Of Half-Breeds and Wannabe's: Native American Envy in Children

Copyright © G. Wasdin All rights reserved.

One of the first things I learned about my then husband-to-be was that his mother’s family had some Native American blood running in their veins or at least that was the story they had heard. The family found it exciting and honorable to think that one of their ancestors was an aboriginal. It was quite a turn of events from the early twentieth century for anyone to actually have pride in a mixed heritage of any kind, but especially Native American.

I had a friend who was unfortunate in having been born half Cherokee in the nineteen-twenties. His Native American, known then as Indian, father either left his Caucasian mom or passed away. With no way to support herself and in rapidly failing health, she returned to her parents’ home with her two “half-breed” children.

Wally, her son, remembered well his and his sister’s icy reception by the maternal grandparents. Their mother had brought unspeakable shame to her birth family. The desperate mom and her children were taken in grudgingly and the children were not allowed to play near much less look out of a window lest the neighbors see them.

Times did gradually change and as Wally came into later middle age he sought out his roots and connected with his tribe. He was accepted and given an Indian name and he collected all the accoutrements necessary to honoring his Native American family. He then began to travel and speak, especially to children’s groups, about his ties to the original human inhabitants of the new world. His looks were definitively Native American and dressed in full Cherokee chief regalia he represented his tribe well, but he never recovered completely from the scars of rejection in his early days.

In speaking to my mother-in-law about her supposed Native American genealogy I found that she nor any of the family at that time living could pinpoint a tribe or how far removed they might be from a pure blooded Indian relative. She and I would talk of tracing her roots, but life was busy and we never did and she is no longer of this world.

Lack of firm evidence of my husband’s connection to the American Indian in no way slowed the passing on of the family’s belief that they were “part Indian.” So when our first child was born, she began to hear of this wondrous link to the fascinating Native American world.

Around the age of five, she began pestering me one day about what time her daddy would be home from work. She wasn’t usually too cognizant of time, but this day was different as she continually asked me how much longer before her father would be home.

Finally, her unsuspecting dad, walked through the door. She was on him in a second and without delay asked…

“Daddy, which part of you is the Indian?”

Copyright © G. Wasdin All rights reserved.