Obviously Buffy lied. The birth certificate is pretty compelling proof. Based on our determinations today of who is considered native and who is not, she most definitely is not. However, based on older ancestral determinations of tribal membership, she wouild likely have been considered indian regardless of her ethnicity, if she was adotped in. When the US government forced enrollment and blood quantum on the tribes, they disallowed adoption for tribal membership. Indian identity has been a complex and highly charged issue in native america basically since the first mixed blood baby was born and the first 'non-native' was adopted in. I think you handled the subject matter well, even though I have a different perspective. I have been a legally enrolled and registered member of a federally recognized native american tribe for over fifty years. Here in America, 'Indian' is a legally defined, but not specifically a racially defined, term. Most tribal governments now insist that only those who are enrolled in federally recognized tribes can legally call themselves indians or native american. This is understandable, but there are also multiple problems with drawing this particular line in the sand. I would have to write several pages of well documented history here to explain exactly why this is a problem, but suffice it to say this issue of native ethnicity/idenity is not nearly as cut and dried as it would first appear or as many would like it to be. Indian america itself has been in an identity crises for multiple generations as well over 80% of us are now significantly mixed blood. The pure blood native phenotype has mostly disappeared in america, and many who appear 'full blood' are actually mixed blood hispanic, philipino, arab, black, iltalian, jewish, etc. Being indian is just not a reliable DNA thing. And so wierdly enough, some natives have actually created a checklist about what it means to be indian today. I guess they did this so we can tell ourselves and each other how we are supposed to act and think if we are to be seen as 'real' indians now. Many tribal elders would not be able to satisfy the new 'woke' indian identity requirements. So that tells you something right there. Our tribes are now infested with wokeness from all the young bright natives with shiny new degrees from all these woke colleges. It's hard to watch the fallout. There now seems to be some strange idea that all us indians were fully and accurately documented. Almost every single native elder I have ever known talked about innaccuracies in the documentation of their own families. For example my own native grandfather was officially enrolled with a different blood quantum than his full siblings who all had the same parents and that was a realtively small and common type of error. Like many things, we want the native identity issue to be black and white. or red and white as the case may be, but it isn't. Many tribes have kicked out lifetime enrolled members for various reasons many times. So one day you are indian and the next you are not?
Like everything else it is a politcal shell game and it is all about the money. I am not defending Buffy here, just attempting to show another side to this convoluted issue of who is indian and who is not.
Yes, I have a friend here who doesn't want to believe Buffy lied...she thinks the birth certificate could have been faked. I didn't argue too much...people will believe what they want to believe. I don't have strong feelings about it apart from the way she harmed Natives by taking awards and pretending trauma she didn't have. I took interest in the story because twenty years ago I wrote a novel about a Pagan woman and the love interest was a 'Native American shaman' who was actually like 1/16 Native and the rest Irish-American (the most common lineage in America, I think). So he was a 'pretendian' and I got into the issues surrounding inappropriate identity (before identity became A Thing) and how it's important not to mix up Native American religions or tribes/bands. I read some of the crap literature (bought in second hand bookstores so the authors didn't profit) like Lynn V. Andrews, Carlos Castenada and I can't remember the other - Andrews, the 'Beverly HIll Shaman" as she was derisively called) was the worst. One theme I found in common: Native Americans & Canadians are DYING to teach overprivileged white women their 1980s-style New Age ways!!! :) I read up on real Natives as well as I had a few in the sequel. I will say this much: When it comes to religion, I don't want to tell *anyone* they can't touch this or that religion; some of us Pagans therorize that we're drawn to religious systems outside our birth culture perhaps because of reincarnation where it was practiced before. I myself don't think that matters, a spiritual call is a spiritual call but you *have* to be true to the tradition or religion you choose, whether it's Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, a Native religion, or whatever. Be respectful, don't mix or 'syncretize', and above all, *don't make money off it*.
As far as who is a 'real Indian' whether they've got the bloodline or not, that's up to the tribes/bands to decide. If Buffy's Piapot family, or their reserve, accept her as one of their own that's their affair. They accepted her when she was 21, there must have been a reason for it. I mean hell, as you point out, no one's pureblood anything anymore, and probably haven't for a very long time. I've not had a DNA test done but maybe I will some day. I'm actually less interested in whatever more recent bloodlines than finding out if I'm part Neanderthal or Denisovan...now THAT would be cool!!!
