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MailBag Archive: I'm related to Pocahontas. Can I enroll in her tribe?
Posted on Sunday, May 04 @ 03:30:42 PDT (289 reads)
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QUESTION:
We have recently traced my husband's roots to Pocahontas. His Grandmother had always told him there was a relation, but he never had any proof. He is now interested in joining a tribe. Is this something that is completed in the state we reside? We have found that there is a Accohannock Tribe in Maryland, but we reside in North Carolina. Thanks in advance for your assistance.
~Submitted by Connie C.
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MailBag Archive: Were the Arickaree tribe from the Kansas City, Kansas area?
Posted on Tuesday, April 08 @ 01:21:06 PDT (798 reads)
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QUESTION:
Were the Arickaree Indians ever in Kansas City, Kansas in Wyandotte County? We live in a housing addition called Arickaree Addition on the papers from when we purchased the house. A woman said the Arickarees were never in Kansas.
~Submitted by Frances W.
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MailBag Archive: How do I go about researching my Algonquin genealogy?
Posted on Friday, February 29 @ 09:58:42 PST (1209 reads)
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QUESTION:
My family is descended from the Algonquin's. If I were to try to get in touch with a member of the tribe to learn more about where my family comes from how would I go about it?
~Submitted by Grace K.
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MailBag Archive: What indian tribes originated in Kansas?
Posted on Saturday, February 09 @ 15:26:10 PST (1601 reads)
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QUESTION:
Greetings ~
I am interested in learning about the nation(s) that inhabited a particular area - specifically what is now known as the counties of Leavenworth and Jefferson in the NE corner of the state of Kansas (map: http://skyways.lib.ks.us/counties/).
Is there such a resource that documents, even roughly, what nations might have occupied this area over the span of the last several centuries? I understand that geographical occupation can be influenced by nomadic behavior, unmapped/ancient boundaries, and historical events.
After visiting several books, maps, and websites, I've narrowed it down to a few possibilities: Kiowa, Pawnee, Osage, Cheyenne, and possible Missouri. I am by no means a scholar on this subject, and I desire to learn for my own personal curiosity. I've found contradictions in the resources I have, so I am coming to you for guidance.
~Submitted by: Jenesa S.
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MailBag Archive: Where is Geronimo buried?
Posted on Thursday, December 27 @ 09:34:39 PST (2470 reads)
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QUESTION:
Is GERONIMO buried at Fort Sill or was he moved to another place? Is it posible to get in contact with some of his ancestors?
~Submitted by Ronny W.
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MailBag Archive: Is it possible to find native american genealogy information online without paying for it?
Posted on Sunday, December 16 @ 18:20:37 PST (1774 reads)
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QUESTION:
Is it possible to find native american genealogy information online without paying for it? Where do I start?~Submitted by Craig G.
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MailBag Archive: When is the creation story told?
Posted on Monday, December 03 @ 02:22:42 PST (1519 reads)
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Question:
I am writing a paper for college on how two different native american tribes traditionally explain creation or how life came about. I have found some information but would like to know if anyone could tell me when this would be typically told to someone? As a yound child? In a Ceremony? Does it depend on the individuals family and how much they believe in the passing of legends?
~Submitted by Sarah
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MailBag Archive: Cherokee and Sioux courtship and wedding customs
Posted on Wednesday, November 21 @ 18:42:51 PST (1997 reads)
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Mailbag Question:
In the very near future, I am planning on asking a woman of mixed Sioux and Cherokee descent to marry me. Her family history is obscure but I would like to recognize her partial native american heritage by making a traditional request for her hand, if such a tradition exists. If you could point me in the proper direction, I would be apppreciative.
~Submitted by Jim M.
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MailBag Archive: How many native americans have played major league baseball?
Posted on Thursday, November 01 @ 12:50:01 PST (2777 reads)
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QUESTION:
My son asked me if Jacoby Ellsbury is the first Native American in the majors. I could think of Chief Bender, Louis Sokalexis, Jim Thorpe, and Allie Reynolds, but I wondered where I could find a comprehensive list. And perhaps someone has written a book on the topic. Please help. Thank you.
~Submitted by Oz McConathy
Answer:
In all, only forty-seven full blood Indians have played in the baseball major leagues since 1897.
Jacoby Ellsbury was the first Navajo to play in the major leagues and is one of the most recent baseball players with Indian ancestry. This Native American star in the making spent Spring Training in Red Sox Nation. Ellsbury, signed by Boston in the first round of the draft in 2005 as the 23rd overall pick, is a left-handed outfielder who competed for Oregon State University where he was the 2005 Pac-10 Conference Co-Player of the year and an All Academic Honorable Mention. Ellsbury was ranked as the fastest base runner and 3rd best defensive outfielder of eligible college players in Baseball America's Best Tools Survey for 2005.
