People of Distant Indian Ancestry

[snorks]

Hello everyone, I have been lurking. 

I have been vending at various Pagan festivals.  I sell animal style jewelry - dragons, wolves, pandas, etc.  People who buy my stuff talk about being Native American and having a totem animal.  When we converse, most of them have their NA ancestry be a great-grandmother or some one who knew herbs and all that. 

Well, I had a grandmother who knew herbs but that is because she lived in the woods, and getting to a doctor meant a 50 mile drive.  So she did her own self-medicating.  But how that translate to be someone who is an Indian, I don't know.

But there is a great hunger among these Pagan folks to be Indian.  I get stuck holding my tongue in saying but .....  I am an ordinary white person and don't understand any of this.

[Raveninns]

I've been a member of a dating site, Plenty of Fish, for a little over three years.  It has wonderful forums, and they're very well moderated.  This little rant coming up has nothing to do with the site itself.

In the "Religion" section, there is a thread called Native American Spirituality.  I started off as an enthusiastic poster, telling everyone if they want to know anything, present yourself and ask, and you will be told either yes or no.  Well, I guess that wasn't good enough, and there are such unbelievable posts there, such as, "spirituality belongs to everyone", etc, and one woman even said she learned from Mary Thunder and is a Sun Dancer and Pipe Carrier.  When she was told that one does not announce this and her "teacher" was a fraud, she got very nasty, and, lmao, displayed very negative traits that were very un-Sundance-like and proceeded to get someone banned.  Nice.

Then there are the many who claim to have Native Ancestry from their grandmother or such and can't prove it.  Hmmm, in this day and age, everyone can prove it unless they were adopted out and records were sealed, at least, I think so....

And then there are the posters that argue that they get their info from books, and when told to navigate to NAFPS, they advise that no-one can prove it or that books are just as valuable and viable as learning from actual practitioners.  Sigh.

And one woman said, and I quote, " who is to say that you have to be Native to learn the Red Path".  big fat sigh...

In a fit of anger, I recused myself from the thread as I might as well be talking to a wall.  And it's still going strong, and not one Indian in the bunch, well maybe one, but I'm not sure yet...

I guess I just wanted to say that it peeves me to no end.  To think that other folks are reading this stuff and they will think that Native spirituality is the drivel that's being spewed on that thread.  Despite the warnings, they continue to post new age drivel and make extraordinary claims that they are allowed to as their grandmother or such was Indian.

Glad to have found this site though, so I guess this does have a positive ending!  I'm happy to have found a site where it can be spoken of honestly.

Cheers everyone, Raven in Nova Scotia

[Defend the Sacred]

Welcome, Raven. I hope you will find this forum a change of pace from those creepy Nuage boards. At least here when the twinks show up, you get to watch people tell them what for ;-)