROYED, DESECRATED, SACRELIGED, BLASPHEMED, the opposite of SACRED, where before Columbus, before Colonization, before Conquest, there was no opposite of Sacred, there was no Profane, there was no "Wasicu" - selfish, greedy, egotistical, individualistic, materialistic, acquisitive - thought or feeling or behavior or person. And this cultural mixture, more destructive than blood mixture, is absolutely destructive. To touch the sacred with the opposite of the sacred, unknown for tens of thousands of years, then introduced, then dominant, then forced, then insinuating itself ubiquitously, is to destroy the sacred, and to destroy the sacred is to destroy the ancient culture of the people, and to destroy the ancient culture of the people is to destroy the people, the final answer to the Indian questions, the final solution to the Indian problem. But Natives will fight to the death to preserve their life as Natives, to preserve in its pristine form our ancient sacred culture, our ancient sacred way of life, our ancient, sacred life, our ancient sacred identity. We will not allow it to be stolen, to be tainted with one drop of European thinking, feeling, speaking, writing, behavior. And to be strong enough to resurrect that which was not written down, that which is so powerful and so fragile, that which is our very life, and which can be taken from us by the smallest change, the simplest alteration, we need to have the power of coming together and fighting together, as the people came together when Sitting Bull called them to protect the Paha Sapa from the gold diggers and the man who found gold in them, Golden Hair himself. The people, Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Cheyenne, came together and fought together and won, defeating the army of the United States on June 25, 1876. No one took blood quantums or asked for degree of Indian blood cards or certificates of enrollment. If you were there, and you were fighting against the United States and those who would desecrate the Sacred Black Hills in their Wasicu lust for gold, backed by their gatling guns and cavalries, you were Native enough. May the same be true today. And may we meet, as we have been called to meet, to protect the Most Sacred Bear Butte, July 4-August 14, to protect our Sacred place where we go for our Sacred prayers and ceremonies, from those who have the Wasicu lust for money that would drive them to desecrate our most sacred place. And may those of us with Native ancestry, who are on the Learning Journey of the Red Road, who meet there, to heed the call, to defend our land, our Sacred land, to fight for our Sacred traditions, our identity, our very lives, know that we are Indians, and no longer invisible Indians. Mitakuye Oyasin, Hante Unpan Winyan, Cedar Elk Woman
Spirituality, Solidarity, Sovereignty, Sobriety/Native Land for Natives Now/Defend Bear Butte

