Don't we have one or more Native Americans on this forum?

I hope so. I have some questions for N.A.

First, do you retain connections to your tribe, or even live on a tribal reservation? And what tribe?

And secondly, while most of the rest of us refer to you as "Native Americans" or even the misnomer "Indians", what do your people call yourselves? A native-language word plus a translation into English would be great.

If you are a Native American and you reply to this and get no response from me, it's because I didn't get an "Alert" to notify me. So if you would be so kind you might then PM me.

Thanks.

 

I am Lakota Sioux and a member of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Lakhotiyapi wowaglate
I speak lakota

 

Thank you for replying. There is so much I'd like to learn about you and your people. My other question which I am very interested in is, what do the Lakota Sioux call Native Americans? And besides spelling it, could you also spell it phonetically so I will know the correct pronunciation, -or at least as correct as I can get it?

Is it typical and common for Lakota Sioux children to learn to speak lakota? I think it's great that you preserve your language and traditions.

Please forgive my ignorance of these things. Our schools don't teach us much that is true about Native Americans and their lives and struggles. So here I am, 71 years old, and ignorant of these things.

Thanks!

 

We've always been known as Sioux which is originally I believe an Algonquin term for snake people... I was taught that we were known as plains people.

No, the language is not taught formally in schools, it is a dying language. I was really surprised that the producers of Dances with Wolves actually used the Omaha Sioux dialect in the movie. There are many websites That you can actually learn some basic phrases from.

While I can speak and write Lakota, some traditions like Ghost Dancing were outlawed...

I try to still follow most traditions, and I am soon to retire up to Alaska. Hunting and fishing for a living, instead of a job.

I believe our religion is probably the simplest and most true...Mother Earth, Father Sky, the gift of life is water...it is more complicated than that but essentially it is that simple.

 

Ok, thanks. That covers the Sioux. I was actually wondering about any collective term equivalent to "Native Americans" that would cover all tribes. There are various understandable objections to referring to Native Americans as "Indians" and maybe to "Native Americans" as well, so I was wondering whether there may be a term that is considered acceptable and valid to Native Americans. If there were to be such term(s) it would probably vary per tribe. But that raises another question. Please correct my terminology here.... I assume the Lakota Sioux are considered by themselves to be a "tribe", and the Omaha Sioux would be a "tribe", and the Iroquois, Narragansett, Cherokee, Paiute, etc. would all be tribes.

How are the Lakota Sioux related to the Omaha Sioux?

I hope that changes though it's none of my business. It just seems like a terrible loss.

Interesting! I didn't know that.

Sounds like a major change for you. Would there be a community in Alaska for you to be part of?

I think we need a Constitutional amendment that says all those in the highest positions in the EPA and any other agencies dealing with environment should be Native Americans, lol. Fat chance.

Thanks again.

BTW, some years ago I had a sailboat I named "Wakinyan".

 

Are you essentially trying to ask if native Americans get offended by being called "indian"? Seems like the whole premise of the thread given the way you are trying to shift the responses you get:

 

It does seem like a hunt for the most politically correct term possible.

 

My husband is Navajo, and uses the term Native, but also Indigenous People.
He grew up on the Navajo reservation and speaks the language, but moved away after college. We still visit his family on the reservation from time to time. Hope that helps.

 

Your faithfullness to your ancestors honour you.

 

No I don't take offense to being called 'Indian' or indigenous or Redskin... I do take offense when someone asks if I should really be drinking 'alcohol' like all native Americans are alcoholics. Some stereotype just piss you off.

As for communities up in Alaska, I do have friends that are native Americans but just as many that are white that choose that lifestyle. So no, I own property up there that I will start to develop in the next couple of years.

 

I found it confusing since the requirements to comment were not clarified. I mean are we supposed to be real indigenous population posters to respond or merely a 1/10,000th genetic member, like Elizabeth Warren? Because if it is the second requirement -- which nearly all of our leftist posters previously endorsed -- then technically speaking it makes an incredible number of the populace in general . . . indigenous population members.

