deafdrummer

Thanks. Actually, that was one little-bitty woman! 98-lbs!

Deafness

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deafdrummer

Hold up, wait a minute... I had to look up keloid scarring. Not pretty, BUT, I BELIEVE that I had a case of it on my left knee when I scraped it rollerblading in the early 90s. When I cleaned up my dietary in mid-93 and went vegetarian, that scar of this type disappeared on its own. It's hard to see it now.

Consider this from the wiki on Cherokee mythology... "It was also believed that all human disease and suffering originated with the killing of animals for improper purposes, and that for each animal killed for pleasure or without proper ceremonies, it allowed a new disease to enter the physical world from the spirit world. It was also believed that the plants, in response to witnessing the suffering in the world, made a medicine to cure each sickness that entered the world in order to restore the balance of forces between the two worlds, the physical world and the spirit world."

Though I have my own explanation for diseases from years of experience, I would say that maybe the keloid scarring may come from the fact that pretty much all the meat at standard commercial processing plants are prepared without the awareness and custom of proper ceremonies... Never mind live in the wild! How many millions of animals are killed in this fashion...? Per year!!

Researchers believe that a possible explanation for keloid scarring may come from a lack of oxygen reaching the injured area, as the fine blood vessels at the end of the oxygen's journey can be blocked, especially if the person eats animal products, (evidence of the start of arterial damage from animal products have been documented in children), so you may have to teach your child to be careful about eating too much animal products.

When I was a child, I hunted with Dad in the typical white fashion, being that it was fun and the game was kept for food. After I went to college in the fall of the first year, it was the first time that I was away from hunting, and I was on someone's dairy farm. I felt lost and shocked, and it hit me hard what I had done in the years before. I never hunted again. I spent years struggling with the guilt over what I had done. It wasn't until years later that I finally realized that what I needed to do was see the animals standing before me in my mind, one or a family at a time, and acknowledge them while expressing sorry at my causing their deaths, with hugs. I felt an exchange of feelings, and they were able to walk away across the country and look back at me one final time. I still feel like what I did can't ever be taken back even though I had finally acknowledged them. They were waiting for years for me to acknowledge them and face them for what I did in one step, so that they could finally go home. I had known about what I did, but didn't know what to do to help them heal. The sense of being so haunted has gone away, though I have occasional bouts where I realize that there are more birds needing acknowledgment of my deeds (all the land animals have been able to move on after my doing so).

kokonut

» Cruel irony in Elizabeth Warren’s Cherokee saga - Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

Irony can't begin to describe this turn of event.

And this gets deeper, too. University of Pennsylvania also listed Elizabeth Warren as a minority.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...NPGU_blog.html

__________________
Before AD.

After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

deafdrummer

OMFA(pportioner)...

That was GOOD WORK. Somebody was looking for something!!!! OMFA... Wow... I came close... My maternal grandmother remarried after divorcing my grandfather. Turns out that she next married a Custer family member, directly descended from GENERAL CUSTER of Little Bighorn infamy. That is as far as I'm going on this. Facts are facts; it happened, and it appears that family members today have learned from this and acknowledged what happened. I have to be careful how I handle this situation. They are good people to me despite their history.

But wow dayum, Son, good find!

kokonut

Yeah, good thing she didn't go to the Harvard Powwow it would've been awkward...

Elizabeth Warren claims Native American roots, skips Harvard Powwow - BostonHerald.com

__________________
Before AD.

After AD.

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall, former Supreme Court Justice


"... turns out they are telling the truth."

deafdrummer

My maternal grandmother is not the Indian grandmother; that was my paternal grandmother. Completely different families with completely different histories. In fact, the first ancestor, I forget his name, came to the new world to some Island near Canada (Nova Scotia?), and he was scalped by the Indians and the family was kidnapped and eventually traveled through the french part of Canada, where the family was traded off to the soldiers at one of the french forts. Whoops... Way to go sometimes.

I can't remember if the french ancestry pops up there in the forts or if it came all the way from France, the scalped ancestor. We can trace it all the way back to somewhere around 1550 or so. That line of the family married into a German line, my grandfather. My uncle carried that line on. The Custer line got spliced on through marriage only from my place in the line.

Edit: I forgot that I have a extensive set of documents from someone in the family right next me for the maternal side of the family, and I have a "Miles Oakley," who was born in 1616 in Oakley Grove, Oakley, Cumberland, married in Great Neck, Long Island, New York, and died in 1698. No idea where Cumberland is, as googlemaps completely fails on me. I would have to ask about that.

Reba

Same family?

