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FLAGSTAFF, Arizona – Jon Rios is from the Pima, Arizona, but he does not have a tribal entry card, lives in Colorado and does not know exactly what his percentage is.
He has no interest in meeting the requirements imposed by the federal government to prove his connection with a tribe. If someone asks for it, he says that he is Native American.
"I'm a bit like Elizabeth Warren. I have my ancestral lineage, "said Rios, referring to his affiliation with the Pima, also known as Akimel O'odham.
The clash between the Democratic Senator of Massachusetts and President Donald Trump about his Amerindian heritage highlights the different methods used by the tribes to determine who belongs to the people – a decision with multiple consequences.
Some tribes rely on blood relationships, or "quantum of blood," to confer membership status. Historically, they had a broader view including non-biological links and the question of whether a person had an interest in the community.
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The 573 federally recognized tribes have a unique political relationship with the United States as sovereign governments that should be consulted on issues that concern them, such as sacred sites, environmental rules and development. commercial. The treaties guarantee access to health care and some social services, but they can be treated differently when they are involved in a federal crime on a reserve.
Among the tribes, registration also means being able to run for office, vote in tribal elections, and guarantee property rights.
For centuries, the percentage of Native American blood in a person has nothing to do with determining who is a member of the tribe. And for some tribes, this is still not the case.
Membership was based on kinship and included biological parents, those who married in the tribe and even people captured by Native Americans during the wars. The black slaves held by the tribes in the 1800s and their descendants became members of the tribes now in Oklahoma after the abolition of slavery. The Navajo nation has been considering ways to recruit Mexican slaves, according to Paul Spuhan, a tribal lawyer.
The degree of blood became a widely used standard for tribal enrollment in the 1930s, when the federal government proposed tribes with standard constitutions to promote city council type governments. The amount of blood has often been determined in a crude way, for example by sending anthropologists and federal agents to inspect the physical characteristics of Native Americans, such as hair, skin color and shape of the nose.
"It has become a very biased and pseudo-scientific racial measure," said Danielle Lucero, a member of Isleta Pueblo in New Mexico and a doctoral student at Arizona State University.
Many tribes who adopted a constitution under the Indian Reorganization Act, and even those who did not, have changed the conditions of registration. Linear and linear descendants in the blood, or the direct ancestors of a person, remain the dominant determinants.
In the case of Santa Clara v. Martinez of the United States Supreme Court in 1978, it was confirmed that tribes had the power to define their members according to cultural values and norms. Some tribes also used this authority to remove members.
"Historically, we have a very fluid understanding of kinship relationship," said David Wilkins, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, a member of the Lumbee tribe of North Carolina. "It was more of a question of value, of direction and knowing if you were acting as a good citizen and a good person, and if you were assuming your responsibilities. It does not matter if you have half, quarter, or 1/1000, no matter what Elizabeth Warren had. "
The Navajo Nation, one of the largest tribes in the southwest, needs a quarter of blood.
The Lumbee tribe asks members to trace their origins in a tribal list, to re-enroll every seven years and to take a civic test on tribal leaders and historical events, Wilkins said.
DNA alone is not used to prove a person's Native American origin. The tests evaluate large genetic markers, not specific tribal affiliations or links to a tribal community.
The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma uses a list of names developed around the beginning of the twentieth century to determine membership, regardless of the degree of Indian blood. At that time, federal agents also allocated a quantity of blood to Native Americans for the purpose of land ownership, writes Spruhan.
Warren, who grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, and is considered a presidential candidate in 2020, recently released the results of a DNA test that, she says, revealed that She had a distant Amerindian ancestor. The test was intended to answer Trump, who often made fun of her and called her "Pocahontas".
She said her roots were part of "family traditions" and that she never sought to become a member of a tribe.
Patty Ferguson-Bohnee uses to protect the sacred sites, cultural camps and linguistic immersion of her small Indian tribe Pointe-au-Chien in southern Louisiana. The tribe is also seeking federal recognition.
"It's not just about money, it's also about protecting our cultural heritage," said Ferguson-Bohnee, who oversees Arizona State University's Indian legal program.
Nicole Willis grew up at Confederate times from the Umatilla Reserve in the Pacific Northwest, which she calls home. She has often traveled from Seattle for cultural events and to spend summers with her grandmother.
For her, being Native American means that her family is part of a distinct and interconnected community that has existed since ancient times. His tribe demands that the citizens be a quarter of the Indians of America, with 1/16 specific to the tribe, but she said, "Theoretically, this should not matter."
"We should identify with the nation we think we belong to," she said. "Because of the way the government has treated us, we do not have the benefit of ignoring the numbers."
Back in Greeley, Colorado, Rios strives to preserve the traditions passed down by his father and his identity by gathering medicinal plants, giving thanks for food and his creator, sitting with his family around a fire open and passing on knowledge to his daughters.
"It's important for me and especially for our people, always respectful and trying to maintain that balance," he said.
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