Hi everyone :) hope you are all well. I’m new to this space but I wanted to ask a question. I know everyone sees these things differently, so I would love to get some input here.
On my father’s side, my grandfather, his mother and her lineage are Native American (Apache and Choctaw). There’s some lingering Native in my mother’s side as well, but farther out than what my immediate family is aware of (discovered this through haplogroups). I’m not shocked because I’m from southeast Louisiana and Native is intertwined with Cajun creole.

Since I was very young I have been drawn to native culture, symbolism, and feel a big resonance with teachings and how they view our relationship to earth and the world around us. I have felt some sort of inner responsibility to carry that torch to some degree. I never want to claim myself as Native American, at least not all of me because I have not experienced the struggles of people who live on reservation or those who are 100% Native American, nor do I have the proper blood quantum that’s required to be recognized federally, and other members of my family are not 100% native and some have no native (to my knowledge). I never want to impose or step on toes. I’ve continued to follow my path as cleanly as I can in a way that feels in integrity to me and respectful to others while still honoring my lineage that I feel closely related to.

My question I guess is, is it “wrong” of me to lean into Apache specific or Choctaw specific practices/traditions? I would love to connect more as I continue to discover more, but I also understand appropriation versus appreciation. I just want to be respectful and honor everything in a proper way. I’ve struggled with this for a while and really finding my place within it. Or should I keep it more broad than specific?

I guess not a super clear question but just knowing this information, if anyone has any words of wisdom I would love to hear. I hope no one takes any of this the wrong way, I just want to learn and move with grace. My grandfather only remembers so much and the work my great grandmother and my dad were putting together with her lineage information and her families tribal information was destroyed in a flood so it’s been a journey of gathering information and doing as my research as I can, but of course going into native history since names were changed and people were displaced it can be difficult…🙏🏼 thank you

Personaly (as a scottish gael) I would say we are as we all have our own cultrues and have had experiences simular (but not as bad) to yours. Irish potato famine, Highland clearances, language punishment and bans ect.

I grew up in the GTA (Toronto), which isn't exactly known for First Nations population. In the 90s we learned plenty about First Nations, and the creation of Nunavut was a big deal. I also got to know indigenous art and was a big fan of Norval Morrisseau. But personal interactions? Not one until I went to university.

Moving to London was a pretty big shock for me in many ways. I am from a traditional Jewish community, and I remember meeting people who had never met a Jew before. I found it very strange that such a thing existed (naive I know). I then met Anishanabe who felt the same way upon meeting me; someone who never met First Nations! It was a brief interaction and I didn't learn too much, but I knew there was more to understand.

Eventually I got to see that "Indian Status" card for the first time. I found it so bizarre that the government had such powers to begin with. Imagine if Canada went around to my community and started telling people who is and isn't Jewish? That wouldn't go over well.

My education really took up most of my time and never explored the topic more. At that time I lived in a rough part of the city and had a coffee at this Italian-owned shop. It looked like a place where the owner decided he needed a place to setup his espresso machine, a few tables, and TV for him and his friends to avoid being with their wives. As I was finishing my coffee, someone walked in who to me looked indigenous. He asks for a coffee and sits at a table. The owner gives him his coffee, and then both he and his friends (they we Italian from Italy with strong accents; not "old stock Canadian" types) start heckling the guy and saying nasty comments to him about being indigenous. The kind of shit that if you were to push back on, they would say "they were only joking around". I was pretty shocked to the point I was speechless. Who treats someone this way? Why would anyone feel they could disrespect someone. A customer of all! In the moment, I didn't say anything, and regret it now, but I was also in shock about it.

Since then I made sure to educate myself. John Ralston Saul wrote a few books on the topic (academic perspective) that led me to learn more from indigenous people about Canada.

I am obviously still not finished learning and I see a lot of overlap with my family's experiences. I was raised by Holocaust survivors and refugees, and understand the struggle to fight for what is right and what will help your communities. One big difference I see is tradition and unbroken chains of education. Us Jews have been in exile/diaspora for Millenia and developed a structure for information transfer generation-to-generation. It has allowed us to survive all sorts of calamities, right up to me personally after what my grandparents endured. This is a tradition handed down to us from our Mothers and Fathers.

It's here that I see the insidiousness of Canada. THAT is where they put their efforts to wipe out indigenous people, and it's here I see the most change over my lifetime. I was shocked to learn that FN were not allowed to be lawyers in Canada until recently, so I now understand why so many FN become lawyers!