Yes people believe what they want. I personally don't care what Buffy calls herself. A few younger folks I spoke with about this, both native and non, didn't even know who Buffy St Marie was. Talk about feeling dated!
What is the name of the novel you wrote? Sounds interesting.
Since native america has had several variations of forced hybrid native spirituality and christianity for many generations now, I think we are kinda stuck with mix and match. Especially since the pow wow culture has taken over tribes which never before traditionally had pow wows, etc; I don't think any completely pure and distinct tribal or native religion exists anymore. But if I understand what you are getting at, I basically agree. The dilletante, dibble dabble, smorgsboard approach to spirituality is definitely annoying and disrespectful, whatever the original culture or religion it is borrowed from. It is the lack of understanding of the grounding and disciplined practice needed to work with true spiritual power that frustrates me the most. And well it especially annoys me when powerful spiritual women get together and act like they have no power and then use that power they pretend they don't have to one up or one down each other, in the nicest possible way of course! I don't even care if they make up their own spiritual hocus pocus, I just want them to stop acting like it's all some kind of psycho-pomp theatre game or group therapy session or goddess social hour. I was taught that if you call power then you must acknowledge that power is present and real and you must take care of it and honor and respect it and use it for specific purpose. Anyway that's my rant on that subject~ I think I will go and let out my inner Neanderthal for awhile........
Are you American or Canadian? If the former that might explain it. Most Americans don't know who she is. American Pagans OTOH do. I first learned about her from Zsuszanna Budapest, a popular Pagan author. I believe Buffy is behind one of the most beloved chants in Paganism:
We all come from the Goddess
And to her we shall return
Like a drop of rain
Flowing to the ocean
I laughed at your rant about the powerfully victimized (lol) spiritual women. That describes a lot of feminists and wokies today - they express victimhood and oppression while oppressing and bullying others. Just learned the other day that Ibram X Kendi said the antidote to past discrimination is future discrimination - against guess who :) For someone who claimed perpetual oh-pression he sure was answerable to no one until quite recently.
It's my whole bit behind Grow Some Labia - embrace your power and assert it, because victims aren't powerful.
Religion & spirituality *does* evolve and I think in many ways naturally syncretizes with other paths sometimes - and I am in fact a fan of 'salad bar' theology in which you take what's best from other religions and leave what's wrong, because none of them have all the answers and all of them have something to offer. I guess I'm just being a little mindful of people who perhaps unintentionally disrespectful of how they represent other religions, especially Indigenous ones. Gee, now you're making me think about how committed I am to the straight and narrow traditional spiritual path :)
I am American but alot of my generation and older here, both native and non, knew who Buffy was. Nowadays it seems the younger american crowd doesn’t tho.
I am most grateful that, as messed up as they often were, I had powerful women elders who were not afraid to use their power directly and effectively if necessary. They knew how to play victim if need be to their benefit or survival, as I suspect every woman does; but they did not consider victimhood an identity badge to be constantly and proudly worn and flaunted or unconsciously and continually acted out. I mean we are all victims in some way and I can certainly fall down that rabbit hole myself periodically, but it is not supposed to be the main house we inhabit and constantly redecorate and welcome guests inside of to celebrate and wallow about together in. Yuck. The way this is all going sideways is terrifying. If nothing else, the pro-hamas mob has shown all who are willing to see, that this isn’t just a bunch of stupid, entitled, over educated and over privileged kids, ‘finding their way’. This across the board elevation of perpetrators to hero status is serious shit. It is the elder women I have known for decades I am most disappointed in right now. I keep expecting them to turn into something resembling the elders I grew up with, and that mostly is not happening. Perhaps when times get hard enough, we will all be forced by circumstance to once again grow some labia or balls as the case may be.
The fauxminist Hamas cheerleaders drive me insane. MeToo but not for a Jew. They collaborate with the 'rape culture' they're always bleating about when they refuse to acknowledge the horrific sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas - with some new twists I'd never heard of, although one somewhat resembled the horrific gang rape of an Indian woman on a bus in 2012. (I am glad all these women are dead. No one should have to live with that level of trauma!) I am seriously hoping the loony left's response to Oct 7 forces them to jump the shark of public acceptability. I hope it's clear to everyone now how racist, misogynist, pro-terrorist, homophobic and anti-social justice this morally bankrupt movement is. I'm hoping to bring true liberalism back to the loony left.
