Identity. A perennial issue in all tribes, not only our own. Questions are many and answers differ. What does it mean to be an Ioway? To be an Otoe-Missouria? Is it blood quantum? Is there a point at which the dilution is so great, you are no longer Ioway or Otoe? Is it tribal enrollment, having official recognition? Is it visual identification of ones Indian-ness? Is it acceptance as one by ones relations (adopted or otherwise) and/or ones community? Is it participation in cultural life? What place does language have in it? Is it in ones blood, ones heart, ones spirit…separately, or together? What if one has blood, and even looks Indian, but were brought up by white people (adopted out) so that other Indians expect you know how to be Indian but you do not? What if you dont look Indian but have a little blood and want to know more, and you dont know where to turn? What if you were a white kid who was raised on the reservation, accepted there, and were raised to be Indian and that is how you see yourself and some others see you? In what way is being an Ioway different than being an Otoe-Missouria…or different than any other tribe? Is it different being one or the other, or what if you are several tribes? What is the place of ones own tribal culture vs PanIndian culture? What if you are enrolled in one tribe but identify culturally with a different one? What is the place for self-identification vs identification by others? So many questions, and so many, many more, rarely talked about, openly and honestly, because there are so many land mines (ones own and ones set by others), so many dangers one suffers by opening up. Issues that continue for generations and generations, never resolved, but only building more collateral damage suffered by future generations. PS. HAPPY EASTER!
Posted on: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 17:17:44 +0000
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