Non-Traditional Response to Meth Plague is Another Plague

Methamphetamine On Pine Ridge Reservation - Politicians Seek to Banish Users from Rez
By Kelly Foster
KNBN-TV in Indian Country Today
May 17
"Methamphetamine is a drug that does not discriminate. Not only is it sweeping the streets of big cities, it's also a growing problem on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Now reservation leaders are trying to get meth abusers banished from the tribe. Looking around the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, there are no signs that a killer is among the people.
Lydia Bear Killer, Tribal Council Representative
'Meth is becoming a killer, that's all it is. It's killing.'
Leaders say it's a drug that's found its way into their schools, neighborhoods, and now the streets.
Georgine Looks Twice, Meth Task Force
'It just came in, swooped in out of wherever.'
So fast and furious that the Reservation Meth Task Force was created to focus efforts on education and prevention. However, task force members say there is one main problem. There are no laws tough enough to fight the addiction. But that's all about to change with a strict new meth law on the drawing board, one that could ultimately lead to banishment.
The creators of the new meth law in Pine Ridge admit it's tough. Basically it's three strikes, and you're out.
First time offenders caught using meth will spend time in a treatment facility and undergo extensive counseling. Second time offenders could be subject to jail time and banishment from the tribe for two years. And for the third offense, it's three strikes, you're out. Offenders could be banished from the tribe for life.
'It's hard to be banished because this is your identity, but it's going to have to be tough.'
But it's a tough luck law that's not only gaining support from leaders, but from the community as well.
'Actually I don't think it's tough enough.'
'I think it would be best for this place.'
Leaders say it's time to take matters into their own hands and are using the law to send a message. It's expected to be in front of the tribal council in July for a yes or no vote.
'I have supported it and I will support it on the floor too.'
'We had a child die, and that's too much. That can't be allowed to happen, not here.'
Leaders say if the new law passes it is a guarantee meth is not welcome on the reservation.
Members of the reservation Meth Task Force are confident that the law will go into effect by the end of this year."
...My Responses:
Han, All My Relations, The thinking about this wasicu drug, methadrine or methamphetamine, is wasicu thinking. And I use the term wasicu extremely carefully and deliberately. Traditional Native people do not think in terms of Treatment Centers and jails and BANISHING members from the Tribe for years or for LIFE because of problems brought on because of the large-scale warfare against traditional means of sustenance, material and spiritual. This is WAR, and we do not send our young people away because they are casualties of WAR. No one is mentioning that poor people in general, which means Natives especially, and Pine Ridge residents most especially, are vulnerable to this tactic in the WAR against us. ...That is because Meth, the latest weapon in the war against poor people and Natives is CHEAP. And it can be made by users. It does not have to be imported from far away, or manufactured by wealthy capitalists, criminals, distributors, and large-scale dealers. And its manufacture - as always - rather than its use - is what MUST be prevented, and what CAN be prevented.
...Its ingredients - available in any store - must be locked up, or not sold at all. These are the measures being proposed in more affluent and Euroamerican communities!!!! They realize that they cannot "cure" meth addicts. And they are not willing to "banish" their children. So they are targeting the ingredients their children are using to make meth at home, or in the meth labs on every block.
...They include CERTAIN forms of CERTAIN cold medications. Fine. Stores do not HAVE to sell those forms of those cold medications. End of the meth problems. Like the "alcohol problem" in White Clay. Close the alcohol stores. If the "alcohol problem" moves to Gordon, close the bars and alcohol stores in Gordon. And Rushville. End the deaths - quick or slow - of our people.
...Sure, it takes away profits from white people, taxes from the state of Nebraska. I don't care, and neither should ANYONE ELSE. Force the stores accessible by people in Pine Ridge to stop selling the ingredients of meth. End of the meth problem. ...No U.S. government-run, white-staffed prevention and treatment facilities on reservations, like the kind being fought for by professors and their employees at the University of Nebraska for $9 MILLION grants from the United States government.
...No prison. No banishment of our youths for one minute, much less one year or one lifetime, from the very family and spirituality and culture and tradition and land and politics which are rightfully theirs for support and for action, as the rightful alternative to drug and alchohol use, gangbanging, and other wasicu weapons of genocide.
