{"id":46037,"date":"2016-03-14T15:42:42","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T15:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=46037"},"modified":"2016-03-14T15:45:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T15:45:19","slug":"debunking-the-half-breed-label%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=46037","title":{"rendered":"Debunking the ‘Half-Breed’ Label\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Debunking the ‘Half-Breed’ Label<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Indian Country Today Media Network<\/a>
\n2015-07-01<\/p>\n

Micah Armstrong<\/strong>
\nBlackfoot Indian of the Siksika Nation<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Half-breed, mixed-blood, metis<\/a>\u2026 These words are more than familiar to us who are not full-blooded American Indians. And by those who are not full-blooded, I do not speak of those who claim a \u201cgreat-great-great grandmother who was a Cherokee<\/a> Princess\u201d, nor do I speak of those who say flamboyantly, \u201cI have a little Indian in me!\u201d, nor do I even speak of those who yell, \u201cI am the wolverine!\u201d at every pow-wow<\/a> naming ceremony run by wannabes<\/a>. I speak of those who claim Native ancestry who have irrefutable lineal proof who are not enrolled, and in a few cases, enrolled; those who were raised in the traditional ways of their people by their parents and grandparents. I am one of those who COB would place as being \u201chalf\u201d due to so much mixing on every side of my family, including a direct connection to the Siksika band of the Niitsitapi <\/a>(Blackfeet Confederacy), or as we call ourselves, \u201cthe real people\u201d. I may be pale-skinned, but I honor my traditions through the telling of my people\u2019s stories, by speaking my people\u2019s language and even by creating the traditional art which my people used to and in some cases still create. My grandmother and mother raised me in our people\u2019s traditions, however due to my great-grandfather\u2019s parents having moved from the reservation in the very late 1800\u2019s in order to create a better life for our family, he was the last \u201cfull-blood\u201d in our family. Luckily, we managed to intermarry with those who also had Cheyenne<\/a> and Cherokee (not the great-great-great princess tribe). Therefore we were able to keep enough blood in us for DNA<\/a> to prove us as \u201chalf-breeds\u201d. Although, none of our remaining family who are alive are enrolled in our tribe. Why, you may ask? \u201cDon\u2019t you have enough blood to enroll in your tribe?\u201d Yes! Of course. \u201cThen why? You are dishonoring your people.\u201d I feel opposite. The reason why we are not enrolled, or refuse to for the time being is because we are proponents of the \u201clineal descendant\u201d way of proving ancestry. The moment the lineal descendant way of defining ancestry hits our reservation, me and my family will be enrolled. We have all of the proof we need to be enrolled now, so why not wait a little longer? We are a surviving race of people (regardless if we are \u201cmetis\u201d or \u201cfull\u201d), and if we have kept our cultures and traditions alive this long without being on the reservation, why go against our way of belief just in order to feel \u201ca part of\u201d?…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Debunking the ‘Half-Breed’ Label Indian Country Today Media Network 2015-07-01 Micah Armstrong Blackfoot Indian of the Siksika Nation Half-breed, mixed-blood, metis\u2026 These words are more than familiar to us who are not full-blooded American Indians. And by those who are not full-blooded, I do not speak of those who claim a \u201cgreat-great-great grandmother who was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,12,395,459,8,3015,20],"tags":[10991,23225],"class_list":["post-46037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-history","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-usa","tag-indian-country-today-media-network","tag-micah-armstrong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46037"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46040,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46037\/revisions\/46040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}