Ellsbury's speed coupled with power to all fields, according to the Red Sox, most closely resembles Johnny Damon's playing style and the hope is that he will at least spend part of the 2008 season at the major league level while becoming a regular starter in 2009.
While Ellsbury is only one-half Navajo, he is one of several players of native American descent now making a mark in the big leagues – another being Joba Chamberlain (Winnebago), a rookie reliever for the Yankees.
Right handed starting pitcher, Joba Chamberlain, was landed by the Yankees in the 2006 draft, signed as a supplemental first-round pick and 41st overall. Chamberlain is a member of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska. After competing for two years for the University of Nebraska, having only started to play baseball as a senior in high school in Lincoln, Nebraska, Chamberlain led his team to the 2005 College World Series going 10-2 for the season with a 2.81 ERA.
Now 21, Chamberlain has been clocked with a 98-mph fastball and has been favorably compared by physique, delivery and his portfolio of pitches to Cleveland Indians pitcher, C.C. Sabathia.
Another recent former major leaguer, Bobby Madritsch (Lakota Sioux), pitched for the Seattle Mariners in 2004 and 2005 and was traded to the Kansas City Royals for the 2006 season. Madritsch was recovering at age 28 from reconstructive shoulder surgery when the Mariners signed him. Unfortunately, he re-injured his shoulder and tore his labrum in 2005 and the Royals eventually released him. He is now looking for a contract in the minor leagues.
The first American Indian who is believed to have competed in the major leagues was James Madison Toy, (1/2 Lakota Sioux), who played in the American Association League in 1887 as well as in 1890. Toy preceded Louis Sockalexis, the first officially acknowledged full-blood American Indian to play major league baseball.
Louis Sockalexis is usually credited with having been the first full-blood native american to play major league baseball.
He played for Cleveland from 1897-99, when they were the Cleveland Spiders.
Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox),is perhaps the best-known Native American player of the 20th century as he excelled in multiple sports. Jim Thorpe was an amazing athlete who won both the decathlon and the pentathlon in the 1912 Olympic Games by wide margins in Stockholm, but in 1913 an investigation by the Amateur Athletic Union showed that he had played semi-professional baseball in 1909 and 1910, which should have disqualified him from Olympic competition. He was subsequently deprived of his gold medals, which were reinstated after his death and given to his family in the 1980s. Thorpe later became a major league baseball player and then a pro football player.
From 1913 through 1919, Thorpe was an outfielder for the New York, Cincinnati (Ohio), and Boston baseball teams in the National League. He was more successful as one of the early stars of American professional football from 1919 through 1926. He spent two seasons (1922–23) with the Oorang Indians, whose owner attracted crowds by having Thorpe and his teammates dress up and perform “Indian” tricks before games and at halftime.
Jim Thorpe once hit three home runs into three different states in the same game.
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MailBag Archive: Who were the Wakashan Kwakiutl?
Posted on Tuesday, October 23 @ 06:45:37 PDT (1192 reads)
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QUESTION:
I am a descendant of Adrienne Lucier-Lachapelle. She is my fourth great grandmother. Her parents are Etienne Lucier, a French Canadian fur trapper who worked with the Hudson Bay Company.
He was part of the Astorians of 1881. He married Josephte. I have seen her surname as Nouite and Noutie. The work Nation has always followed. I recently came upon a photo of Adrienne and the caption states that her mother was Josephte Noutie "Wakashan Kwakiutl" by nation. What does this mean?
Josephte has also been referred to as a Princess. Since all of this took place in the 1800's, I am sure that I will never know the whole story. Josephte was the mother of six children and died in St. Paul, Oregon.
My main goal is to know the name of the Tribe that my family is from so that I may research this group of people for my family history book.
~~Submitted by Deborah G.~~
ANSWER:
There are no princesses in indian societies
As far as I know, none of the Indian tribes of North America had or have "Princesses," except the modern kind that represent pow wows and talent contests. Some tribes, like the Kwakiutl, did have a caste system, but they did not call the people at the top of their class system royalty or kings or princesses.
This is probably a misnomer perpetuated by early Europeans whose own class system included such positions. In early conversations with indigenous tribes, so much of the nuances and meanings of their words were lost in translation when sign language was misunderstood or translators used similar words from their own vocabularies to replace phrases they didn't quite understand or couldn't pronounce. The Wakashan languages are especially hard for non-native speakers to pronounce because long strings of consonants often occur in complex clusters.
Kwakiutl society was divided into three main castes based on heredity: slaves, commoners, and nobles.
However, one could change their class through other means than inheriting it, and individuals usually changed their class several times throughout their lifetimes.
