Navajo 1/8th Blood Quantum??

[Josiah]

I should have probably explained what happened in my other post:

The original problem that brought up the issue about lowering blood quantum was because certain non-enrolled individuals were caught illegally gathering/harvesting on our reservation land for personal profit.

The issue wasn’t about our tribe dying out or theoretical questions about using blood quantum as the criteria for membership.

This was predicated on self-interest & greed…. apparently wild Wisconsin ginseng is especially rare & extremely prized. There is and has been an insatiable demand from the billions of Chinese/Asian consumers. Because of the past over-harvesting throughout the US for hundreds of years, wild ginseng is an endangered species.

The wording of our ancillary roll which gave benefits to people who married into the tribe & to offspring who didn’t meet minimum blood was challenged. Enrolled relatives (of the “thieves”) led the effort to reduce blood quantum so that the above individuals (their family relatives) would be eligible to become tribal members so they could continue their exploitative harvesting business legally and basically unrestrained on tribal land.

This is what started the whole issue.

Regardless of the amount of NDN blood a person has, it is the choices/actions that a person makes that matter and for those to be in keeping with traditional tribal ways and values. That is how I was raised/taught. In my own family, I have a sibling (same parents, same amount of blood) who isn’t NDN I’m sad to say…not in thinking, not in choices, not in way of life. One of my auntie's sayings is, "You are either NDN or you're not." I’ve heard other NDNs say this too. I think there's a lot of truth to that. It’s binary.

Historically & traditionally, we, the Menominee, are Keepers of the Forest. This is our responsibility in life. My mother was active & one of a group of tribal members who were the leaders in DRUMS who fought for Restoration to save our tribe, our ancestral homeland and our way of life. This was how I grew up.

So now, after 10,000+ yrs of continuously living in Wisconsin, the place of our origin as a people, our tribe has to write a law about limits of personal harvesting for tribal members instead of people being guided & living by traditional principles that we only take what we need and that we don’t harm life in the woods & don’t ruin things for the future. If people learned & lived according to our traditional ways, the tribal legislature wouldn’t have to write a law.

We have seen the recent surge in requests for enrollment in a lot of tribes here in Oklahoma most especially with the Cherokees I have been told that upwards of 2000 applications a month is the norm and they are about 4 years behind in backlog. Most are trying to get there Ndn card as they call it for health care or to get housing loans not because they want to connect to long lost relatives lol