If my thoughts are worth anything here, I can give my perspective. The world has hated my people for generations, despite what we have given to the world. A vast number Nobel prize winners are Jewish, despite our tiny population. Our neighborhoods are safe. We value family, stability, and a bright future for our children. If you think that becoming a success will force people to think differently about you, think again. In my opinion, those Italians in the shop would have said the same thing no matter if the FN gentleman was rough looking, or with a suit and tie having a coffee between business meetings. You guys need to fight hard to get the respect you deserve.

Today I see a more receptive population in Canada than ever before. However my feeling is that they still care more about themselves and virtue signaling than anything. They are happy to say and do whatever, up until they give up power of any type. What they (both left and right wing; it doesn't matter) want is for them to feel superior to you because in their mind, that is the "natural order" in their minds. Maybe I am wrong, but that is how I interpret things today. Only when they are fine sharing power will I see a real shift happen!

Days like this, I realy struggle with the mixed DNA and Knowledege my grandfather passed down to me weather intentional or not, it just always seemed to download to me, to use A techy and spiritual term, 30 70, 12.5%, no matter im a "half bread" before whites understood basic math. Not so removed from my spirit as my ancestors. We will always know the truth! Happy Indeginious Day.

I went to a pow wow with my friend and a vendor gifted me white sage. I told the vendor that I’m not native and she said that I could still use it for smudging I think it was the word(like putting the smoke close to your face and hair). She said that it was good for relaxing and anxiety and cleansing. I thanked her went home and used it a couple of times. I’ve heard on tik tok that I shouldn’t use sage because it’s a close practice and it’s cultural appropriation. can I keep the bag of sage just not for smudging just keep it for burning it or should I just stop using it completely but at the same time I dont want to waste it or throw it away. thank you

The video is an instructional lesson on how to conjugate verbs in Oaxacan Zapotec across past, present, and future tenses. The instructor uses the verb "to eat" as the primary example to demonstrate the rules.

*Core Rules of Conjugation:*

* Tense Roots:* In Zapotec, the root of the verb changes to indicate the tense, but this root remains exactly the same regardless of who is performing the action (the pronoun). For example, the root for the verb "to eat" is `guda-` in the past, `ra-` (or `rag-`) in the present, and `ga-` (or `gagu-`) in the future.

* **Person Suffixes:* To indicate the person (I, you, he/she, etc.), specific vowel or syllable endings are added to the tense root. The endings change depending on the subject, but the root stays consistent.

*Exceptions to the Rule:*

* While the `g-` prefix (like *guda-* or *ga-*) is very common, the instructor clarifies that it is not a universal rule for all Zapotec verbs.

* There are about three different ways to construct tenses. For instance, some verbs use a `b-` (like *bu-*) for the past tense, or a `u-` to indicate the future tense.

* Compound verbs (like combining "to go" and "to eat" to mean eating somewhere frequently) also have unique past tense forms.

*Class Practice:*

Towards the end of the lesson, the instructor leads an interactive practice session. He asks students (Oliver, Pamela, Silvana, Brian, and Abi) to read aloud the conjugations for the verb "to eat" across the past, present, and future tenses, covering both singular and plural pronouns.

I've explained this before, but my culture is the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. My green eyes and light complexion seems to originate from my Dutch (born in Holland) father, and I get my facial bone structure and hair from my mom. I've been enrolled in the tribe since before I can remember, yet people either assume or mistakenly think I'm non-native because I appear European. Lol

Anyways, a coworker of mine who's Yupiaq from Alaska (who looks more Native than me and thought I was white until I showed her my tribal ID) condescendingly told me,

"If you ever want to learn more about Native culture, you should visit the Hopi or Navajo lands, and see if you can get invited to one of their ceremonies."

(She thinks I've never been before).

I just attribute this person's weird, gatekeeping & exclusionary behavior to her being rude and having an inflated sense of self-importance.

I resent the erroneous term "Native culture" because it's oversimplified. It suggests that all Indigenous people of North America share the same rituals, languages, spiritual beliefs, ideas, traditional clothing, regalia, diet, and/or worldview.

That just isn't the case. I've never met a Narragansett person whose origin story was the exact same as a Choctaw, or an Ojibwe. There are Native cultures, not one singular Native culture. WTF?

It's available to wishlist on Steam now! https://store.steampowered.com/app/4816430/Kitch\_Witch/

Hi!!! I'm indigenous and was thinking, "wow, I don't follow any other indigenous creators", and I need to change that! Please drop some usernames.

I love variety gamers, women's podcasts, makeup/beauty, vlogs, irl! For example, I love watching Vanillamace, Julian, Caseoh, KatieB.

Thank you!