You speak of the elders the way I think and speak about what passes for feminism (mostly white, but not all) in some quarters. Weakass, disempowered, victimhood-centred feminism is all the rage now and has been for about twenty years and it disgusts me; when I was a young woman in the 1980s feminism was annoyingly humourless, but at least we worked to overcome our obstacles, we didn't whine in our 'safe spaces' about 'the patriarchy'.
It's why I'm voting independent next year. Too much MAGA on one side, too much woke on the other. It's getting so's I can't tell them apart.
You put it well. I keep reminding myself that if these folks cannot distinguish between a boy and a girl how can they be expected to tell the difference between the badly tarnished good guys and the truly evil, really really bad guys? I knew we were screwed big time when I saw a photo of that giant banner 'Queers for Palestine". Are all these crazy women planning to open wide the door to proven woman hating terrorists groups/governments while wearing a great big welcome sign that says 'Rape Me, Beat Me, Subjugate Me''? I want to either slap these women silly in an attempt to possibly save their brainwashed self- hating lives, or just beat my head repeatedly against the wall and put myself out of my own misery.
Yeah, I think alot of us have gone Independent politically over this last couple of decades of increasing insanity. As a friend of mine put it, 'I don't agree with RFK jr on every single issue, but I am so very glad just to have someone to vote for that I can at least respect.'
Regardless of who spiritually adopts you, you still can never change your original ethnicity. Even legal adoption doesn't provide you with a new ethnicity.
Agreed. Which brings up an interesting point: If a non-Native baby were to be adopted into a tribe or band (however that might happen), and was raised like every other child on the reserve, would they be a 'real' Native, with the 'right' to live their life as BSM did? If she'd been born white but raised since infancy on a reserve or reservation, would she have a clear right to be a Native artist?
I have a niece and two cousins who are adopted; only one is white but they're all my real kinfolk, though I'm related to none and two don't look like the rest of us.
A family can legally or emotionally adopt you, but it doesn't give you their ethnicity or heritage. You might feel that you share it, but it's still technically "honourary" heritage.
Obviously Buffy lied. The birth certificate is pretty compelling proof. Based on our determinations today of who is considered native and who is not, she most definitely is not. However, based on older ancestral determinations of tribal membership, she wouild likely have been considered indian regardless of her ethnicity, if she was adotped in. When the US government forced enrollment and blood quantum on the tribes, they disallowed adoption for tribal membership. Indian identity has been a complex and highly charged issue in native america basically since the first mixed blood baby was born and the first 'non-native' was adopted in. I think you handled the subject matter well, even though I have a different perspective. I have been a legally enrolled and registered member of a federally recognized native american tribe for over fifty years. Here in America, 'Indian' is a legally defined, but not specifically a racially defined, term. Most tribal governments now insist that only those who are enrolled in federally recognized tribes can legally call themselves indians or native american. This is understandable, but there are also multiple problems with drawing this particular line in the sand. I would have to write several pages of well documented history here to explain exactly why this is a problem, but suffice it to say this issue of native ethnicity/idenity is not nearly as cut and dried as it would first appear or as many would like it to be. Indian america itself has been in an identity crises for multiple generations as well over 80% of us are now significantly mixed blood. The pure blood native phenotype has mostly disappeared in america, and many who appear 'full blood' are actually mixed blood hispanic, philipino, arab, black, iltalian, jewish, etc. Being indian is just not a reliable DNA thing. And so wierdly enough, some natives have actually created a checklist about what it means to be indian today. I guess they did this so we can tell ourselves and each other how we are supposed to act and think if we are to be seen as 'real' indians now. Many tribal elders would not be able to satisfy the new 'woke' indian identity requirements. So that tells you something right there. Our tribes are now infested with wokeness from all the young bright natives with shiny new degrees from all these woke colleges. It's hard to watch the fallout. There now seems to be some strange idea that all us indians were fully and accurately documented. Almost every single native elder I have ever known talked about innaccuracies in the documentation of their own families. For example my own native grandfather was officially enrolled with a different blood quantum than his full siblings who all had the same parents and that was a realtively small and common type of error. Like many things, we want the native identity issue to be black and white. or red and white as the case may be, but it isn't. Many tribes have kicked out lifetime enrolled members for various reasons many times. So one day you are indian and the next you are not?
Like everything else it is a politcal shell game and it is all about the money. I am not defending Buffy here, just attempting to show another side to this convoluted issue of who is indian and who is not.
