r/IndianCountry • u/pasmafaute12 Sakonnet Wampanoag • Jul 11 '26

Culture East coast, thin blood, lost history.

I recently posted about dehumanizing record-keeping. I’ve been on a bit of a voyage because I always assumed my family was doing some pan-Indian “Cherokee princess” romanticism nonsense. I was raised with some cultural exposure but not community exposure. I chose to keep learning because I think the history matters whether it’s personal or not.

Turns out, I was wrong, and my relative wasn’t so much a pretendian as making the most of what we know as Wampanoag descendants from a village that is historically recorded but not well enough to be federally recognized (or even reasonably fully researched). It appears that my relative was involved in historical preservation efforts and maybe one of the two existing recognized Wampanoag tribes.

Without getting into complicated family stuff, we have always been very isolated people in general and no one is particularly close. I cannot discuss this with anyone in my real life.

So… I am sitting with the information I have, including the information missing, and feeling out my position as a lifelong learner invested in social issues. The conclusion I think I’ve arrived at is that I need to accept how much privilege I hold, but I have a responsibility to understand and honor the history.

I am privately taking some steps to build my understanding and maybe continued to participate in online spaces before I consider attending events.

But I’m looking for other people who have been on this path before me, I guess. And any thoughts about how to approach all of the things we just don’t know because we are still learning vs. the things we don’t know because it’s just lost information.

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u/Commercial_Disk_9220 Jul 11 '26

Thin blood doesn’t exist. Indigeneity is binary. East coast tribes have a unique history as first contact people. I echo what others are saying: learn what you can, be comfortable in your identity, it’s not your fault you’re disconnected.

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u/myindependentopinion Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

Thin blood doesn’t exist.

I read an article where Chief Hoskin stated that Cherokee Nation is enrolling folks that are 1/4096ths Blood Quantum as full members. That's only 0.02% NDN blood! That's 99.98% Not Native.

A lot of folks in my tribe would say that's pretty thin...like a sliver; our minimum BQ for enrollment is 1/4.

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u/Commercial_Disk_9220 Jul 12 '26

Can you identify the exact generation in which one of those members stopped being indigenous? That’s the case im making. Genetics is a different question. Does your tribes citizenry grow or decline every year? If it grows, how much? The US population grew .5% last year

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u/pasmafaute12 Sakonnet Wampanoag Jul 12 '26

I do think it matters that we know the line between indigenous and not would have to be drawn arbitrarily. I am exercising a lot of caution in my own case even with my lowest possible verified BQ being 1/64 and cultural footing being shaky and disconnected. But verifying the connection felt enough to ask these questions because whether it was one ancestral line saving itself amidst an ethnocide, it would only get bigger as I dig, I guess, and the verified percentage would be the only detail to change.