So, Trump actually childishly and tauntingly calling Elizabeth Warren a name that means playful. Amonute was dead by age 22. Her life was nothing like the Disney Romance.
Apparently the insult is because it is a well-known white legend about a Native American. I suppose he could have called her Sacagawea--oh wait, he did that also.
Elizabeth Warren has "made the mistake" of discussing a family legend of Native ancestry.
Her DNA said the legend was true. (Her family was in Oklahoma, and in Oklahoma many pale skinned and light eyed people have similar family legends. For that matter, many dark skinned and black eyed individuals do also. And not just in Oklahoma, but in any area where immigrants from other lands lived near indigenous Americans. And many of those people also have Roll Numbers that tie them to their Tribe's Nation and benefits.)
The Tribes aren't happy about her claims and she has no Roll Number.
She has denied claiming a tribe or a searching for a Roll Number. (And in Oklahoma, many of us claimed to have a Cherokee Princess as a umpteenth great grandmother, even though none of our ancestors lived near Cherokee places---it just seemed romantic in the 1930's to 1950's, as did being related to Jesse James or Daniel Boone)
The Tribal Leaders need to be quiet unless they want to accept and explain their own parts in the passing of much Native American DNA to the descendants of White and Black people in this country.
I had my DNA done, and both my father's and mother's side told stories of Native Ancestors, and I had none; zero, zilch, nada. But my Grandmother's little sister had 2% and a trace of European Jew.(which I expected, from my father's side and I also had none of.
What? you say? How can that be? But genetics are funny things, random and filled with weird chances and all that crap about twins with different fathers is no more likely than that the two are fraternal siblings that got nearly completely different sets of each parents DNA.
My grandmother and her sister were obviously related, both resembling each other and both of their parents. There is a French Canadian Grandma (several greats back, that looked decidedly indigenous but it was a drawing, and not necessarily accurate.)
And this is what the Tribal Leaders need to consider when speaking of Native blood outside the Tribes.
While England and Germany sent families to colonize the country, many countries sent single men, frequently young, but also older, married individuals that took care of business, and those men, due to transportation methods, frequently spent large amounts of time on the continent and in the "wilderness", going about their fur trapping and hat making and resource acquiring businesses. They were also on an adventure. The Tribes not only traded with them, but also accommodated them with women. I have no idea if those women were prisoners from other tribes or just excessive baggage of the tribe, but women had no more power or worth in Native America than they did in the rest of the world at that time. If you doubt that, read up on the real history of Pocahontas.
The indigenous people's of the America's got a raw deal, land stolen, culture stolen, many tribes extinct or so lost that one tribe's DNA is not recognizable from the next, languages lost to time.
But, the Treatied Tribes are sovereign nations, with land and their own governments and constitutions, election methods, budgets, etc, etc, etc.
Their continued existence and growing strength gives me hope for my own nation's soul.
But when one woman from a state full of people that got here from somewhere else after traveling around in this country for 1-4 hundred years mentions that her family says they had Native Blood, that should not cause Native Americans to be disgusted or confused, their own ancestors were the ones handing out that DNA in the form of undervalued female members, and should not cause President's to deride anyone like Native Blood is an insult.
We are a melting pot. And while it currently looks more like a chunky stew, those of us whose ancestors mostly got here after 1492 but before 1796, have more stories than those told in history classes. They are verbal histories, much like those told by indigenous people all over the world, and we of the old immigrants have finally melted completely.
Now, can we all just act like grown-ups.
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