Yes, I have a friend here who doesn't want to believe Buffy lied...she thinks the birth certificate could have been faked. I didn't argue too much...people will believe what they want to believe. I don't have strong feelings about it apart from the way she harmed Natives by taking awards and pretending trauma she didn't have. I took interest in the story because twenty years ago I wrote a novel about a Pagan woman and the love interest was a 'Native American shaman' who was actually like 1/16 Native and the rest Irish-American (the most common lineage in America, I think). So he was a 'pretendian' and I got into the issues surrounding inappropriate identity (before identity became A Thing) and how it's important not to mix up Native American religions or tribes/bands. I read some of the crap literature (bought in second hand bookstores so the authors didn't profit) like Lynn V. Andrews, Carlos Castenada and I can't remember the other - Andrews, the 'Beverly HIll Shaman" as she was derisively called) was the worst. One theme I found in common: Native Americans & Canadians are DYING to teach overprivileged white women their 1980s-style New Age ways!!! :) I read up on real Natives as well as I had a few in the sequel. I will say this much: When it comes to religion, I don't want to tell *anyone* they can't touch this or that religion; some of us Pagans therorize that we're drawn to religious systems outside our birth culture perhaps because of reincarnation where it was practiced before. I myself don't think that matters, a spiritual call is a spiritual call but you *have* to be true to the tradition or religion you choose, whether it's Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, a Native religion, or whatever. Be respectful, don't mix or 'syncretize', and above all, *don't make money off it*.
As far as who is a 'real Indian' whether they've got the bloodline or not, that's up to the tribes/bands to decide. If Buffy's Piapot family, or their reserve, accept her as one of their own that's their affair. They accepted her when she was 21, there must have been a reason for it. I mean hell, as you point out, no one's pureblood anything anymore, and probably haven't for a very long time. I've not had a DNA test done but maybe I will some day. I'm actually less interested in whatever more recent bloodlines than finding out if I'm part Neanderthal or Denisovan...now THAT would be cool!!!
Yes people believe what they want. I personally don't care what Buffy calls herself. A few younger folks I spoke with about this, both native and non, didn't even know who Buffy St Marie was. Talk about feeling dated!
What is the name of the novel you wrote? Sounds interesting.
Since native america has had several variations of forced hybrid native spirituality and christianity for many generations now, I think we are kinda stuck with mix and match. Especially since the pow wow culture has taken over tribes which never before traditionally had pow wows, etc; I don't think any completely pure and distinct tribal or native religion exists anymore. But if I understand what you are getting at, I basically agree. The dilletante, dibble dabble, smorgsboard approach to spirituality is definitely annoying and disrespectful, whatever the original culture or religion it is borrowed from. It is the lack of understanding of the grounding and disciplined practice needed to work with true spiritual power that frustrates me the most. And well it especially annoys me when powerful spiritual women get together and act like they have no power and then use that power they pretend they don't have to one up or one down each other, in the nicest possible way of course! I don't even care if they make up their own spiritual hocus pocus, I just want them to stop acting like it's all some kind of psycho-pomp theatre game or group therapy session or goddess social hour. I was taught that if you call power then you must acknowledge that power is present and real and you must take care of it and honor and respect it and use it for specific purpose. Anyway that's my rant on that subject~ I think I will go and let out my inner Neanderthal for awhile........
"Tales From The Anonymous Divorced Witchbabe" - https://www.amazon.ca/Tales-Divorced-Witchbabe-Nicole-Chardenet-ebook/dp/B07NLF6JHC
Are you American or Canadian? If the former that might explain it. Most Americans don't know who she is. American Pagans OTOH do. I first learned about her from Zsuszanna Budapest, a popular Pagan author. I believe Buffy is behind one of the most beloved chants in Paganism:
We all come from the Goddess
And to her we shall return
Like a drop of rain
Flowing to the ocean
I laughed at your rant about the powerfully victimized (lol) spiritual women. That describes a lot of feminists and wokies today - they express victimhood and oppression while oppressing and bullying others. Just learned the other day that Ibram X Kendi said the antidote to past discrimination is future discrimination - against guess who :) For someone who claimed perpetual oh-pression he sure was answerable to no one until quite recently.
It's my whole bit behind Grow Some Labia - embrace your power and assert it, because victims aren't powerful.
