Dori Midnight

[RedRightHand]

Dori wrote in her email above: " It is also a deep concern of mine when white people appropriate any Native healing traditions, symbols, or practices. "

and "In my work, I don't claim to practice any kind of Native American traditions or use language like "medicine woman" or "shaman". "

My experience of her is that she instead claims things like smudging and medicine wheels and other cermonial fragments are "universal." She's one of the apppropriators who thinks she can rip off Natives if she calls it something else, and repeatedly says, "I don't claim to be Native." Yet, when people who have hired her have been questioned about her offering native ceremonial fragments under different names, they were told by the shop owners that Ms. "Midnight" is native, so it's OK.

On her website right now, she claims:

"Background/Lineage/Training ... First Nations (Shawnee). ...  I draw upon all my ancestors healing traditions in my work."

Over the summer she had a more prominent claim up top, I think claiming to be Cherokee as well. So the claims are still there, just moved further down the page after the Reiki and other nuage stuff.

I don't think she is being honest. Actually, I know she's not.

[Defend the Sacred]

Whether the alleged distant ancestors existed or not doesn't really matter.

Distant heritage gives no rights to ceremony or other Indigenous intellectual property. It especially gives no rights to ceremonies and intellectual property from other Nations.

If you claim Shawnee, it means nothing unless a Shawnee community claims you.   Then to have a right to any Shawnee ceremonies you would have to be fully accepted in that community, live in that community, be recognized and trained and authorized in that community - which may take a lifetime, then stay in that community and help the people who've adopted you.

I'm sorry, but that is something wholly different from advertising mix-and-match spiritual services on the internet and selling your services  to strangers at nuage events.

[loudcrow]

Information about Dori's maternal great grandmother:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=straehle&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=68226656&df=all&

[loudcrow]

Dori's maternal grandmother was Mildred Florence Straehle who was born on April 12, 1914 in Ohio. Mildred's parents were Fredrick W. Straehle and Cassie Eva
Briggs. Cassie died May 20, 1914 when Mildred was less than 2 months old.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=68226677

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=76241743

It is quite possible Fredrick's second wife, Emma Barnes, adopted Mildred in 1914 or when Mildred was 14 years old. Fredrick Straehle was her biological father.

Emma had a sister, Elizabeth J. Barnes who married Frank Midnight (1866-1944).

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=35701595

Frank's father was Valentine Midnight:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=128833010

Valentine changed his surname to Midnight by the time he died in 1885.

[educatedindian]

DM sent this email response. Looking at her site, she has taken down the ancestry and ceremony claims.
------------

Thanks for your email. I checked the site and read the posts. I want you to know that I am taking this very seriously and want to do the right thing. I am writing now to 1) clear up some factual inaccuracies on the site and 2) let you know that your group's feedback has led me to think deeply about how I share about my heritage publicly and to make some changes. First, to clarify some factual inaccuracies on your site:

1) I  do not claim to teach any Native ways or do Native ceremonies and never have.
2) I do not sell and never have sold any Native goods or fragments and have not used another name in my work.
3) I also do not believe that the Medicine Wheel is universal. I firmly believe that people should only practice those things if that is their heritage and they have had extensive learning from teachers from that heritage. My practice is  based in Eastern European and Jewish earth based traditions- it is how I was raised and what I know.

As far as my ancestry, it is true that I have written that I have Shawnee ancestry, which I was told and believed to be true.  A DNA test I did confirmed that I am 1/16 Native. It is true that my family's information on this part of our history is vague and I think you have a good point that it may do more harm than good to claim Native heritage when it is somewhat uncertain and/or very distant. Therefore I have removed information about my heritage from my from my website and my blog and will not use it in my bio going forward.

I respect your work and value the feedback you have offered to me.
Thank you,
Dori

[Smart Mule]

In Romani culture if you have no community (Romanipen) you're not Romani. When one emmigrates they either become a part of their community in the new country (if the community remains intact as a sub-community it is not internally considered to be diasporic), join a diasporic Romanipen of members of a variety of communities (an example would be the Romnipen in Brocton, Massachusetts) or assimilates and becomes Gadjo (non-Romani). It doesn't matter if a person is a descendant of a Romani family, or even if an individual has a Romani parent, claiming to be Romani or Roma is offensive to members of the living culture because it goes directly against their cultural teachings if you do not belong to or participate in community.

While there are absolutely Romani Peoples who themselves use the term Gypsy, they are generally older to elderly individuals. They are also members of a Romanipen. They have the right to self identify as they please. A however many generations removed individual does not, it is them using their own privillege and entitlement.

***edited for clarity