...SAY NO TO METH INGREDIENTS! SAY NO TO PUNISHING METH USERS! SAY NO TO BANISHING OUR YOUTH! SAY NO TO ALCOHOL SALES! SAY NO TO BARS AT BEAR BUTTE JULY 4-AUGUST 14! SAY YES TO OUR WAYS!
...Mitakuye Oyasin, Hante Unpan Winyan (Cedar Elk Woman), Enraged Traditional Oglala Lakota Half Breed
...
Han, Star, Cepansi, and All My Relations,
...I already know that Star is one unique woman. Almost no meth addicts are able to kick the habit, even WITH treatment. It is a testimony to Star that she was able to quit at all, much less on her own.
...In the case of other drugs, I agree about going after the dealers - and the bigger the better, rather than the small and powerless dealers that are easy and safe to arrest and that fill the jails and prisons. In the case of Natives and Reservations, that would take us away from Natives and off the Reservations, as it would take us away from poor people in general.
...However, I was in a treatment program, filled with meth addicts, and they all told me that there was a meth house on every block - around the treatment center, not to mention around the city. More importantly, each and every one of them knew how to make meth themselves and had done so.. There are hundreds of ways to make meth, and they all involve ingredients that can be bought over the counter in stores.
...So this leads me back to the merchants and away from the users and small-time dealers, which are the suppliers of meth, since it is cheap and easy to make, and its ingredients are legal...and well-known.. The ingredients do not have to be sold over the counter. Some of them, like particular forms of certain kinds of cold medications, do not have to be sold at all.
...There are too many addicts who make the meth themselves, and too many small-time producers to punish these people, poor themselves, and victims themselves.
...Let's take the law to the merchants who make money from the misery of others, and make it impossible for ANYONE to make ANY meth for ANYONE to use, so that NO ONE becomes a meth addict, impossible - or almost impossible, given shining exceptions like our shining Star - to cure. Let's be TOUGH with MERCHANTS who profit from misery and death - whether from drugs, their ingredients, or alcohol...and the list could go on and on...
...Mitakuye Oyasin, Hante Unpan Winyan (Cedar Elk Woman) PROUD Oglala Half Breed Traditionalist
Spirituality, Solidarity/Support, Sovereignty/Self-Determination, Sobriety!!!!Native Land for Natives!!!!
...
Star, Cepansi, and All My Relations,
....Pilamaya, Cepansi, for sending this most excellent poem that conveys so well what drugs - including meth and alcohol - do to anyone caught up in them.
.....I am addicted to four drugs: tobacco, alcohol, cocaine, and heroin. I would have become addicted to methadrine but I loved it so much the first time I used it that I took a second dose and overdosed so badly I almost died - as I have done on all the other drugs. I do not use any of these drugs, by the mercy of the Spirits. However, I have known addicts all my life - those that are now dead, those that are no longer using, those that are the walking dead, still addicted.
.....I know the addicts in Lincoln especially well, because of my work with Native in the penitentiary, and because of my own time in treatment here.. I have seen meth close up, and people simply cannot quit it. But then, Star quit it. People are not supposed to be able to quit cocaine or heroin either. I quit heroin on my own, and cocaine on my own three times. I cannot describe the sickness, but I made it, thanks to the Spirits. The same with tobacco. There I was fortunate, I lost the taste for it when I quit heroin at age twenty.
.....For me, the most dangerous drug is alcohol - because it is legal and accessible. I have quit alcohol - many times. That is one reason I fight against the sellers and distributors of drugs, including alcohol and tobacco. Because people, especially those whose way of life - whose culture and way of providing their material needs - have been destroyed, who live in material and cultural poverty, who have been taken from their parents and/or are abused by their parents, will always have reasons to use drugs, including alcohol.
....We must make drugs and alcohol inaccessible to our people. We must continue to do what we started with alcohol on Pine Ridge: BANISH THE DRUG!!!! We must banish alcohol further from Pine Ridge. We must banish other drugs from Pine Ridge. In the case of meth, WE MUST BANISH THE INGREDIENTS FOR MAKING METH FROM PINE RIDGE.
.....WE CANNOT STOP THE DESIRE TO USE DRUGS. WE CANNOT STOP THE ADDICTION.. WE CAN BANISH THE DRUGS AND THEIR INGREDIENTS. WE MUST NOT BANISH OUR PEOPLE, THE VICTIMS. WE DO NOT BANISH ALCOHOLICS. WE CANNOT BANISH DRUG ADDICTS.
...Mitakuye Oyasin, Hante Unpan Winyan (Cedar ELk Woman) PROUD Oglala Lakota Half Breed Traditionalist
Spirituality, Solidarity, Sovereignty, Sobriety...Native Land for Native People NOW

