Native American Heritage Month: Indigenous Identity, Part 1

In addition to reading about Robbie Robertson and Pat and Lolly Vegas of Redbone, there was one other celebrity I read about in November:

Priceless Memories by Bob Barker with Digby Diehl

I'm sure I would have read it anyway; he had died and we watched The Price is Right: A Tribute to Bob Barker. That's when we requested it from the library. Many other people did as well, so I read it in November.

I was happy with the timing because I had seen that he spent a lot of his growing up years on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, but it did not always seem clear that he was a member of the tribe there.

After reading the book, it made more sense.

Bob's father was one-quarter Sioux, but he died when Bob was very young. Neither Bob's mother nor his stepfather were Native, but because his mother taught on the reservation, they did often live there. 

As it was, Bob acknowledges being 1/8th Sioux. He is proud of it, and he did appear on the tribal rolls, yet it doesn't feel (to me) like it felt to him like something he was.

I don't think it is because of being only 1/8th. Most of the relatives mentioned in his growing up are on his mother's side. I think if he and his father had more time together, and maybe even if there had been more paternal relatives around it would be different, but that's how it turned out.

Robbie Robertson is Cayuga and Mohawk through his mother. He also had his father die young, and only connected to his Jewish family later (and he did not know for a long time that his stepfather was not his father). However, even though they were living off the reservation they visited it often. His mother's family was an important part of his musical development. 

Also, note that with those two examples we have Tillie Barker, a non-Native, living on a reservation, and Rosemarie Chrysler, a Native, living in the city.

That is not a criticism of anyone, but more a reflection on how identity is formed.

I am half Italian, through my mother. On my father's side I know that there is English, Welsh, Scottish, Huguenot, and Dutch. Except for the Huguenots, all of the lines came over in colonial times so, yes, very much the blood of colonizers, a long way back.

I have always identified more with the Italian. It is more recent and I am closer to my mother than my father (though I definitely get things from him). 

It is also true that I also feel the part of me that is Italian differently after making it to Italy and meeting my family there. I knew names before, but after I knew them.

I remember even before reading Kim TallBear's Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science, that it was not about whom you claimed, but who claims you. Those connections are the key. 

That idea was completely logical, but the book was not nearly as clear. That may be the result of how complicated the issue is, or possibly of TallBear wishing to withhold acceptance of various people (at least based on later behavior).

However, books I discovered almost accidentally have recently given me much more to think about.

Meaning that I will spend more time on this.

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/01/native-american-heritage-month.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/01/daily-songs-for-native-american.html