LJ Idol Season 5 Week 21 - One Body Split and Passed Along the Line
o/` "When blood sees blood
Of its own
It sings to see itself again
It sings to hear the voice it's known
It sings to recognize the face
"One body split and passed along the line
>From the shoulder to the hip
I know these bones as being mine
And the curving of the lip" o/`
---- "Blood Sings" performed by Suzanne Vega
It all began with a chipped tooth.
The dentist did a beautiful job of repairing the big vertical crack in the first bicuspid and as he was waiting for it to set, he asked me, "What tribe do you come from?"
His question confused me. As far as I knew, I was as white as they came and there was not one drop of Native blood running through my veins. That you know of, a small voice whispered even as I remembered my grandmother's explosive reaction to the suggestion that there might be African American bloodlines intermixed with ours. That question had been asked when my little sister, dark with a head full of nappy curls and her light pink palms and soles, had entered this world. I think my grandmother held her frosty silence with the relative who asked until the day she died.
There were stories, of course --- every pioneer family had them, it seemed --- and ours involved a catastrophic flood at the place known locally as Sweet Water in Wyoming. As the story goes, the wagon rain attempted a crossing of what appeared to be a dry river bed in the early spring. Storms in the mountains combined with an early snowmelt caused a flash flood. Many of the train were swept away or drowned, particularly the children. The accounts differ as to what tribe intervened (some say Apache, others Shoshone, and some simply say Sioux) but all agree that the Natives did. They kept several of the children, including three from my great grandmother's family, from drowning by tying them to their saddles or holding them tight against a tree. The party then helped the pioneers reclaim their wagons and led them to a safe place where they could regroup. Our family records indicate that in payment the tribe kept two males and one female, a very young girl belonging to our family. How much of that story, if any, is fact?
"I don't believe I have any Native blood," I told him.
"You'd be wrong," he said and showed me an article about the differing shapes of teeth in different populations much like this one. He pulled up my dental charts and pointed out both the shovel shaped incisors and the Carabelli cusp. "Those traits are only present in those with Native ancestry."
I left the dentist's office and promptly discarded his professional opinion as well meaning but misinformed. Growing up in the Southwest among several Native Nations, I had had it drilled into me that cultural appropriation was a grievous offense. Though I admired the cultures and had, to some extent, been accepted and asked to be involved I would never have dreamed of laying claim to something which wasn't mine. After several similar comments by other medical professionals --- the elongated second toes, the crooked pinky, and the configuration of the arches of my feet are all apparently traits more commonly found in Native populations --- I decided to conclusively disprove the family myth once and for all. I didn't like even the insinuation that I might be part of something to which I had no rights.
On our summer trips to Wyoming I sought to verify as much of the information as I could. I didn't expect to find anything. Sweet Water isn't far off the highway, which follows the original wagon trail tracks still visible at the roadside, and there is in fact a plaque there at one of the rest stops mentioning both the wagon train disaster and the fact that the train was rescued by Natives. It does not, however, mention which tribe or which families were involved, though the dates coincided with the family oral history.
There were other anomalies. My grandmother and grandfather were married in the church at Ethete, Wyoming which is on the Wind River Indian Reservation. The church, which required a professional stonemason to set the precisely cut flagstone present throughout the building, had been built by my grandmother's father. Back then, access to the reservation was restricted by the people who lived there themselves. Our little station wagon was stopped about fifteen minutes after we crossed into the reservation by the reservation police. When my mother explained why we were there --- to show her children the church --- they allowed us a half hour visit. He was doing this, the police officer explained, only because they did not wish to deny her children their heritage.
I found out that day that they could not have gotten married at this particular church when they did unless one or both of them had Native heritage. I knew it wasn't my grandfather, who was 6'4" and had had flaming red hair in his youth. He still spoke with the Swedish accent. The attendant priest was somewhat more sympathetic to my search and helpfully produced the parish records. I verified their signatures in the registry but could neither take pictures nor get it copied. When we got home, I checked the county's records. It wasn't on file anywhere else.
In the intervening years, I read all I could on modern Native cultures. The book God Is Red by Vine Deloria Jr. convinced me that there was no way I could ever possibly get the answers I needed. The contents were so powerful, so gut wrenching and so outspoken against whites of any stripe investigating their heritage that I felt ashamed for digging as far as I had. There was just no way I could get involved without being accused of the very thing I feared and being soundly rejected.
When my grandmother died last year, we had the unhappy task of going through her things. My grandmother had been a collector of family lore and I was surprised to see just how much of it was intact. Among those things was a birth certificate for her dated July 6, 1906 and stating she was born in Enid, Oklahoma. Her obituary, however, listed her as born in Shidler, Oklahoma. I looked them both up. It turns out both are located in what used to be the Osage Indian Reservation and near where the current seat of government for that tribe still resides. I chronicled the results of that research in this entry. You can look at the photos and make the comparisons yourself.
The Osage members' responses were cordial, if not outright welcoming. They did not turn me away or scoff and the initial correspondent applauded the cautious manner with which I'd approached getting involved in a Native culture. Recently I had a communication indicating that my grandmother's birth records have been found and verified as existing on the reservation before the town was incorporated and before the land was ceded to white settlers. While this does not confirm Native heritage, it does get closer to verifying the link. Several people who think they may be related to my grandmother by blood have offered to search other documents such as the Dawes Rolls in an effort to find her parents' names (their presence on the Dawes Rolls would conclusively prove Native heritage). I've been invited up to look over the records myself and to copy what I need. They've asked to meet me, to get to know me. I have become a regular reader of the web site and a subscriber to the newsletters.
Regardless of the controversy over 'white' Indians and what other tribes may think, the Osage seem to think I should be involved and ultimately their opinion is all that matters.