"1.MILES1OAKLEY (OKELEY) was born 15 July 1645 in the parish of Oakley Grove, Cumberland, England and died in West Chester, New York 16 May 1682"

Hawkhurst

deafdrummer

Nope, different family. That particular couple, Miles Oakley and Mary Wilmot, ended that particular family line by having no children. As I said, he was born in July 15, 1616 and died May 10, 1698 in Westchester, NY. Apparently a common name AND a common immigration route, from England to America at the time.

CSign

What about the possibility of that being a descendant (child?) of a brother or other indirect ancestor?

deafdrummer

That was ruled out as well. Only one or two people we have listed was born near 1645 with either a different name or was a woman.

I started a new thread on the Oakley family line here. Oakley family line

jameshofmann

Not any Indian that I know of. Friends who are Indian. They think "indigenous" is funny. Too close to indigent, indulgent, indignant. Always good for laughs. Seriously, the common term around here is "Indian". I'm in Montana. We have Salish, Kootenai, Pend d'oreille, Nez Perce, Blackfoot, Crow, Lakota, and those are just the names that pop into my generally empty head.

deafdrummer

I know!! I realized that recently. Like "since you are a native, you will ALWAYS BE POOR."

They assume it's bad to not have a lot of money or not be able to use the ATM on the side of the house for exotic trips to Africa every year.

deafdrummer

Big news!

I found out by accident that my aunt and uncle are NOT related to General Custer of Little Bighorn infamy. Somehow, the story got passed to me that their father was descended from General Custer along the line.

I wondered how they were related. Was that their great-grandfather, what? I found a family tree online that didn't have my aunt and uncle listed anywhere in the tree. Something didn't add up. So, I contacted them, and my uncle said, "Dad researched this pretty thoroughly and could not find any connection with the general. The *** redacted evidence *** belonged to General Montcalm, Canadian general in the French and Indian wars, and part of our mother's family."

I redacted the evidence in case there is some revenge war I don't know anything about. I chased down the MASSIVE rabbit hole that is the Montcalm-Gozon line on a web site somewhere today. It took an hour and a half to verify all the lines up to Mom's time. Maybe it's not Montcalm-Gozon, maybe it's Montcalm, another General. I'm waiting for word. But now, I can wash that blood from Little Bighorn out of my mind. That's got to be a messed up family to be naming children after him, which several parents down the line did. Did they have ANY idea what he did? Having sex with his female captives until his wife showed up? That's got to be a messed up family. He'll have sex with someone he wants to kill... It didn't seem like my aunt and uncle at all, so this is a big relief. As for why my Mom told me about the false connection, I don't know...

Back to the Indian thing... I'm going to ask my stepmother which relative was it who wouldn't cut her hair. Was it my grandmother, or my G-grandmother, or her mother? But she wouldn't because it's part of the Cherokee customs. I remember Dad telling me that many years ago. I'll find out.

deafdrummer

The first item didn't sound right. I'm referring to the blood of Gen. Custer, specifically.

Yes, it was my grandmother who grew her hair in the Cherokee fashion.

And it looks like I have just about invalidated the connection to that French General, Montcalm-Gozon because I got additional information from a distant relative who showed me the line all the way back to France, A man born in Caen, France in 1698 whose last name at that time was Paisant.

The question remains as to how the family got the item in question. I may or may not be able to reveal what it is, depending on the answer of the possession. This is interesting when you dig up skeletons. My aunt/uncle just found out last week from my research that I had thought that they were related to Ge. Custer all these years.

Come on, this can't be all the Indians and mixed bloods on Alldeaf... It doesn't matter how much or how little you have.

meirad

1/3 lakota sioux. The rest is french and cherokee with just a dash of scottish and irish.

deafdrummer

Can you tell me more?

meirad

* More facts:
My vacations as a kid were spent visiting family friends on the navajo reservation.
My babysitters were all navajo.
We were friends with the medicine man.
My grandpa is full blood lakota sioux and goes to powows etc. every summer.

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deafdrummer

Awesome! Jealous, too! Keep it, and don't lose it...

Grayma

Yeah, I had a Seminole friend who told me the online term of choice is NDN.

Bebonang

It has become common now that NDN is online. I used it loosely on Native forums. We still don't like the term "Indian" because we are not from India. But Native is much better than Indian because we were here first before the white people came. How ironic that white people thought the land was empty. Ha! What a laugh.

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I HAVE BEEN DEAF SINCE BIRTH, AND IT IS STILL AWESOME TO BE . (thumb up) (very happy)

deafdrummer

I just read something that is very difficult for me to deal with at the moment. I'm sick at home with a cough, and I couldn't sleep very much last night. I couldn't fall asleep, and I had to sooth myself of fear of the night by remembering the connection to my worldview and stepping into the light that is seen far off on mountain ridges, to bring warmth and pain relief on myself.