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868

This is Mother's Day. I planned to write about my three mothers. However, that would be too emotionally exhausting for today. I will write instead about the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, why it is so crucial, and why my summer will be spent attempting, with many of my Native sisters and brothers, to get a small bit of it enforced.

I published Section 2 of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. For those of you without extensive knowledge of geography, this treaty gives to ten bands of Lakota/Dakota/Nakota people and to Arapaho people, the land East of the Missouri River, North of the Nebraska state line, West of the Little Big Horn Mountains (which run North and South through Wyoming and Montana), and South of the lattitude that cuts across then-territory, now-state of South Dakota North about half way across. In other words, this Treaty, still in effect, but not enforced, grants to Native peoples our Sacred Black Hills, including our Sacred Bear Butte. The latter, Bear Butte, is sacred to people across what we call Turtle Island (the American continent). It is the place where we go to pray and hold sacred, solemn, silent Ceremonies. The best equivalents I can think of are the Holy Lands of Christians and Jews, and Mecca for Muslims. While our ability to pray and hold Ceremonies has already been disrupted by campers and bikers walking the trails, and playing music, and drinking alcohol (forbidden to us), a new "development" threaten to destroy it further. Despite over 1,000 people - Elders, Headmen and Headswomen and Chiefs of Tribes, Medicine Men and Medicine Women - even bikers from the annual Stugis Bike Rally in the area - who showed up to protest this "development" the County Commissioners approved it. Now the bulldozers and steam shovels bring tears to our eyes as they dig into our sacred land, and prepare for the noise and alcohol consumption that will destroy our prayers and Ceremonies. So, leaders of the protest against this money-making endeavor have called for Natives across Turtle Island to come to Bear Butte this summer, from July 4 through August 14 (the end of the Sturgis Bike Rally) to prevent this "construction"/destruction of our sacred way of life, as we have practiced it for tens of thousands of years. Please join us if you can. The center of communications is DefendBearButte@yahoo.com. The leader is none other than the brave leader of many crucial protests, Carter Camp. I hope to see you there, whatever your ethnic identity or religious orientation. This is, after all, about freedom of religion. Marx said that the only freedoms under Capitalism would be freedoms for Capitalists. We see the truth in this statement. But we shall protest. We shall resist. We shall overcome. Mitakuye Oyasin, Cedar Elk Woman

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 with Lakota and Dakota (Santee)

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 with Lakota and Dakota (Santee)
ARTICLE 2. The United States agrees that the following district of country, to wit, viz: commencing on the east bank of the Missouri River where the forty-sixth parallel of north latitude crosses the same, thence along low-water mark down said east bank to a point opposite where the northern line of the State of Nebraska strikes the river, thence west across said river, and along the northern line of Nebraska to the one hundred and fourth degree of longitude west from Greenwich, thence north on said meridian to a point where the forty-sixth parallel of north latitude intercepts the same, thence due east along said parallel to the place of beginning; and in addition thereto, all existing reservations on the east bank of said river shall be, and the same is, set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named, and for such other friendly tribes or individual Indians as from time to time they may be willing, with the consent of the United States, to admit amongst them; and the United States now solemnly agrees that no persons except those herein designated and authorized so to do, and except such officers, agents, and employes of the Government as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties enjoined by law, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article, or in such territory as may be added to this reservation for the use of said Indians, and henceforth they will and do hereby relinquish all claims or right in and to any portion of the United States or Territories, except such as is embraced within the limits aforesaid, and except as hereinafter provided.

How I Got My Names

During the course of a lifetime, a Native may receive many names. This is because what one does, or what one is, or what one is intended to do, or what one is intended to be, can change over one's lifetime. These different missions in life, these different identities, can come to one from the Spirits, through dreams or visions, or they can be things that one sees or experiences, or things that one accomplishes, even mistakes that one makes. Sacred Men and Sacred Women can give one a name if asked, or if they feel it is appropriate. Only two of my many names, so far, have come in these Native ways. But as we say that "everything is related" and none of my names are unrelated to my Native identity. I must start before my own beginning - because everything is related, past and present and future, as well as all things and beings in one time.

I must start with my birth mother's names. My birth mother was born in Canada. Her own mother's name is a mystery, but her mother was a European American or a European Canadian. Her mother broke Canadian law, and refused to reveal the name of her father - my grandfather, because that man was a Native of Turtle Island, a "First Nations" Canadian man. So, my mother had no name. But she was given a name, by her possibly truthfully, possibly falsely named mother - my maternal grandmother, Catherine Marie *****. That name, without a surname, was Mary Kathryn. My mother was illegally adopted from Canada to Michigan, to a Scottish couple. She was given a name by them - but no legal papers: JoAnn *******. I will go to Canada to seek the identities of her parents and my maternal grandparents. My birth mother cannot travel to the land of her birth, because she has no papers, and this is the age of the so-called "war on terrorism". One can no longer travel to Canada without papers. Even if one is a 76 year old Canadian citizen, legally speaking.