I need my heritage in order to be a whole person.
Of its own
It sings to see itself again
It sings to hear the voice it's known
It sings to recognize the face
"One body split and passed along the line
>From the shoulder to the hip
I know these bones as being mine
And the curving of the lip" o/`
---- "Blood Sings" performed by Suzanne Vega
It all began with a chipped tooth.
The dentist did a beautiful job of repairing the big vertical crack in the first bicuspid and as he was waiting for it to set, he asked me, "What tribe do you come from?"
His question confused me. As far as I knew, I was as white as they came and there was not one drop of Native blood running through my veins. That you know of, a small voice whispered even as I remembered my grandmother's explosive reaction to the suggestion that there might be African American bloodlines intermixed with ours. That question had been asked when my little sister, dark with a head full of nappy curls and her light pink palms and soles, had entered this world. I think my grandmother held her frosty silence with the relative who asked until the day she died.
There were stories, of course --- every pioneer family had them, it seemed --- and ours involved a catastrophic flood at the place known locally as Sweet Water in Wyoming. As the story goes, the wagon rain attempted a crossing of what appeared to be a dry river bed in the early spring. Storms in the mountains combined with an early snowmelt caused a flash flood. Many of the train were swept away or drowned, particularly the children. The accounts differ as to what tribe intervened (some say Apache, others Shoshone, and some simply say Sioux) but all agree that the Natives did. They kept several of the children, including three from my great grandmother's family, from drowning by tying them to their saddles or holding them tight against a tree. The party then helped the pioneers reclaim their wagons and led them to a safe place where they could regroup. Our family records indicate that in payment the tribe kept two males and one female, a very young girl belonging to our family. How much of that story, if any, is fact?
"I don't believe I have any Native blood," I told him.
"You'd be wrong," he said and showed me an article about the differing shapes of teeth in different populations much like this one. He pulled up my dental charts and pointed out both the shovel shaped incisors and the Carabelli cusp. "Those traits are only present in those with Native ancestry."
I left the dentist's office and promptly discarded his professional opinion as well meaning but misinformed. Growing up in the Southwest among several Native Nations, I had had it drilled into me that cultural appropriation was a grievous offense. Though I admired the cultures and had, to some extent, been accepted and asked to be involved I would never have dreamed of laying claim to something which wasn't mine. After several similar comments by other medical professionals --- the elongated second toes, the crooked pinky, and the configuration of the arches of my feet are all apparently traits more commonly found in Native populations --- I decided to conclusively disprove the family myth once and for all. I didn't like even the insinuation that I might be part of something to which I had no rights.
On our summer trips to Wyoming I sought to verify as much of the information as I could. I didn't expect to find anything. Sweet Water isn't far off the highway, which follows the original wagon trail tracks still visible at the roadside, and there is in fact a plaque there at one of the rest stops mentioning both the wagon train disaster and the fact that the train was rescued by Natives. It does not, however, mention which tribe or which families were involved, though the dates coincided with the family oral history.
There were other anomalies. My grandmother and grandfather were married in the church at Ethete, Wyoming which is on the Wind River Indian Reservation. The church, which required a professional stonemason to set the precisely cut flagstone present throughout the building, had been built by my grandmother's father. Back then, access to the reservation was restricted by the people who lived there themselves. Our little station wagon was stopped about fifteen minutes after we crossed into the reservation by the reservation police. When my mother explained why we were there --- to show her children the church --- they allowed us a half hour visit. He was doing this, the police officer explained, only because they did not wish to deny her children their heritage.
I found out that day that they could not have gotten married at this particular church when they did unless one or both of them had Native heritage. I knew it wasn't my grandfather, who was 6'4" and had had flaming red hair in his youth. He still spoke with the Swedish accent. The attendant priest was somewhat more sympathetic to my search and helpfully produced the parish records. I verified their signatures in the registry but could neither take pictures nor get it copied. When we got home, I checked the county's records. It wasn't on file anywhere else.
In the intervening years, I read all I could on modern Native cultures. The book God Is Red by Vine Deloria Jr. convinced me that there was no way I could ever possibly get the answers I needed. The contents were so powerful, so gut wrenching and so outspoken against whites of any stripe investigating their heritage that I felt ashamed for digging as far as I had. There was just no way I could get involved without being accused of the very thing I feared and being soundly rejected.
When my grandmother died last year, we had the unhappy task of going through her things. My grandmother had been a collector of family lore and I was surprised to see just how much of it was intact. Among those things was a birth certificate for her dated July 6, 1906 and stating she was born in Enid, Oklahoma. Her obituary, however, listed her as born in Shidler, Oklahoma. I looked them both up. It turns out both are located in what used to be the Osage Indian Reservation and near where the current seat of government for that tribe still resides. I chronicled the results of that research in this entry. You can look at the photos and make the comparisons yourself.
The Osage members' responses were cordial, if not outright welcoming. They did not turn me away or scoff and the initial correspondent applauded the cautious manner with which I'd approached getting involved in a Native culture. Recently I had a communication indicating that my grandmother's birth records have been found and verified as existing on the reservation before the town was incorporated and before the land was ceded to white settlers. While this does not confirm Native heritage, it does get closer to verifying the link. Several people who think they may be related to my grandmother by blood have offered to search other documents such as the Dawes Rolls in an effort to find her parents' names (their presence on the Dawes Rolls would conclusively prove Native heritage). I've been invited up to look over the records myself and to copy what I need. They've asked to meet me, to get to know me. I have become a regular reader of the web site and a subscriber to the newsletters.
Regardless of the controversy over 'white' Indians and what other tribes may think, the Osage seem to think I should be involved and ultimately their opinion is all that matters.
I need my heritage in order to be a whole person.