Aho!!!
This past weekend I attended a powwow. This is nothing new for me since I attend at least one each year and am a dancer at times (gourd dance, southern traditional and smoke). I love the look of the northern traditional dancer - the fierceness and intent of purpose of the warrior. My ancestors were from the southern Plains however.
At the powwow, one of the elders sprinkled tobacco for the newly elected president, Barack Black Eagle. He asked for the safety and blessings to him and the Black Eagle family. At one time, I spoke about Jim Beckworth, a Black man of mixed parentage (father was obruni and mother was African), who went on to become a highly celebrated chief of the Crow people - the people of the Black Eagle family of Barack. You may recall that Barack was adopted by the Black Eagle family of the Crow Nation in Montana. Let me just say that First Nation people do not take adoption lightly. When one is adopted, that person becomes a full member of the adopting family with all the rights and privileges of a family member. With that adoption comes an obligation though. A member must do what is in the best benefit of the people and be a champion and advocate. It is for the success of the family unit.
The old Tutelo people of Virginia and North Carolina had an intense ceremony called "Spirit Adoption" which was undertaken with each new Tutelo adoption of "foreigners". The Haudenosaunee or Six Nations lost so many people during the mourning wars that by the end of the wars, through the medium of adoption, there was few people of pure Haudenosaunee blood; the bulk of their population was adoptees of captive people and from fictive kin/martial arrangements. The Haudenosaunee took in many people that they had fought wars against and added them to the covenant chain, including the often Haudenosaunee preyed upon Tutelo.
Adoption by First Nation people is nothing new. My own family was started by a Kiowa man with Crow heritage that was adopted by the Comanche people in the 1850's. My family for all purposes at that time became Comanche and eventually the blood verified this. The intermingling of the escaped Angolans with the native people of Georgia and Florida that eventually created the Seminole people was begun with adoption.
How many of us have First Nation heritage and fully recognize it? Those who do I greet you as a brother and fellow Black Indian. Those of us who haven't I ask that you look more deeply into that connection; it's not traitorous to Black people to do so. It may be offensive to not do so, at least from any ancestral standpoint. Recognize that nothing is monolithic and one-dimensional. Reach within and search. Once you have, I can then extend my hand and welcome you to the covenant chain.
Blackbird
This past weekend I attended a powwow. This is nothing new for me since I attend at least one each year and am a dancer at times (gourd dance, southern traditional and smoke). I love the look of the northern traditional dancer - the fierceness and intent of purpose of the warrior. My ancestors were from the southern Plains however.
At the powwow, one of the elders sprinkled tobacco for the newly elected president, Barack Black Eagle. He asked for the safety and blessings to him and the Black Eagle family. At one time, I spoke about Jim Beckworth, a Black man of mixed parentage (father was obruni and mother was African), who went on to become a highly celebrated chief of the Crow people - the people of the Black Eagle family of Barack. You may recall that Barack was adopted by the Black Eagle family of the Crow Nation in Montana. Let me just say that First Nation people do not take adoption lightly. When one is adopted, that person becomes a full member of the adopting family with all the rights and privileges of a family member. With that adoption comes an obligation though. A member must do what is in the best benefit of the people and be a champion and advocate. It is for the success of the family unit.
The old Tutelo people of Virginia and North Carolina had an intense ceremony called "Spirit Adoption" which was undertaken with each new Tutelo adoption of "foreigners". The Haudenosaunee or Six Nations lost so many people during the mourning wars that by the end of the wars, through the medium of adoption, there was few people of pure Haudenosaunee blood; the bulk of their population was adoptees of captive people and from fictive kin/martial arrangements. The Haudenosaunee took in many people that they had fought wars against and added them to the covenant chain, including the often Haudenosaunee preyed upon Tutelo.
Adoption by First Nation people is nothing new. My own family was started by a Kiowa man with Crow heritage that was adopted by the Comanche people in the 1850's. My family for all purposes at that time became Comanche and eventually the blood verified this. The intermingling of the escaped Angolans with the native people of Georgia and Florida that eventually created the Seminole people was begun with adoption.
How many of us have First Nation heritage and fully recognize it? Those who do I greet you as a brother and fellow Black Indian. Those of us who haven't I ask that you look more deeply into that connection; it's not traitorous to Black people to do so. It may be offensive to not do so, at least from any ancestral standpoint. Recognize that nothing is monolithic and one-dimensional. Reach within and search. Once you have, I can then extend my hand and welcome you to the covenant chain.
Blackbird