Amory Sivertson talks with journalist Rebecca Nagle (Cherokee Nation) and historian Ned Blackhawk (Te-Moak Shoshone) for Indigenous histories in the founding of the United States.

I've not been to Canada yet, and I hope you'll forgive me for asking such a loaded question. I am looking forward to visiting there, once my financial situation has improved. Nonetheless, I'm Choctaw and have lately been getting to know more First Nations (one of my friends is Haida/Tlingit from present-day BC), but for anyone of Métis heritage, how often do you get imposters either mistakenly, or knowingly, intentionally & falsely claiming to be Métis?

Context:

I had a loud, boisterous doughboy employee tell me a few hours ago at work, "I'm technically Métis, my great grandma was Blackfoot." And because he said technically, I see that as a red flag because anyone proudly representing their heritage is not going to say that it's *technically* their identity.

Even if his statement were proven, he also used the colonial term, and not the original term used by some Niitsitapi people I know, who take their culture seriously.

He claimed that he graduated from a Canadian high school, and so I asked him, "You know about Louis Riel, right?"

And he replied saying, "Oh yeah that guy was an asshole."

My response, "How so?"

"The only reason that guy's famous is because he made Manitoba grow, before him it was the size of a postage stamp."

That's another red flag.

If you're going to claim Métis is your heritage, or even just a portion of your ancestry, then wouldn't you avoid disrespecting one of history's most important Métis leaders? Instead of being blatantly disrespectful, flippant, and crass. His remarks reeked of colonialism to me.

The third claim he made was, "In Canada, you shouldn't use any other term except for Native Canadian."

Does he not realize how many tribally enrolled (not counting CPAINs) folks actively use First Nation, Indigenous, and even Indian?

I get annoyed when people talk about entire nations as though every individual person's expectations are monolithic. He then made a racist statement about Indian people (from India) and decided to say that they're "terrible people" who (according to him) "Natives don't want to be associated with." WTF?

And in case you're wondering, yes I live in the states.

My guess is that he assumed I knew nothing about Indigenous cultures from further north of here, because I'm not Canadian. Needless to say, I walked away feeling a sense of glee knowing that he probably thought his comments were very convincing flexes. How entertaining!

Hello! I’m 19 and never really had a strong connection with anyone in my family due to my father and some other personal stuff that’s not the most important but the anniversary of my grandfather passing is soon so I’ve been thinking about him more this month. He was half native american on his mothers side (one of the Iroquois tribes I believe my uncle has more on the specifics) but he either wasn’t very connected to the culture or he just never talked about it after coming back from Vietnam. I believe it makes me about 1/16th blood wise and I’m no doubt the whitest looking person in the family so I would never consider claiming myself as native to other people. But would it be offensive or even just silly if I learned more about the cultural practices for myself? I’m a very spiritual person and I’d love to incorporate some of my heritage into my practice but I also don’t want to overstep even if I’m just doing it in private. I know I don’t really need “permission” from anyone but I just wanted to get some opinions from people more connected to these cultures and I will totally delete this if people find it offensive!

Edit: After talking to my mom I might be less than 1/16th so it might just be silly

I've been trying to find information on the materials on how to make a bandolier bag. My tribe offers a class once a year, but they only allow 14 individuals and they don't provide anymore information on how to actually make it if you're not in the class. I would also appreciate if there was a full tutorial on how to make one, but if not at least the materials would be nice. Thanks in advance.

Things that people who see themselves as educated and open-minded will say:

- why you use metods such "literaly anthropology for -ethnic- literature?

- *points you out to others* "you see, now all [indigenous peoples] are educated, they can study themselves"

- "well, you know, they didn't take over the land, they just could put up a house and a farmstead on the nomadic routes"

- "backward people"

- "_ khan is not your relative?" ("genius" joke about your surname)

- *it seems like they never specifically uses the self-name of the people, when you only use it, and only uses an name, which can be offensive*

- "are these [indigenous] names a real names???"

- "is this a cultural organization of the [group of indigenous people]? don't you think that this would have something to do with ethnic crime gangs?"

- *explains that this identity does not exist directly in front of the real indigenous person who uses such an identity*

- "do these people still exist?" ("people" ≈300,000+ people)

- "do you even have your own language?"

- *mispronounces the name of an indigenous girl several times, even after she corrects; only begins to correctly pronounce the girl's name after the Slavic [non-indigenous] girl corrects*... etc, etc...

These are small things, of course, but it makes the space so unpleasant... Do you feel like the academic space in your region is like this or is it better or worse?

(All this was said about various indigenous groups of the post-soviet space, for the sake of privacy I will not write about which ones specifically)