You could marry into another line and assume that family's class. One could give their heriditary class away. For example, a noble could give his class to a commoner as a gift, perhaps to show gratitude for saving one's life, or even because the individual was admired for some talent, thus becoming a commoner himself in the process.
Or you could gain class by having a particular skill or talent that was admired by others in the tribe, such as owning a powerful song or being a skilled warrior or hunter. You could become a noble if you had material wealth, and shared it by giving a great feast called a potlatch, where you served a lot of favored foods and gave away many gifts to people who had less than you did.
You could become a noble through inheritance, marriage, the posession of supernatural powers, acts of leadership and bravery, artistic talent, or shared wealth.
In 1800s, "Kwakiutl" included several tribes
The Indian tribes referred to as "Kwakiutl" in the 1800s are actually a whole group of First Nation Pacific Coast tribes, located primarily on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada and the northwestern corner of the Olympic Penninsula of Washington State in the United States.
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MailBag Archive: Do any american indian tribes still own their original homelands?
Posted on Monday, October 01 @ 02:49:53 PDT (1940 reads)
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Question:
Do the American Indians today own land that was once their own land prior to the coming of the White man? What reservations existed prior to the defeat of Custer? and where did Sitting Bull's men go to in Canada after the battle of the Little Big Horn? --Submitted by J. McAuliffe, Australia
Answer:
Reservations in the United States
There are 561 federally recognized tribal governments in the United States, and dozens more state recognized and unrecognized american Indian tribes in the US who are currently fighting (through a lengthy legal appeal process that can take 20 or more years) for recognition.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is the US government agency responsible for the administration and management of the 55.7 million acres of land held in trust by the United States for American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives. This is approximately 2.3% of all the land in the United States.
In the United States, the BIA is responsible for developing forestlands, leasing assets on reservation lands such as oil and mineral deposits and grazing rights, directing agricultural programs, protecting water and land rights, and developing and maintaining infrastructure and economic development on all reservation lands. However, they have grossly mis-managed this responsiblity over the last 200 years, and it is alleged they have cheated the Indians out of billions of dollars owed to them for use of the resources on reservation lands.
On June 10, 1996, Elouise Campbell, a Blackfoot banker and great granddaughter of the legendary Blackfoot leader, Mountain Chief, filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of all american indians to try to recover those funds. Over the years of court litigation, the BIA has destroyed piles of documents pertaining to this matter and several times been held in contempt of court for failing to produce these records for the courts. The case is still ongoing, with no end in sight.
As part of the Cobell litigation, the BIA website was ordered off the Internet until they fix security holes that made their site, and the records and distribution of american indian funds, vulnerable to hackers. To date, they have not complied with the court order to fix their website and remain offline.
Today, there are 304 Indian reservations in the United States. In California, about half of its reservations are called Rancherias. In New Mexico, most reservations are called Pueblos. In some western states, notably Nevada, there are Native American areas called Indian Colonies, and in Alaska they are called Indian communities or indian villages.
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What are some of the most commonly held misconceptions about native american indians both in the past and in the present?
Posted on Tuesday, September 04 @ 22:08:02 PDT (1663 reads)
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Submitted by Jennie T.
Probably the biggest misconception non-indians have about native american indians is that they are all the same, that they share a common culture, common beliefs, and a common governmental structure. Many people picture the Plains Indian tribes as representative of all Indians because of their romanticized portrayal in Hollywood movies.
In reality,there are well over 1,000 separate native american indian tribes in the United States and Canada, and hundreds more in Mexico, Central America and South America. While they do share some general philosophies on life, just as most non-indian people in the United States, Canada, and Europe do, each tribe has their own culture, beliefs, languages, and religions, similar to differences separate countries in Europe and North America do, or different states in the US have different traditions.
Individual indian tribes vary in size from less than ten surviving members to more than half a million tribal members. Some tribes have reservation lands, some do not. About half of all native american tribal members continue to live on reservations, the other half live off reservations in predominately anglo towns and cities. Most live in houses just like you do, whether on or off the reservations. The Plains Indian tribes use tipis mainly on special occasions, like powwow gatherings. Other native americans never lived in tipis at all, even in the old days. Some tribes built their homes from bark, woven reeds, bent sticks, thatched palms, partially submerged pits in the ground or side of a hill, or adobe bricks.
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MailBag Archive: Will native americans be offended if I sell a catlinite fetish effigy?
Posted on Tuesday, July 24 @ 02:55:01 PDT (1343 reads)
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QUESTION: I have been researching a turtle I bought at a garage sale last weekend. The label reads "Indian Made Pipestone Craft." It measures about 2 3/4 inches long and 2 inches across the shell. I do not feel right about selling it on ebay. I will if there isn't an issue. Please let me know if I should contact someone who would want this back or if it is disrespectful to sell it.