Religion & spirituality *does* evolve and I think in many ways naturally syncretizes with other paths sometimes - and I am in fact a fan of 'salad bar' theology in which you take what's best from other religions and leave what's wrong, because none of them have all the answers and all of them have something to offer. I guess I'm just being a little mindful of people who perhaps unintentionally disrespectful of how they represent other religions, especially Indigenous ones. Gee, now you're making me think about how committed I am to the straight and narrow traditional spiritual path :)
Great title, I’ll check it out.
I am American but alot of my generation and older here, both native and non, knew who Buffy was. Nowadays it seems the younger american crowd doesn’t tho.
I am most grateful that, as messed up as they often were, I had powerful women elders who were not afraid to use their power directly and effectively if necessary. They knew how to play victim if need be to their benefit or survival, as I suspect every woman does; but they did not consider victimhood an identity badge to be constantly and proudly worn and flaunted or unconsciously and continually acted out. I mean we are all victims in some way and I can certainly fall down that rabbit hole myself periodically, but it is not supposed to be the main house we inhabit and constantly redecorate and welcome guests inside of to celebrate and wallow about together in. Yuck. The way this is all going sideways is terrifying. If nothing else, the pro-hamas mob has shown all who are willing to see, that this isn’t just a bunch of stupid, entitled, over educated and over privileged kids, ‘finding their way’. This across the board elevation of perpetrators to hero status is serious shit. It is the elder women I have known for decades I am most disappointed in right now. I keep expecting them to turn into something resembling the elders I grew up with, and that mostly is not happening. Perhaps when times get hard enough, we will all be forced by circumstance to once again grow some labia or balls as the case may be.
The fauxminist Hamas cheerleaders drive me insane. MeToo but not for a Jew. They collaborate with the 'rape culture' they're always bleating about when they refuse to acknowledge the horrific sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas - with some new twists I'd never heard of, although one somewhat resembled the horrific gang rape of an Indian woman on a bus in 2012. (I am glad all these women are dead. No one should have to live with that level of trauma!) I am seriously hoping the loony left's response to Oct 7 forces them to jump the shark of public acceptability. I hope it's clear to everyone now how racist, misogynist, pro-terrorist, homophobic and anti-social justice this morally bankrupt movement is. I'm hoping to bring true liberalism back to the loony left.
You speak of the elders the way I think and speak about what passes for feminism (mostly white, but not all) in some quarters. Weakass, disempowered, victimhood-centred feminism is all the rage now and has been for about twenty years and it disgusts me; when I was a young woman in the 1980s feminism was annoyingly humourless, but at least we worked to overcome our obstacles, we didn't whine in our 'safe spaces' about 'the patriarchy'.
It's why I'm voting independent next year. Too much MAGA on one side, too much woke on the other. It's getting so's I can't tell them apart.
You put it well. I keep reminding myself that if these folks cannot distinguish between a boy and a girl how can they be expected to tell the difference between the badly tarnished good guys and the truly evil, really really bad guys? I knew we were screwed big time when I saw a photo of that giant banner 'Queers for Palestine". Are all these crazy women planning to open wide the door to proven woman hating terrorists groups/governments while wearing a great big welcome sign that says 'Rape Me, Beat Me, Subjugate Me''? I want to either slap these women silly in an attempt to possibly save their brainwashed self- hating lives, or just beat my head repeatedly against the wall and put myself out of my own misery.
Yeah, I think alot of us have gone Independent politically over this last couple of decades of increasing insanity. As a friend of mine put it, 'I don't agree with RFK jr on every single issue, but I am so very glad just to have someone to vote for that I can at least respect.'
Regardless of who spiritually adopts you, you still can never change your original ethnicity. Even legal adoption doesn't provide you with a new ethnicity.
Agreed. Which brings up an interesting point: If a non-Native baby were to be adopted into a tribe or band (however that might happen), and was raised like every other child on the reserve, would they be a 'real' Native, with the 'right' to live their life as BSM did? If she'd been born white but raised since infancy on a reserve or reservation, would she have a clear right to be a Native artist?
I have a niece and two cousins who are adopted; only one is white but they're all my real kinfolk, though I'm related to none and two don't look like the rest of us.
Race, and racial identity, are so complicated.
A family can legally or emotionally adopt you, but it doesn't give you their ethnicity or heritage. You might feel that you share it, but it's still technically "honourary" heritage.
True, although some Native American tribes adopted outsiders and regarded them as one of them, no different from others. It differs.