 

I’m sure he’d be happy to hear about your Native American experience. Care to regale us?

 

Genetically I am more so than Elizabeth Warren, and aside from having a Native American brother-in-law and having donated to Native American charities for decades, I got nothing.

 

I am not American Indian but in Oklahoma there is a large population and many tribes.

The tribes are strong on promoting their languages and keeping language and culture alive through programs. Though there are no reservations here in Oklahoma, the tribal identity is strong...I get this from the the people I work with and do business with and the tribes promote their identity by impacting the community.

Most tribal members I work with or attend church with are fully involved in their tribal events.

They refer to themselves as Indian and thus most people here white or Indian, use the label Indian for Amer-indian ethanicity informally while in normal conversation. "Native American" is used in formal or situations where it might be better to be politically correct.

Tribal governments refer to members of their tribe as "citizens".

Just my two cents.

 

Obviously "Native American" is wrong.......they came from other countries just like everybody else.

They came first so we call them "First Nation" in some places.

Amerindian is also pretty good, although this is erroneously conflated with indigenous by some.

Indian, while obviously and totally wrong, is accepted by most people.

Maybe because it's the easiest word to use.

 

If we're going by Warren standards, then I'm a Native American.

 

And so are all of us.

 

i'll call them anything they want I only wish they'd get together and let the rest of us what that is...first peoples, first nations, amerindians, indigenous peoples, what?

 

I do not, because my great-grandparents severed all connections in the early 1900's. At that time it was still generally illegal to live off of the reservation without permission, and he did not want to continue to be a poor dirt farmer as the rest of his family were.

He was Potawatomi, from Oklahoma. My grandmother was born just off the reservation, but never registered with the tribe.

This was actually quite common in that time period. Quite a few Indians joined in an exodus to leave the reservations, and then just melted away into American society. And during either the Dustbowl or WWII joined the second exodus to the West Coast.

 

I went to college with an Iroquois who apparently was among those who left the reservations long ago.

I though that since you have no connections to India, contrary to the beliefs of the early white settlers here, some Native Americans were opposed to "Indian" and preferred something else, -maybe "Native American". So your comments are interesting.

From my standpoint it looks to me like a tough choice. By leaving the reservation one's options and prospects probably improve, BUT then there is some loss of traditions and history. And our USA history taught in schools doesn't present your history objectively and accurately by a long shot. I just learned that when the first white settlers landed here the population of Native Americans was something over 100 million. I didn't know the population was so large. ... AND they had much more advance technology than history classes reveal.

 

Sure, some hate the term "Indian", but you will find most really do not care. Just as the vast majority do not have a problem with the Indian mascots for schools or sports teams. Most of those who scream loudest are professional agitators (self-appointed "leaders") who are doing it for attention.

And "our history"? Well, think about it. There were thousands of tribes, each considering themselves their own "Nation". Do the history books talk about the Princedoms of Germany? The Principalities of Italy? All of the various "Barbarian" tribes that wandered from Asia to Europe for over 1,000 years?

Can most explain even the basic differences between Huns and Mongols? The Franks, Goths, Visigoths, Saxons, and Celts? No, and it largely does not matter, they are mostly gone.

But as an FYI, the Potawatomi (Neshnabe) are part of the Anishinabe, of the Algonquin Family. They along with the Ojibwe and Odawa were the "Council of the Three Fires". Basically a large extended clan, tradition is that they were formed by 3 brothers. The Ojibwe are the "Older Brothers", and the "Keepers of the Faith". The Odawa were the "Middle Brother", and the "Keepers of Trade". The Potawatomi were the "Younger Brother", and the "Keeper of the Home/Fire". They and their brothers were much more settled than most tribes, primarily living in semi-permanent villages and running trade networks. They had contacts and maintained relations with tribes as far away as the Lakota in the Dakotas, and the Iroquois Confederacy in New England.

But remember, the high point was over by 1500. The vast majority of the Indian population were dead within 50 years, primarily because of disease. Chicken Pox swept through the continent like the Black Death had through Europe 150 years earlier. And the technology did not really matter all that much.

