Blood Quantum

I would like to first state that this whole idea of blood quantum is not an indigenous belief. It in part comes from the idea of "killing the indian and saving the man". It was also first implemented during the colonial period (Please see http://www.weyanoke.org/jdf-BloodQuantum.html). It should also be noted that this same practice was used against, yes against, the aborigines of Australia. The Australian scientists felt they could civilize the aborigines by having them intermix with whites and reduce their blood quantum therefor making them less aborigine and more a part of mainstream society in an effort to control aborigine lands and natural resources. A good reference of this practice is shown in the movie The Rabbit Fence.

Some could also claim that this is also the policy of the United States Federal Government. Encourage blood quantum statutes enough and then the whole "Indian Problem" would solve itself when a tribe would literally die out due to lack of eligible enrollees. Once that occurs than the left of land and natural resources would naturally go to the highest bidder while making a quick buck for those in the government and it would of course save money due to the fact that there is no longer a need to fund anything such as health care and housing. I feel this is probably the greatest danger we face as Native people, this kind of mathematical genocide.

In the Pacific Northwest it was of great pride and admiration that someone was of mixed heritage (ex: Nisqually, Yakima, and Klickitat). Coastal people celebrated this intermixing and it helped strengthen bonds we had with neighboring tribes, so it was natural that when others came to this area that intermixing would occur. I personally do not feel that blood quantum has any basis in how I am as a Native person, I do not feel that it makes me any more or less Native than the next Native person.

Many tribes have a blood quantum of 1/4. I find it quite preposterous to believe that somehow after the 1/4 generation, the 1/8 generation if you will, would somehow become completely non-Native, since mathematically speaking, if you divide a positive number in half you will always get a positive number for the answer, never a zero and never a negative number. That "blood" will always be there and the relationship one has to their ancestors will always be there. Just because ones does not carry enough of the legally required "blood" quantum does not mean that they are not related to those ancestors and relations that came before them. I feel it would be akin to saying that one is not related to their actual birth mother just because they did not possess the required blood quantum. Mathematically the whole idea of blood quantum is flawed.

In addition, another point against blood quantum I would like to discuss is the lack of reliable record keeping up until the recent past. Many Native groups did not have a form of written language to keep track of who married who and what they were, yes there was oral tradition in place of that but oral tradition is much like the child's game "Telephone" where one person says a word to another and that word is whispered to the next and so on and so forth until the word reaches the original player where it has henceforth been changed either slightly or dramatically.

I personally feel that when tribes continue to use such archaic determination in their membership that they are missing out on an important and vital group that could otherwise contribute in a positive way. It saddens me that people are cast aside from their own relatives for something in which they have no control over. When one is born, you do not get the convenient option of saying what you want to look like let alone what you want your racial makeup to be.