Any Native Americans here?

PrincessLyra

Smarter than the average Care Bear
Joined
Jan 24, 2012
Messages
621
Soooooo I was wondering if there were any Native American members here in the forums, or, failing that, people familiar enough with them.
Why? Well... I've been interested in Native American culture ever since I was a kid, but I was never able to really delve into it. As in, I was never able to know enough about it that I could, say, write a NA character without being afraid to run into problems like unwitting stereotyping and inconsistency (which I do. Want to write a character, I mean). It's just a reality with which I sadly don't have any sort of contact.
It doesn't help that there are literally hundreds of different tribes, each different in their own right, and my research doesn't really yield useful results. I mean, it does, in terms of history and such, but nothing much in the way of how these people are like, how they live nowadays, their cultural quirks, and so forth. You know, stuff that would help with character building. Plus, I always love learning about different cultures, especially from the people in them. It just makes me all warm inside!

It feels a little weird to ask something like this, but I hope I'm not coming across as weird myself. o_o I had all of this much better written, but Firefox ate it when it logged me out for no reason. Blarg.
 
My great grandmother was 100% Cherokee Indian. Our family has embraced our roots through her with great pride. These families live more modern these days, but they do value their heritage and traditions to this day. The American Indians in my family lived normal lives in homes not associated with reservations. with the recent death of my cousin, sadly we have no more living old enough to probably be much help. They have all passed. Perhaps you could join a NA forum for research of the lives of modern American Indians. The best thing for you would be to find a way to be friends with a family and just learn over time respectfully. Reaching out here is a good idea too. I can't help much, I only remember one ritual in the family and probably don't remember it right anyway lol.
 
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No problem, @tulagirl, any help at all is much appreciated! :)

I did look into a couple of NA forums after I read your post, and... Hoo boy. It wasn't pretty. I mean, I'm sure not all NA people are like this, but there was more than one instance where someone asked for help, not *completely* unlike what I'm doing, only to be bombarded by cynicism, derision and overall not-very-helpful behavior (oftentimes by actual moderators of the forum, no less), to the point where the OP simply stopped showing up. Okay, truth be told, those people were asking for mythology and religion based topics, which is not really my case, but still, it was pretty disheartening, to be honest...

Being friends with a native family would be ideal, but, outside of online interaction, kind of impossible from where I stand. Literally. Unless there are any NA families living in Portugal (there might be Brazilian Indians somewhere, but other than that, highly doubtful), I'm a whole ocean removed from them. :p Oh well... Guess my best bet for now is going on with my research the classic way. :/
 
@PrincessLio
You know some of that could be learned anger and hatred sadly for the tremendous adversity their ancestors faced. Like it makes me very sad my gg was pulled away from her family and put into an orphanage. I know that she had a wonderful life once my family adopted her. She married directly into our family and I am in her direct line. In those days that was not something people could talk about. In fact the town still refuses to tell us where gg is buried and her history as they harbor bad feelings towards a group of people they didn't like or understand. my gg was a wonderful, loving woman that raised many kids and was loved by the entire family. Cultures dont always like it when people sterotype them in roles they perceive may be realistic. These families now are upset about the losses and the bad treatment and the secrets and don't want to discuss their lives as they too have a bad feeling about people they don't understand. Just a thought. Sigh......I hope that isn't it, but I wonder. I qualify for American Indian benefits and can't get those or meet my ancesortory line living today either due to the hate and control of people in a town. Mom and I both wanted to meet our family line tribe. I have a whole family I want to know and can't. That to me is tragic. Oh and actually she is my great, great great grandmama.
 
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