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Welcome to the Sumter Cheraw Indians website! |
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Welcome to our website we hope you enjoy yourself and see us again soon. Please register your account to access all the many features on this website.
Posted on Wednesday, March 25
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Together Again as One People With the Same Goals |
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It is with great pride that both factions are merging for the betterment of our people under the leadership of Chief Ralph Justice Oxendine. WE hope to get together very soon and talk to all members about this decision and how it came about. We would like to hear from all members and potential members; just keep it clean please. We have tried very hard to stick to that in the past. This will be the real test as to who has their heart in what we are doing. We have exciting plans and ideas that we need to talk to everyone about and ALOT of mending to do; so we are trying to come up with a date soon, very informal; to sit around in the circle and pray for guidance and wisdom. Please let us know by email at oxendineralph@yahoo.com to let us know if you have a particular date that would be good for you.
As we are working on our website; please keep checking on the calendar for upcoming events.
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We're Back! |
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Hello Tribal Members. I am delighted to inform you that we now have our original web site back! We now own .org, .net, .com and .biz. Please visit either site. If you are registered with .com or any of the others; when you log in, it will take you to this site. Please enjoy and remember, feel free to post what ever you would like to let others know. Please, keep it clean.
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The Indian Ten Commandments |
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1. Treat the Earth and all that dwell therein with respect.
2. Show great respect for your fellow beings.
3. Remain close to the Great Spirit.
4. Work together for the benefit of all Mankind.
5. Give assistance and kindness wherever needed.
6. Do what you know to be right.
7. Look after the well-being of Mind and Body.
8. Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good.
9. Be truthful and honest at all times.
10. Take full responsibility for your actions.
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For Navajo Nation Citizens, Finding Unrelated Mates Within Tribe Becoming Dificu |
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By Anne Minard April 10, 2012
Navajo Nation tribal member Kelvin Long, 36, chuckles at the memory: He’d taken a year off from work, and a would-be co-worker lured him back by inviting him to a meeting in Flagstaff, Arizona—with the promise that there would be lots of beautiful women. “I went, and I fell in love. There were all these brilliant, beautiful, determined women. Unfortunately, it turned out they were all related to me through clan.”
When babies are born in the Navajo tribe, they become members of their mother’s clans. Traditional Navajo people introduce themselves by identifying the clans on both their mother’s and father’s sides. This allows clan relations like brothers, sisters, aunts and uncles to recognize one another, even if they’ve never met. It also helps marriageable youth avoid partners who share the same clan as their own mother or father, a traditional safeguard against inbreeding. Long was born into the Bitterwater clan, which is one of the original four clans created by the Navajo matriarch White Shell Woman, or Changing Woman. It also happens that it’s one of the largest clans. As a result, “I’m related to everyone,” Long says, adding that he almost always assumes a love interest is out-of-bounds. “A lot of times I don’t even date Navajo women.”
Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly has been expressing concerns lately about that very reality. He says the tribe’s clan system is on the verge of becoming too restrictive. By most counts there are now about 130 clans, largely because new clans have been created through marriages between tribal and nontribal members. Shelly says as the clans grow, it’s getting harder and harder to avoid running into—and marrying—relations.
Shelly has been floating the idea that intertribal marriages should be encouraged, to widen the options for tribal members. He points out that leaders of smaller Indian tribes, where membership often hovers around 200 or 300 people, are in even more precarious positions than the Navajo Nation. “They also know that they are losing their membership and their full-blooded tribal members,” he says. “These smaller tribe leaders…instead of losing out to members of another nationality, are saying maybe we should open our doors to each other, our nation, our civilization, and welcome them Native to Native.”
Shelly recognizes that intertribal marriages will also result in the loss of members for some tribes, because people must choose membership in a single tribe. He emphasizes that he’s not pushing people to leave the Navajo Nation—but he insists even that’s better than the alternative, when it comes to the bigger picture of Native people. “We want to stay in existence,” he says. “We don’t want to lose that.”
Although Long and other traditionalists aren’t opposed to that approach, they are reluctant to abandon the clan system that is a foundational part of being Navajo. They’re advocating a path forward where the traditional clan system is restored to a place of honor in the tribe’s cultural identity, as it’s opened up to allow for marriages with people outside the tribe.
Shelly favors intertribal marriages.
Shelly worries that within the clan system confines, clan brothers and sisters will eventually have no choice but to marry. He points to sickness and weakness among the Nation’s youth, and suspects already that close intermarriages could be a cause. “We are mammals,” he says. And Navajo people know better than most how to keep mammalian offspring their healthiest: “The maximum you can use a bull is four years. That way, the cattle or sheep are healthy, bigger.” He worries the people aren’t applying that same standard to their own lives.
