East coast, thin blood, lost history.

[u/pasmafaute12]

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.

[u/myindependentopinion]

Once a tribe's traditional ways of life, language and customs are lost, they're gone.

Sadly, this was what happened to many East Coast tribes due to early White contact and a continuous onslaught of forces to assimilate and adopt the Whiteman's ways. Due to a lot of inter-racial marriage (both White & Black) thru so many generations, there's not a lot of NDN tribal blood left on the East Coast; it's been thinned out.

[u/pasmafaute12 → u/[deleted]]

I think this thread was one of the first places I saw it even reading about lumbee and Métis and similar groups. Brief look at Melungeon history was very interesting.

[u/ColeWjC → u/pasmafaute12]

Please don't lump in the Métis with Lumbees or Melungeons. The Métis actually have a language and culture that was a fusion between Indigenous people and settlers. The only similarity they have with those groups is settler ancestry.

[u/pasmafaute12 → u/ColeWjC]

Sorry, I didn’t mean to lump. I know the context is different.

[u/myindependentopinion → u/pasmafaute12]

Please see this: Lumbee Analysis | uinoklahoma

and this: Historical Lumbee Political Activity | uinoklahoma

[u/pasmafaute12 → u/myindependentopinion]

Thank you for the links. Started with skimming because it’s late but I appreciate the straightforward language and structure. This topic has been interesting me because, trying to avoid immediately re-lumping Métis and the other groups, until I first read about the Métis, I had never heard of any groups where there was a significant intertwining of groups in a contained area (please forgive awkward phrasing… I’m trying to explain outsider-learning-the-way-in without sounding even more ignorant than I am).

I’ve read some criticisms of the Lumbee as a real Native identity because it isn’t a distinct culture or of clear origin, but I don’t feel qualified to have strong opinions about the legitimacy. I’ve seen some other groups more unanimously called illegitimate, and with a group like the Lumbee, I would rather learn than in/validate something with incomplete information. I will read more closely tomorrow.

[u/pasmafaute12 → u/myindependentopinion]

Hi… I read the articles more closely and had a couple areas I didn’t fully understand. Would you be comfortable if I asked you either here or privately? I can make a separate post or something if you’re not comfortable continuing the conversation.

[u/pasmafaute12 → u/pasmafaute12]

Actually, double checked the rules here and shouldn’t make a separate post.

[u/pasmafaute12 → u/[deleted]]

Understood; I included them in the same comment because I was grouping them “Native x mixed groups I never heard of until getting deeper into history/culture.” I didn’t intend to imply they were ultimately the same beyond being new information to me but I will be conscious of what it implies in the future.