Submitted by Elizabeth G.
ANSWER:
Hi Elizabeth,
This turtle effigy is what is known in the indian arts and craft trade as a fetish. Generally, native americans aren't particularly offended if you sell fetishes, on ebay or otherwise, unless they are burial items taken from grave sites, which this one clearly isn't, or if they have been used as a ceremonial object, which I would strongly doubt with this piece because it is clearly labled for the tourist trade. Selling a fetish, in general, is not considered offensive.
Traditional Fetishes
 Traditionally, fetishes were made by the Pueblo tribes as personal ceremonial objects representing certain animals, and were believed to contain spirits of the animal they represented. They were believed to bring good luck, provide protection, lend endurance, or otherwise endow the owner with powers attributed to that specific animal. Another name for a fetish carving is an effigy. Some Pueblo tribes only carve one type of animal effigy and consider it taboo to carve others. For example, the Santo Domingo Pueblo only carves bird fetishes.
Today people from many indian tribes, and even non-indians make fetishes for tourists and collectors of art. They are usually thought of as an art object today, rather than a ceremonial item. Fetishes are mass produced in Arizona and New Mexico, and in countries like Mexico and the Philippines, as well as made by individual artists.
Many native american people are offended by this copying, or "appropriation" of their traditional arts. However, on the other hand, a lot of Indian people will buy these foreign or mass produced pieces themselves, sign them and say they made them themselves. So, just because it's signed doesn't particularly mean anything, unless you know it's particular history, the background and reputation of the carver, and can document it, or you saw it made with your own eyes.
A very large number of the fetishes on the market today are mass produced commercially for the tourist trade, as I suspect this one was because of the little "Indian Made Pipestone Craft" plaque on the back. That tells me it was produced for the tourist trade and isn't a ceremonial object and was never used as one.
 Whether or not it was actually made by a federally recognized native american person would be open to debate, unless you have documented proof that leads back to the carver of this piece, which apparently you don't. Catlinite comes from a quarry mine ceded to the Yankton Sioux tribe, but also used by other tribes for generations. That in itself doesn't necessarily mean the fetish was carved by a member of the Sioux tribes, or even any indian tribe, because catlinite is often traded and sold in raw blocks to anyone who wants to buy it, and many fetish carvers are non-indians.
Those markers that say an item is Indian Made can be purchased at most jewelry making supply houses or custom printed at any print shop. Selling items not made by federally recognized indians with the label "Indian Made" or "Indian Produced" is against the law and is a federal offense today, but it wasn't prior to 1996, and it was a common practice to use these labels regardless of who made the item prior to that time. I don't know how old this particular fetish is.
Even today, this law is largely unenforced due to lack of funding and is flagrantly abused in the indian arts and crafts industry. So, even though it is labled "Indian Made," there is no guarantee that it is if you don't know it's specific history.
Catlinite is a sacred stone
What some native americans might object to is the material this fetish is made from, which is catlinite, commonly called pipestone because of it's popularity in making the canupa, or pipe bowl. This catlinite material is quarried at only one place in the world: the Pipestone Quarry in Minnesota inside the Pipestone National Monument.
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MailBag Archive: Foods Native Americans consider taboo
Posted on Saturday, July 14 @ 17:27:37 PDT (2755 reads)
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QUESTION:
I am doing a research project for my nutrition class and have to find out about foods that were prohibited for native americans but have had no luck so far, could you givee some information or point me in the right direction?
~Submitted by Gabriela L.
ANSWER:
The Gabrielino Indians, were so called because of their proximity to San Gabriel Mission, established in California in 1771. They considered bears, rattlesnakes, and owls taboo. Other food restrictions occurred by ceremony. New mothers fasted and only drank warm water. New fathers fasted at the birth of the child, and were not permitted to fish or hunt. Hunters fasted during the hunting party, and they were not expected to eat their own catch. There were special foods and drink prepared only for initiation ceremonies for boys and girls at puberty.
In the old days, it was taboo for the Navajo to eat burned foods, especially breads. Another taboo food was chicken. This is no longer the case, and now chicken is an integral part of their diet. In fact, chicken is so popular that commercial fast-food chicken establishments have sprung up on the Navajo reservation. A concurrent increased incidence of gallbladder disease is attributed to this dietary practice.
According to a Jicarilla Apache
legend, you can get a disease from snakes and bears, (perhaps it refers to the fever caused by snake bite or infection from a bear attack), but during the medicine feast of the ceremony to cure this, bread baked in the ashes is a taboo food. Still bear was eaten, but Apaches did not eat reptiles or fish. They also did not eat bacon or pork, because pigs ate those forbidden foods.
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