And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 11:05:29 -0500 >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Subject: [tpkunesh@chattanooga] Melungeons, others seek recognition as Indians > >* From: tom kunesh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > >(thanks, Monica, for the reference.) > >Published by The Tennessean [Nashville TN] Sunday, 1/17/99 >http://www.tennessean.com/sii/99/01/17/indian17.shtml > > >HERITAGE [Local News] > > ---------------------------------------------------- > -= Melungeons, others seek recognition as Indians =- > ---------------------------------------------------- > By Monica Whitaker / Tennessean Staff Writer > >Ramona Reece raised her chin and touched the podium to steady herself. > >"My body's shaking," the Clarksville, Tenn., woman told members of the >state Commission of Indian Affairs. "And it's not because I'm afraid. It's >because I'm tired." > >She has waited so long to be counted as an Indian, she and the 40 people >who appealed to commissioners yesterday, she and an estimated 12,000 >Tennessee residents who consider themselves Indian, but are not recognized >by the state. > >Reece and the others, from Native American groups all over Tennessee, >traveled to Legislative Plaza in Nashville asking commissioners to loosen >restrictions that regulate who is officially recognized. > >For years, those who held that recognition coveted it. Their official state >recognition cards meant they were minorities, qualified for special >government business contracts and minority scholarships. Only they and >their direct relatives were Indians. Many of them considered everyone else >"mixed-bloods" and "wannabes." > >Today, the speakers said, Tennessee's Native American community is so >exclusive, it's excluded nearly everyone who considers themselves Indian. >There are fewer than 100 people officially recognized by the state under >current guidelines. > >A hundred people make no impact, carry no political clout, said Gene >Edwards of Goodlettsville. > >"We need strength," he said. "When the blacks go to do something, they go >in numbers. When we go, we go in two cars." > >The change must start with the different Indian social groups, clans, drum >circles and sweat lodges learning to get along, audience members said. > >"Throughout the years, different tribes warred amongst themselves," said >Kenny Petty of Ashland City. "What we really need is to stick together." > >The public hearing, attended by only two of the commission's five members, >acted as a venting session for the frustrations of a group long divided. > >Many speakers began their comments with a list of the tribes and European >countries included in their ancestry. Others introduced themselves without >much context. They were there just as frustrated Indians looking to other >Indians for cooperation, they said. > >The meeting also was one of the first public forums for some who count >themselves as the discarded people among Southern Indian tribes. > >Melungeons, the descendants of inter-bred Turkish, Portuguese, Native >Americans and other, more hazy bloodlines, asked the commission that their >Native American heritage also be recognized. > >If commissioners relax the restrictions, more people who call themselves >Melungeon could trace through their ancestry to prove they are Indian, said >commissioner Eddie Nickens. > >Nickens, a Melungeon, said he is not looking for tribal recognition. > >The Melungeons' Indian forebears came from many old tribes of Eastern >Tennessee, Virginia and the Carolinas, he said. Some of those tribes are >considered defunct by the Indian community, which honors the tribes' >ancestors but does not recognize their living descendants. > >The Melungeons, now scattered across the country and tied together by >Internet sites, consider this just one more slight in a long history of >discrimination. > >When Middle Eastern and Mediterranean laborers took Indian wives 300 years >ago, their dark-skinned, blue-eyed offspring were ridiculed by both >European settlers and the native tribes, researchers say. > >Some of these people, later called "Melungeons," hid their Indian features >and tried to fit in with the white communities. The rest sought shelter in >Appalachia for several generations. They emerged this century, largely >around Hancock County in East Tennessee. > >In the last five years, sociologists and historians have put together >projects to research different parts of the Melungeons' story, and DNA >evidence is backing some of that research. > >Even as they try to recreate what happened to these people, it is important >that the Native American community finally accept the Melungeons as >descendants of those tribes, not dead spirits, Nickens said yesterday. > >"We're still here and we need to be counted," he said. "I couldn't >understand why I'm a dead spirit when I'm walking Mother Earth and >breathing air." > >In the audience, people wrapped in bone beads, some with feathers on hats >and hairbands, nodded their agreement. > >Twanda Buckreis, who drove from Lexington, Ky. for the hearing, sat quietly >in her seat in a air-brushed sweatshirt that affirmed her support: >"Melungeon Proud." Buckreis was one of several people who came from other >states to watch the proceedings yesterday. > >She is only now getting to know her mother's side of the family, considered >ignorant half-breeds by her father's relatives. Those paternal relatives >kept her from learning more after her mother died when she was three years >old, Buckreis said. > >Growing up she heard about the "lungeons," a dangerous people akin to the >bogeyman, who could take you away and do terrible things if you were bad. > >Sometimes, people pitched rocks at her and said that word. > >But the taunts from her childhood and the warnings from her father's family >are now making sense. She started researching her Melungeon ancestry four >years ago. > >"I was always told I was a half-breed, that I wouldn't amount to anything," >Buckreis said before the public hearing. > >After wondering for years, Buckreis said she has found her roots. She and >others like her support recognition for their Native American ancestry, she >said. > >"I'm not a wannabe," she told the commissioners later. "I am." > > > >RELATED LINK Click here to link to a Web site with more Melungeon information >http://www.bright.net/~kat/melung.htm > > >� Copyright 1999 The Tennessean A Gannett Co. Inc. newspaper > &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
