Native American Ancestry in Australia

[WomanfromOz]

Thank you so much

Removed

[OLChemist]

Rose's Completely Biased (Short) Guide Can't Miss Sights/Events in Indian Country

Fly into Ashville, NC or Knoxville, TN and head into the mountains. Take in Unto These Hills and a Sunday service with some fine Cherokee language hymn singing. See the Smokies, where your Cherokee ancestors built a powerful nation. Drive down to Red Clay. Eat some fried hominy, kanuchi and grape dumplings. Come in the fall after most of the tourists are gone, rent a cabin in the woods, listen to birds and just be.

Unto these hills


Or in Oct fly into Rapid City, SD and go to He Sapa Wacipi, the Black Hills Powwow. See the dances, eat some fry bread and a buffalo burger. Learn to tell a chicken dancer from a fancy dancer. Tune your rental car radio to FM 88.7 and listen to KILI the voice of the Lakota Nation. Drive down to Wind Cave to see where Iktomi tricked people into following him onto the surface world.

Black Hills Powwow

NPS - Wind Cave


Or fly in to Phoenix, AZ and head up to Window Rock for the Navajo Nation Fair. Learn that many cowboys are Indians. Watch the rodeo, look at the livestock, watch the miss Navajo Nation contestants compete, go to the powwow, look at the fine arts, shop, wish you could be a judge the fry bread contest, LOL. Learn the fine art of pointing with your lips. Eat as much of that good Navajo cooking and New Mexico green chile as you can get. Watch the kids on the rides.

Navajo Fair


Spend Christmas in Albuquerque, NM. On Christmas Eve, drive out to Acoma pueblo and see the luminarias line the road up to the mesa. The next day, drive up to Ohkay Owingeh and watch the dance. Remember Pope and the freedom fighters he led 1680. Eat lots of good New Mexican and Pueblo Christmas delicacies.

IPCC - Schedule of Feast Days

[WomanfromOz]

Dear OLChemist

Removed because I was bullied.

[OLChemist]

Welcome to powwow.com. Sounds like you have a lot of old fashioned genealogy work ahead of you to find your kin. I hope you find your family.

My mother and I have always been interested in Native American culture, jewellery, medicine, spirit religion etc. We both have always used natural medicine and have always been very spiritual. We are both Clairvoyant and have always wondered where it came from. I'm not sure if we have the same spirit guides but are very intune with nature and animals.

With all due respect, it also sounds like you have a lot stereotypical ideas about who Native people are and what their various cultures are like. Before you travel to met modern Native people, you may wish to correct these.

First of all, there is no one Native American culture. Since 1492, the dominant culture depiction of the various indigenious people of the Americas has reduced us to a mostly homogenous mass of tipi dwelling, warbonnet wearing, buckskin clad Dances with Wolves extras and tree huggers. There was and is enormous cultural, political, social, linguistic, and economic variation among the in excess of 1000 different nations of the Americas.

At the time of contact, there were cities that matched those in Europe and Asia in size and sophistication. There were empires that rivaled those in Europe. There were hunters and gathers, city dwelling bureaucrats and priests, sea faring fisherman and traders, and sophisticated farming cultures. The religious range within the New World was as large as that in the Old World. Each group had their own practices. These cultural differences carry into the lives of modern Native peoples.

A world away from where my Ancestor came from on the plains of America.

I suspect you're going for a metaphor, but I must go for the teachable moment. The Cherokee come from the second most beautiful mountains on the planet. No plains, no tipis...

Is it difficult to find a reservation to visit to experience Native culture? Will I be accepted as a part Native woman and be allowed to come to a Powwow? It would mean a lot to me to be accepted in this way.

FYI, in excess of 3/4 of all Native people live off-reservation.

No, it's not hard to find reservations. Goggle maps can help you with that. But the question arises, which reservation? Who's culture?

Will you be accepted? Who knows. We hear lots of stories about distant Indian ancestors -- some plausible but many many more totally unrealistic. (If you think about hearing these stories, it's kind of weird. Non-Indian people don't have strangers walk up to them and tell them about their family tree.)

And what do you mean by accepted? Native communities are like small towns everywhere. Lots of family history. A little bit to a lot of clannishness. How does any stranger integrate into any small town? You have to build connections. You learn in some aspects you're always an outsider.

As for powwows.... At most powwows -- again these are social gatherings -- when the MC calls for everyone to come down and dance, all those who respect the rules of the arena and community will generally be welcome. However, you may hear a nasty comment or two. Be humble. The arena isn't about you.

[WomanfromOz]

I no longer wish to sbhare my personal story on here due to bullying.