And you can even see it in looking at the Pre-Columbian cultures. The dominant ones on 2 Continents were those that had urbanized, like the Inca and Aztec. They had cities, extensive trade routes, and preyed upon the "primitive" nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes. The only difference is that the nomadic phase in Pre-Columbian culture was still going strong, where it had died out in Europe 1,000 years before (and in Eastern Asia 1,000 years before that).

It all has to do with population density. North America was only getting to the point where the culture could jump from nomadic to static. The Inca and Aztec had done it, the Mississippian, Algonquin, and Iroquois were on the verge of doing it (by 1500 all had gotten to the point where over half of the population had stopped being primarily nomadic).

It was not the technology that matters, so much as the culture. Very few Indian tribes grasped the idea of "land ownership". They also had no real "Aristocracy" north of Mexico. You only owned what you could carry, your tribe was all family, and most warfare was more symbolic than the "total war" that Europeans conducted. The Europeans came in with these concepts, which were completely foreign to North American Indians.

But the history I went through earlier about the Anishinabe only applies to my tribal clan groupings. For the Lakota, the Shoshone, the Blackfoot, the Apache, and all the other tribal groups it is very different. I think the only tribal groupings we learned about in history was the Iroquois because in general they had good relations with the original colonies.

I learned most of what I knew form my grandmother. Most people have never heard of the Potawatomi because for the most part they were peaceful traders and farmers. While some did join in the Midwest Indian Wars of the 1800's, most stayed out of it. Those who lived in Michigan still live on their tribal lands. But many in Indiana took place in the wars, and were relocated first to Kansas, then later Oklahoma.

 

Wow, Mushroom. You're a wealth of knowledge. Your grandmother did a good job. Thanks much for the information.

 

that's appears to be an extreme distortion of the facts...most genetic testing for recent ancestors normally only goes back six generations so she'd be about 1/64th native, assuming that the native american ancestor was full blooded native...at ten generations it would be 1/1000th

how people identify themselves is their business it's neither a leftist or rightwing issue, Warren claims she has native american DNA and she's correct the DNA tests verify it...many white americans claim to be of some ethnicity or another despite the fact most are a composite of many ethnicities and native american is no doubt very common in many. Even when the DNA traces disappear into infinitesimal size doesn't prevent many from claiming family ties to centuries dead kings, pirates and vikings...(spoiler alert, we're all related to some centuries dead King it's a statistical certainty)

I'm as white as can be but south pacific Islanders I've encountered have told me that they accept me as one of them because on my small Island genetic makeup, despite how I look. Do I consider myself a pacific islander? no, but I'm not going to deny the relatively recent genetic link either.

 

that's a generalization, where I live in Canada using the term "Indian" is a sure way to get into a brawl.
A highschool in my hometown changed it's sports teams name "Redmen" , the former euro student body are now predominately indigenous.

yeah the history books I read do talk about all those people but you'd have to be curious enough to read more than the basic highschool textbook.
Huns and Visigoths absorbed into local populations...Franks(dutch) Goths(nordics/germans) Saxons(dutch, northwest german, english), celts(irish,scots) are all still there, only their names have changed

 

But most people never read history beyond basic High School level. They simply assume the generalizations they were taught was all there was to know on a subject.

And remember, most of the "Barbarian" tribes migrated from even further East. They were pushed West by the Huns, who were themselves pushed to the West by the Mongols. Who went West because the Chinese stopped them from going East.

And it was largely the same with the Indians. Most of the tribal systems that remain today are actually fairly new historically speaking. The entire Anishinabe culture only dates back to around 800 CE. What existed before it is largely unknown, but it likely replaced an even earlier tribal confederation in the same area.

Historically speaking, about the oldest "known" Indian culture dates to around the same time period. Beyond that it is only legends really. Probably the largest Indian culture north of Mexico is the Mississippian, but it only lasted around 500 years, and completely disintegrated by 1500. It was already on the course towards self-destruction (civil wars, resource depletion, climate change) even before the Europeans arrived. The died out by 1510 without ever even meeting any Europeans.