I've been struggling in the weeks since to determine if my Native or feral ways of looking at things can be interfaced with traditional Cherokee beliefs. It's possible that I may never complete this process... This I read on acculturation/assimilation of Native Americans (and read the article to make sense of it):

Can the Twain Meet through Acculturation? The Cultural Hybrids in Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales

"However trivial it may seem, this short exchange between Mohegan and the singing settler corresponds to Cooper's earlier presentation of the mixed provenance of Mohegan's attire both in implication and technique. If Mohegan's attire is not European enough to justify his total acculturation to white culture, Mohegan's short and gloomy answer to the singing settler's question about the music is obvious enough to reveal his reluctance to sever all his innate ties to the Native American traditions. His reluctance is strongly proved by what happens moments before his death near the end of The Pioneers. Knowing that the time of his death is drawing near, Mohegan completely reverts to his Indian tradition, painting his face and body, decorating himself with Indian ornaments, rejecting European clothing, and losing his ability to make baskets. Most importantly, however, Mohegan's belief in Christianity is gone, but his love for the Indian faith is back. Ultimately, Mohegan dies as an Indian, ascending to his Indian paradise. For him, as he describes in his last words, "The path is clear, and the eyes of Mohegan grow young. I look -- but I see no white-skins; there are none to be seen but just and brave Indians" (421). On the surface, Cooper might want us to be sad and, even, shocked to discover that Mohegan has never been as wholly "civilized" as he seems. His ulterior aim, however, is to use the reversal of Mohegan's acculturation, or what might be called the "deculturation" of Mohegan, to warn his contemporaries that the transformation of Native Americans through acculturation will never succeed. As he declares through the mouth of Natty Bumppo, "It's hard to keep them from going back to their native ways" (421)."

I just about cried when I read this. It is a very emotional piece for me, because I am Native, or an Ancient. I am one without a recognized spiritual faith, because I cannot explain what it is or how it works. Every time I look into different things, like rock bands, making things, or doing things, I lose interest and revert back to simply being, as I was as a child. My stepmother tried to acculturate me as a Christian one summer. I say acculturate because I was forced to go to bible summer school. I was not given a choice, since I was a lot smaller than her and couldn't fight back, and Dad couldn't stop her from making me go if he was out in the field working. I HATED IT, because it represented control about everything I do, (wait a minute, that might explain why this country is increasingly eroding personal rights, which the Cherokee Nation was based on), and my stepmother didn't know what to do with me because I was wild when she met me, so she probably thought I needed to have the "savage" taken out of me (even if it was a white one).

It's possible that the struggle I have is that I will not successfully assimilate into anything, because of my Native status, even if I try to assimilate into traditional Cherokee beliefs. I'm finding myself doing that. I really have to work hard to maintain interest in all but the basic interests, like making things, playing my didgeridoo (I'm having a hard time maintaining interest in my drum set playing at this time), learning culture and language little by little. I find myself reverting, "deculturating," as Cooper put it, to these interests only, and I realize now that I can't stop it. Only I'm doing it now and not near death because it is so strong.

It seems like I continually look for new things to do because I find it hard to feel okay about reverting to simple living. It's hard because I don't have someone who shares the same cultural situation. I feel alone in that regard.

Bebonang

Then you must only go to the Cherokee reservation and ask for an Elder to talk with you. If you are hearing, then you might be able to understand what an Elder is saying to you about your questions and feeling emotional about who you are. If you are deaf, then that is hard to do if you can not understand what the Elder is speaking to you. Only way to do is paper and pen as usual. If you want to talk to the medicine man or Shaman, same as above (paper and pen) and offer him or her a bag of tobacco as payment to help you by answering your questions. They don't accept money. I hope that help you in your area (community).

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I HAVE BEEN DEAF SINCE BIRTH, AND IT IS STILL AWESOME TO BE . (thumb up) (very happy)

deafdrummer

Snicker on the smiley... I don't know... I will be passing through OK this year, and I am in contact with a cultural expert via e-mail at this time. He's the cultural expert for Cherokee Nation up there. What I wrote here today, I copied and pasted for his e-mail in addition to some things. He goes to a medicine person when the need arises.

Bebonang

Online? Wow, then you are using the modern technology to get information from the cultural expert instead of the old way of going to the Elder or medicine person when you need help with your questions and finding out who you are. You are more modern Native than I am.

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I HAVE BEEN DEAF SINCE BIRTH, AND IT IS STILL AWESOME TO BE . (thumb up) (very happy)

deafdrummer

YOU are funny!!

I'm going up there later this year. But if you read the above, I'm in a weird situation, where I want to regress, but how do I do that?

GeiShAutUm

In my family one of us has a blue butt. I do believe cuz I saw in real life and also, pic of infant that we are part of indian. But I have no idea which tribe we came from or might be Mongolian.