Reconnecting
When I was a little girl, my mother made sure we knew our heritage. I knew that my Grandpa George was part Mohawk. I secretly loved that I looked a bit like him. He never talked about his mother or his grandmother. Later I would learn his grandfather had fallen in love with a servant girl who worked for his best friend’s family. When he told his own parents about his feelings and his intention to marry her, they vehemently opposed. As a Native, she was considered “less than”. He stood firm and told them that they never took even a moment to talk to her. If they had, they would know she was Greek.
Well, Greek is exotic, so they allowed the marriage. Right after the wedding, the newlyweds packed up and moved from Connecticut to the Great Lakes region. There is no paper trail beyond my Great-great grandmother’s marriage license. No birth certificate. No tribal enrollment. She just appeared on her wedding day. That leaves me to wonder if she was a victim of trafficking or a casualty of assimilation school. Why did she choose not to share her stories? Her songs? Why didn’t she teach her children and grandchildren her Native tongue? The answer is, almost certainly, shame. Native children were programmed to be ashamed.
Somehow though, it was never shame that my own mom conveyed. She was obviously proud and eager to learn. I remember her taking us to PowWows when I was young. When the drums and singing began, I felt like a new person. I sensed a connection: to the music, the land, the people. I felt a spiritual connection. As a child being raised as a Christian, this connection left me feeling conflicted. My Sunday School teachers were telling me that anyone who didn’t proclaim their love for Jesus and get saved would go to hell. My school teachers called Indians “savages” that believed in multiple gods, they weren’t Christians. For years I carried that conflict, internalized and painful. I now realize that I wasn’t the only family member feeling conflicted.
When I was around 14 years old, my mom and dad took us to a PowWow. I thought I would die of embarrassment when my mom asked a Native man “Can I ask you a personal question?” He said, “if I can ask you an equally personal question.” My mom then asked, “How many gods do you believe in?”The man asked my mom, “How many gods do you believe in?” She answered, “One, but I thought you believed in many.” He replied, “Like you, I believe in one God. Sometimes I say Spirit of the water, sometimes I say Spirit of the Wind. The Great Spirit, the Creator, is the Spirit of All.”
That conversation at the PowWow, coupled with my own spiritual growth and study of Jesus, led me to believe that I don’t have to choose between the spirituality of my Native ancestors and Jesus. I can connect to both. I can love Jesus and I can love my connection to my ancestors. As an adult, I have grown ever more cognizant of the sacrifice my Great-great grandparents made for their love. I am honored, not ashamed, by my heritage. I feel compelled to speak about my Great-great grandmother’s story because she lived in a time where she was not given a voice. She is not Greek. She is Haudenosaunee. I speak because she could not.
Even so, when I was initially approached about petitioning Oberlin City Council to abolish Columbus Day and how I felt about it as a Native person, I was once again conflicted. While I have Native ancestry and am fiercely proud, I was raised white, fully aware of my privilege. I’ve never lived on a reservation. I’ve never been discriminated against because of my darker complexion. How do I have a right to speak as a Native person? There were two people who have been my mentors that adjusted my point of view. Jean Morning Dove and Sundance taught me to claim my heritage in a new way. My ancestors’ blood flows through my veins, whether it’s four generations or 14 generations back, I am one of them. I do have the right to advocate, the right to smudge, the right to be Native. I, too, am Haudenosaunee.
