PowWowCircle of Whispering Wind Magazine/ Vol. 30 No. 4/1999
MY GRANDMA WAS A White GIRL
Understanding Ancestral Lineage
By Bill Walker
I just met a fellow at a powwow who had rather strong Caucasian features, but who stated to anyone who would listen that "My Grandmother was an Indian". (Tribe unspecified.) Frankly, he was rather obnoxious about it. Of course, appearances may be deceiving and some of the "real Indians" I know do not appear to be Indian". After the fellow departed, he was the object of some good-natured, but insightful, comments from some of the "real Indians who were present.
Membership in an Indian Tribe is determined by criteria established by that tribe. Virtually all tribes seem to recognize some sort of "blood quantum" as establishing membership, but the quantum may vary greatly from one tribe to the next. To understand blood quantum, reach for your coin jar. On a flat surface lay a single dime that's you. Above that coin, place two other dimes representing your parents, in a horizontal row. Above each of the dimes representing your parents, place two more dimes representing your parent's parents and so forth, for several generations. (For the purposes of this discussion. you may want to swap the role of pennies and dimes, it's cheaper, but I can't resist the metaphor.) By looking at the coins you can see that you had two parents, four grandparents, and eight great grandparents, and so on.
Now, let us suppose one of your grandparents was a full-blooded Indian. Replace the dime representing that person with a penny. On that row (the one with the dime) you see four coins, one of which is red, and the others are not red. Your blood quantum is therefore 1/4.
If your grandparent was not full-blooded, but was instead a "half-blood", then replace one of your grandparent's parents with a penny, representing the full-blooded parent of your grandparent. There are eight coins in that row, one of which is red, so you are of blood quantum 1/8.
For a different exercise, suppose you had one grandparent who was a full blood, and one who was a half-blood. Looking at the coins, your grandparent who was full-blooded, had two full-blooded parents, so replace their coins with pennies. Your grandparent, who was half-blooded, had only one parent who was full blood, so replace one of that grandparent's coins with a penny. There are eight coins in that row and three of them are red. You are therefore, of blood quantum 3/8.
In general, what you must do with the pyramid of coins is to replace the parents of each row of coins with pennies, which represent full-blooded Native Americans, and then count the number of coins, as well as the number of pennies, in the top row. If there are 'N' pennies and 'M' coins, then you are 'N/M' blood quantum.
Some tribes may recognize a person with as little as 1/2048 blood quantum (eleven generations back there was a full blood) as being a tribal member. Other tribes may require as much as 1/4 blood quantum before recognizing a person as a member of that tribe. Federal law generally recognizes a person as being "Indian" for the purposes of receiving services, if that person has a blood quantum of 1/4 or greater. I don't believe that Federal law would require all of that quantum to have come from the same tribe, so I suppose it is possible that a person could be a "Federal Indian" without being a member of a particular tribe. (Two great grandparents who were full-bloods, but who belonged to different tribes, each of which happens to require a 1/4 blood quantum for membership.)
Clearly, the law is not something that I understand very well, and I suspect that there is some provision for deciding the tribal membership of persons in this situation. That is not the point of this essay, and I have digressed.
"My Grandmother was an Indian" seems to be a common claim among folks who really wish to be thought of as "Indian". Like Vine Deloria, I can't imagine anything nicer than actually having an Indian for a Grandmother, but I also must take with a grain of salt those who make of this an unsubstantiated claim for "legitimacy" in the Indian world.
One of the great emcees in our part of the world, a full-blooded Native American, often jokes that "I'm a White Man. My Grandmother was White." The shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, and he always draws a chuckle from Indian audiences who have often heard the claim "My Grandmother was Indian". By this humorous comment, the emcee is poking fun at those who would claim to be Indian on the basis of some nebulous or tenuous connection.
No one enjoys someone who is "showing off", or claiming to be something that they really aren't. If you don't have legitimate claim to "Indian blood", then I suggest you don't claim it.
If you really do have an Indian Grandmother, then that is wonderful!
Ultimately, we are all who we are, and that identity is the Gift of our Creator. So far as I can tell, He does awfully good work, and I do not believe we should question it.
If you really are "Indian", rejoice in that fact. If you are not "Indian", I see no reason not to still rejoice. For the most part, participation in Indian activities is as much attitude as ethnicity, and you will probably be appreciated much more for your attitude than for anything else.
Me? My Grandma was a White girl.
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