My birth mother married a Greek man in Michigan. She had several children with him, several miscarriages, and several children who died very young. He did not earn much as a teacher, and what he did earn, he spent on himself, not on his wife or children. Official causes of death of the young ones are malnutrition. Unhappy with this cruel and patriarchal man, my mother had a relationship with another abusive man, my father, a mixed blood Native and Scottish man. I have seen his photos. He looks very unhappy, and very Native, and very mean. He "passed" as Scottish, or mostly Scottish among whites, but a Native can tell at a glance that he is likely almost a full Blood. Perhaps because of his blood, perhaps because of his height - five feet eight, short for a Euroamerican man - he was a drinker, a philanderer, depressive, and abusive. So, my birth mother, herself a half Breed (though she did not know this, was not told this), became pregnant by this mixed Breed Native/Scottish man, pregnant with a love child, an illegitimate child, me. She went to Detroit for her pregnancy and childbirth. No one except me and her know of my existence in her life. The hospital where I was born knew she was giving me up for adoption, but cruelly enough, they left me with her for eleven days - long enough for a bond, long enough for her to name me. She named me Sally Ann, and gave me her last name, the last name of her Greek husband, whom she divorced at this time. This was my first name: Sally Ann ******. A Greek from Detroit, I thought, when I first looked into my past. Name One.

The adoption agency in Michigan had a couple who asked for a child. I say asked for - not wanted. It was after the baby boom, and they had married late and had been without child for five years. Out of place among their Protestant friends, all of whom had precisely two children - a boy and a girl. So, not really wanting a child - the woman wanted to continue her professional career, the man...this will become clearer - but painfully aware of the pregnant stomachs and baby strollers that surrounded them on the street and in their Lutheran Church - this couple asked to adopt a child. No psychological testing was done at that time, perhaps not now. I laugh and say, it was an income test, and they passed with flying colors. They both had educations beyond college, and they were upper middle class. So the adoption agency rushed to find, and describe, an infant for them. A girl. A blonde haired, blue-eyed, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant girl. That is how I was marketed. My parents were both listed as "English" and "Protestant" and "intelligent" "educated" and "good looking". And the deal was done. I became Jennifer (a nod to my "pure" "English"ancestry) Marie (a nod to my adoptive maternal Norwegian grandparents, my grandmother's name, Marie meaning "Mary" as in the Christian Virgin Mary in Norwegian) Lehmann (after my adoptive German paternal grandparents). Name Two.

CountrytoCitytoNative

Ha! which is Lakota for Hello!

I am learning Lakota traditions after learning about them, and after learning that I am at least half Native by ancestry. I come to what is called the Red Road - traditional Native culture, spirituality, morality, politics, thinking, feeling, speaking, acting, living, community, which are all the same - by a long and winding road. The last step was a political step. I had come, from the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, through a radical college in lower Michigan, through graduate school in New York, to a job in Nebraska, to a political demonstration on a Native reservation in South Dakota. The woman who would become my Ina (Mother/Aunt) directed us, instead of to the demonstration, first to a traditional funeral in the middle of the night, and taught us how to attend in respect (respect is the first principle of Native life). Then she directed us to a Spiritual Man's house, a man who would become my Leksi (Uncle). The first thing that he said to me in the days we spent there was that I could not walk the Red Road because I had been trained to think with my left brain - European knowledge claims of a supposed meritocracy of ideas in philosophy and religion and science and history and law and politics and the written word - with all my years in universities, and that the Red Road requires the right brain - knowledge through feeling, intuition, tradition, personal interaction, the spoken word, nature, having "hollow bones" to hear what the Spirits tell us, respect for nature, Elders, Spirits, Ancestors, and what they tell us. I knew, intuitively that I did belong on the Red Road. The Spirits and Ancestors had been telling me I am a Native since before I learned to speak any language. They had been telling me how to play and how to dream and how to feel and what to remember and what it was to be a child as a Native B.C. Before Colombus, Before Conquest, Before Colonization. So I stayed. And my Uncle allowed me to stay. And I stayed. And my Uncle allowed me to stay. And so it went. And now I am on the Red Road that the Spirits and Ancestors were telling me about as an infant, as a toddler, as a child...all my life. I am a child on that Red Road, a child of about eight years now. I am on, in the words of the title of my Uncle's book, The Learning Journey of the Red Road. Mitakuye Oyasin (All Are My Relations), Lakota Winyan (Lakota Woman)