Who Is More Indian Than Whom?
by David Yeagley
Originally published at FrontPageMagazine.com | February 26, 2001
"Who’s more indian, you or me?"
That question was put to me in 1993 by Gilbert L. Vigil, then Governor of the Tesuque Pueblo. We were Kellogg Fellows in an Indian leadership-training program in Santa Fe, a program that brought together thirty Indians from thirty tribes. I represented the Comanches.
I'd heard the question plenty of times before. Every Indian has. Who is more Indian than whom is a favorite topic in Indian Country.
Part of it concerns "blood quantum" – the degree of Indian blood in one's veins.
Part of it involves "connectedness" with your people. Did you grow up on the reservation? Do you live with your people, dance with them, speak their language?
Do you believe in the spirits? Do you see things? Feel things? Hear eagles talk? Do you hear what's inside other people?
And so on.
Most of the time, I can hold my own in these who-is-more-Indian-than-whom campfire talks.
Granted, I'm not full-blooded. Lots of Indians aren't. But my mother is unimpeachably Comanche. Her great grandfather was Quin-ne kash-su-it" (Bad Eagle), a kwahadi (Antelope) Comanche leader. He was cousin to Mumsehkai, another important Antelope leader. This was told to me by Clifford (Treetop) Seymour, Mumsehkai's grandson. He also told me that Bad Eagle was cousin to Ishatai, the last Comanche medicine man.
My mother made sure I grew up "connected" to my tribal roots.
Still, when Gil asked me, "Who's more Indian?", the answer was obvious. Everything about him said "connected," from his thick Pueblo accent to his fine leather cowboy boots.
"You are," I answered. "And so is he," I nodded toward the Cheyenne River Sioux sitting next to him. "There are several Indians here more Indian than me."
Gil nodded, satisfied. He had tested my heart. I may not have been as Indian as he, but I was Indian enough to know that. For Gil, that was Indian enough.
Regrettably, it may not be enough for a woman named Doreen Yellow Bird.
On February 17, she wrote an article about me in the Grand Forks Herald. She wrote about my Indianness.
Yellow Bird was responding to a column I wrote in FrontPageMagazine.com called "Don't Walk the Black Man's Path." In it, I chided Indian students at the University of North Dakota for kicking up a fuss over the school's "Fighting Sioux" mascot.
The protesters say it's insulting and want it changed. I say the mascot is an honor to a great warrior people.
Yellow Bird sides with the protesters. She questions my authority to speak.
"Some [Indians] might have little contact with tribal nations," she says coyly. "And some might not be physically recognized as Native American, therefore, might not have the same experience as a person with Native features.
"Yeagley, who says he is Comanche, needs to stand in the shoes of some of the
young people … before he makes such generalities about the students."
Translated from Indian talk, this means: Yeagley is not sufficiently "connected"; does not have sufficiently "Native" features; and, golly, might not even be Comanche, for all we know.
It's all sooo Indian. And so beside the point.
What's going on at UND has nothing to do with me or my "connectedness" with my tribe. In fact, it has nothing to do with Yellow Bird and her tribe either. She is Arikara. Not Sioux.
In the 1930s, Sioux elders formally offered to UND the honor of using the "Fighting Sioux" name. They wanted their tribe to be remembered.
Yellow Bird now wants the Sioux to break the promise of their elders. But she is not Sioux. So why is she involved?
My sources tell me that the Indian students and faculty who oppose the mascot are almost all Ojibwa and Arikara. Not Sioux.
Sioux leaders have told me that they are proud of the mascot. More importantly, it is their sacred honor to keep the promise of their grandfathers to the university.
Indian activist Russell Means disagrees. He has called pro-mascot Indians "idiots."
He also says he is Sioux.
On Friday, Means showed up at a demonstration at UND to announce, "I am here to protest Nazism and hate speech."
Means accused Denver's Italian-American community of "hate speech" last October for doing nothing more than celebrating Columbus Day.
Things will be heating up quickly now.
The Sioux elders – who alone should have a say in this matter – need to make their voices heard above the Arikara, the Ojibwa, the media and the professional rabble-rousers of the left.
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