Blood Quantum

I promised on Twitter that this rant was coming.    If you didn’t listen, then pucker up butter cup.   It’s going in dry. 

Blood Quantum is the concept of measuring “native-ness” by the specific amount or quanta (quantum meaning amount) of “red blood” in your…well.  In your red blood. 

The whole argument gets wrapped up in the concept of what makes someone “native enough”, and being a “native descendant” versus a “native”.   A “descendant of the algonquian nation” instead of “a son of the tribe”. 

I just want to pause here and point something out.

We.  Are.   Literally.  Arguing.  Purity.

We are using the same argument that the Aryan brotherhood uses to define membership.   The same argument used to create such hateful labels as “quadroon”.    The one modern extremist “power” groups (white, black, Hispanic, etc) use to define who counts as a person and who doesn’t.

(Gee, don’t you think the ancestors are proud?)

Think that through.   That’s EXACTLY the kind of thinking that resulted in early white colonists experimenting in making the “right” kind of “house savage”.   It eventually created the Carlisle Indian school.   That thinking was responsible for whites experimenting with breeding mulatto and quadroon mixes of red skinned peoples to try and “tame the savage”.   To try and keep white blood “pure” on one side, while pouring little bits of it our gene pool to try and “save” some of the “savages”.     

Again.  We.  Are.   Literally.  Arguing.  Purity.

Don’t mistake me – there are some who claim our heritage for the wrong reasons.   They want an easy ride on college money (what tiny amount there is), or they want some tiny boost in political good will by claiming to be a minority that it’s almost impossible to disprove. 

I get sickened by the blonde, blue eyed “Apaches” when I see them outside of Hot Topic too, cousins.   I get nauseous when a congresswoman claims moral superiority because she’s “part Cherokee”.   And read my rant on trans-racialism – I’m not siding with that lot anytime soon.

There has to be another way to define our people.   There has to be a way that doesn’t involve the purity of blood alone.   Because cousins – guess what?   Purely from a genetic standing…none of you are pure anymore.   Our lands have had other races in them for far too long – we’re all partially something else at this point.   Even if it’s a mix from other tribes or another nation – you ain’t pure no more, cousin.

Etokah is the head of my line right now – eldest of my bloodline.  Her answer is what binds our line (and it’s the answer of her mother Matokah, who was our matriarch for 15 years).   She’s decided that what makes you tribe isn’t whether you claim the tribe – it’s whether the tribe claims you.

Sounds about right to me. 

It isn’t whether you’ve argued against mascots lately (this one is a hot button for me, sorry – just can’t be made to give a damn) or whether you’ve gone to a DAPL protest.   It isn’t whether you love fry bread (who doesn’t?!  seriously?!) or whether you have earned feathers and leathers.

It’s whether your tribe reaches back out, and claims you as their son.   Their daughter.   Their cousin.

Argue your blood purity all you want.   Argue at me that you’re 100% “real” Iroquois (who my people never liked anyway, so guess how little I care?).   Call me an apple, if that helps.   I’ve heard it all before.  And yes, I know enough north river Iroquois to know what your little mutters mean.  Still don’t care. 

My tribe claims me.   I’ve helped fix housing for our elders.   I’ve stood in Tsena Commocko during services and during councils.   I’ve raised funds for us to buy our own land (we have and will NEVER be reservated).   I’ve learned and told our stories to the children of our tribe and others.   I can speak the histories we have left, and know the stories of my Elders’ lives.  I know what my name means, and what its place is in the story of my people.  

So you go back to arguing purity.   Wave your blood quantum flag and protest the mascots, and the “cultural appropriation”.   Get all enraged about the Cleveland Indians and send angry letters about the Gettysburg Warriors. 

I’ll be over here planning out sustainable housing for my elders and searching through grants for college money for my cousins.  

I think I’ve finally outgrown the need to get hurt every time someone wants to challenge my “indian-ness”.  

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