What is Indian? And What Does it Mean to be an Indian in the year 2008?
These are questions that have echoed through my own lifetime and thus are likely questions that have been asked within and outside of Indian Country at least since the first shipment of commodities reached even the remotest regions of Indian Country.
Does "Being Indian" mean a state of mind? A cultural/historic tribal awareness? An ability to speak one's tribal language? Or does "Being Indian" mean possessing the requisite amount of blood quantum so as to qualify for a tribal pedigree? Does it have to do with appearance? Does it mean conforming to a Hollywood depiction of an Indian?
Does it mean qualifying for tribal social services, a per cap, driving an Indian car or powwow van and never having a fixed address but migrating from Rez house to Rez house among friends and family? Perhaps it may also mean being recognized as a member of a community or nation of Indians?'
In answering these questions, it is illuminating to ask: "Even amongst today's most 'Indian of Indians' (viz., our recognized "traditional people") would their tribal ancestors of 600 years ago recognize them as Indians? Would the Indians of 600 years ago recognize and invite even contemporary "traditional" Indians to be full-fledged members of their tribal/Indian Community as it existed 600 years ago"? Or would our Native forebears reject even our contemporary traditional Indians as being, well, "non-Indian" because these modern traditional Indians had become too different?
The vast changes wrought by the coming of the White Man has fostered wrenching changes among the indigenous peoples of North America since the first boat peoples washed ashore over 500 years ago. Indigenous peoples have had to adapt and change in response to the cataclysmic impacts of White Civilization upon the millennia old ways of Native peoples.
Perhaps one of our tribal ancestors from 600 years ago who may be "beemed up" or "fast forwarded" 600 years into our present day America, may recognize in our contemporary traditional people, essentially the same words and language as was spoken so many years ago. Perhaps this long dead ancestor may recognize and feel kinship with the dark skin, the dark brown eyes, the black hair and the facial features of a contemporary Native American (assuming, of course, that the contemporary Native American has dark skin, dark brown eyes or black hair).
Perhaps our Native visitor from time past might also feel at home in the songs, the dances and the drumbeat of contemporary tribal culture.At the same time, our atavistic Native visitor, especially if he or she might hail from today's plains tribes would surely not fail to notice that even amongst the most traditional of contemporary native peoples, there is not likely even one who today could fell a buffalo with a single arrow fired from horseback. That being said, there was not, of course, any horses that roamed the Great Plains 600 years ago at the time of our ancestor's life nor are there today many buffalo roaming the wild who are available to hunt. So many things different, yet so many things the same.
As for me, I rather think that our time- warped Native visitor from 600 years ago would likely tend to have an attitude of acceptance and understanding of our contemporary Native peoples despite the vast differences that exists across 600 years of time. While no historic documents exist (at least as defined by the White Man), I rather think that events in the natural world across the millennia of time has forced significant changes for Native peoples. All of our Native forebears necessarily had to adapt and change their ways and culture even some 600 years ago.
What we know of our traditions, customs and even language had to continually evolve in response to changes in the natural world. I thus think that our Native visitor would recognize if not appreciate that contemporary native peoples were forced to adapt and change largely as result of the coming of the White Man. I think then, that our Native visitor might deduce from all of this that, "Indian is as Indian Does".
Native peoples will always change and adapt to fit and survive natural and human changes and conditions. Blood lines, ceremonies and language will continue to be important but traditions and ways change and adapt. Who we are as Native people is a continually evolving thing. We who see and define ourselves as Native people in this year 2008 may not recognize much as "Native " if we ourselves were able to come back to life in the year 2608 to walk amongst those people who will then call themselves as Pawnee, Ponca, Chickasaw, Cherokee, etc.
Yet again, however, I think we would recognize the impact of human and natural change upon our Native people and just as us modern Natives in the year 2008 are very different from our Native forefathers in the year 1408, so too will there be marked differences in the future native generations of the year 2608.
So, among other things, to be Indian in this year 2008 means that one stands squarely at the center of this lengthy, and ongoing, evolutionary thrust across many generations of Native forebears and Native ways and traditions. It must necessarily mean a chain of blood ties throughout generations past and a reverence and respect for these long gone Native ancestors.
Finally, I think it means that our Native visitor would also be heartened and filled with pride at his descendents resolve to keep fighting for a way of life "an Indianess" and that at the heart of this fight was an effort to continue to find a connection to the sacred through the evolved and inherited language, ceremonies and traditions of their tribal community.
Given the above, in the end I think like our presumptive Native visitor from 600 years ago, that regardless of any moment or period in history, that being Indian or what is means to be Indian simply boils down to "Indian is as Indian does".
