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Thanks Jim...this one has been rattling around Indian country for a few
days. I paid attention at first but the discussion itself is
paradoxical, so if you read it 30 years ago, it is still the same
oroboro... Some of the discussions along the lines of cultural alchemy
are infuriating. Marriage does not threaten culture but what you do
with culture after you marry can. It is one thing to take a foreign
item and integrate it attaching our own cultural meaning. It is
entirely something else when we take in a foreign item and bring with
it its foreign cultural meaning...one is integration the other is
assimilation. These are two very distinct and subtle processes. We can
have any kind of blood that will keep us living but if that living is
not the daily activities of our people/relatives which keep the living
memories of our ancestors, culturally we have become something
different. Blood be damned...it will not give the knowledge of where
our people hunt, how they hunt, what the hunting medicine/rituals are,
what medicines to use where, or the ancient knowledge of our own
cosmology. All that is only possible though relatives and ancestors.
What can a narrative, a recording, a video, a map tell us of how we
relate to the 'little people' in ritual and prayer. <br>
<br>
Most of the language is gone from the communities where I now live, my
mother's people. Few people remember the traditional geography of this
place and the names that tell you what it is all about. Young people
now go to places with snow machines, ATVs, four x fours and run rampant
over places made sacred by the generations of our ancestors repeatedly
and repeatedly doing offerings and ceremonies far beyond a single
memory of that place. Without that knowledge there is not even the
knowledge of violation by unknowingly urinating or defecating on a
sacred spot where our people made prayer and talked with the spirits.<br>
<br>
And now we are going to discuss the age old blood quantum, no longer
because of the colonizers, but to identify amongst our own people to
determine who qualifies for the largest payout.... In my opinion, I
will stop here as I see this discussion having no solution...unless, of
course, someone else can please post one.<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-------
wahjeh
rolland nadjiwon</pre>
<blockquote cite="mid:bbb.5d7fd958.382715f1@aol.com" type="cite"><font
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<h1>Oregon family at heart of sticky issue: Does intermarriage
threaten Native American culture?</h1>
<h4>By <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="http://connect.oregonlive.com/user/dcockle/index.html"
href="http://connect.oregonlive.com/user/dcockle/index.html">Richard
Cockle, The Oregonian</a> </h4>
<h5>November 06, 2009, 5:10PM</h5>
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class="photo-breakout photo-center large"><span class="byline"></span></span></span><a
moz-do-not-send="true" title="mailto:rcockle@oregonwireless.net"
href="mailto:rcockle@oregonwireless.net"></a></div>
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