“You see a lot of weakness in the young kids. They get sick more. Talk to some health-care people, they would tell you there’s an increase in a lot of the health problems,” he says. “In the past it never used to be that way. That concerns me.”
There are no studies documenting genetic diversity or the effects of intermarriage on the Navajo Nation. In fact, those sorts of studies are forbidden, says Ronald Maldonado, program manager in the Cultural Resource Compliance Section of the Navajo Nation Historic Preservation Department.
“There is a moratorium prohibiting genetic research on the Navajo Reservation,” he says. “This has been going on, to the best of my knowledge, for at least 10 years. The tests have not been done to my knowledge and would not be allowed under current rules.”
Philmer Bluehouse, a Navajo peacemaker and traditionalist, says there’s an alarming and fundamental shift that underlies the worries about inbreeding—and it has more to do with disconnection from culture than any inherent limits in the clan system. He refers to unwritten rules governing Navajo people, also called Natural Law. “Our traditional practice to prevent genetic corruption was to determine, through our clan system, by asking our parents, who and which clans to marry,” he says. “This shows respect and understanding for self and others in these serious matters. In this contemporary world, it is sad to know that many cultures do not understand or appreciate how to interpret and apply these laws. I see many of us simply following what the greater society is practicing without consideration as to the real intent of why the unwritten laws were created.”
He says most Navajo people understand the risks of inbreeding, given their experience as shepherds. And he’s not opposed to using modern methods to protect the tenets of natural law: “When I married my wife, I made certain—I had a genetic blood test.”
At the same time, Bluehouse isn’t against the idea of encouraging marriages outside the Navajo tribe: “We have to allow that to happen to keep the blood clean,” he says. But he also hopes people will go about it in a reasoned way. “This is something that the Diné really need to open up and have some intelligent discussion on. We need to not be lazy.”
Long thinks he has solution. He’s the executive director of the Flagstaff-based organization Educating Communities while Healing and Offering Environmental Support (ECHOES), and through that group he’s gathering funds for a series of conferences and a book, all under the title Ké Bíká. Ké is a Navajo word referring to an understanding or relationship, of interconnectedness. And bíká means a reasoning, or purpose. “When you put them together it’s like a journey, toward an understanding of how we’re connected—an understanding of our culture, ceremony, history,” he explains.
He wants to gather experts on the Navajo clan system for the conferences; the book will document their knowledge. He wants to give it as a gift to his people. “We’re at a point where I feel like our culture is frozen,” he says, adding that social ills like alcoholism and diabetes are some of the results of that stagnation. “I feel like it’s because people are disconnected from their own identity. They’re not in control of their own lives.”
Long says he went through a process, early in his 30s, where he had to overcome parts of his past in order to reconnect with his own identity. And he feels the same thing needs to happen on a societal scale. He laments that the most commonly held impressions of the Navajo were created by scholars and historians during one of the lowest points in the history of the tribe. “Histories record of a people traumatized, emotionally disconnected, starving. We were taught in boarding schools that’s what we are,” he says. But Long feels there’s no reason those views should be perpetuated—and it’s damaging for them to be ingrained in the tribal consciousness.
He sees his book as an antidote. “It’s a toolkit,” he says. “It’s a historical gift to the people. People are hurting. By giving them this book, showing them who they are and where they came from, it’s a way to provide that map, if they choose to go down that road. It’s a way to heal.”
No one’s claiming there will be a quick fix for the issues facing the Navajo clan system. Long’s conferences aren’t even set to begin until the middle of 2013. As for Shelly’s idea of opening the door to more intertribal marriages, even tribal law will have to change to accommodate those plans. For example, right now, tribal jurisdictions don’t cover nontribal in-laws living on the reservation, he says.
“When I was running for this office,” he adds, “A lot of nontribal members came to me and said, ‘You need to change the law so we can vote in the elections and be citizens.’ We are looking into that.”
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Trayvon Martin Case Another Example of Black and Native Communities Sharing Unfo |
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By Vincent Schilling April 12, 2012
On February 26, 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a self-proclaimed neighborhood watch leader, as he returned from a nearby store where he had bought some snacks. Zimmerman, who says he shot Martin in self-defense, was arraigned on second-degree murder charges on April 12 in Sanford, Florida, after weeks of protest, leaks and speculation.
Because Martin was a young, unarmed black male, many people believe he was the tragic victim of racial profiling by an over-zealous Zimmerman.
George Zimmerman
Racial profiling is a scourge for all minority communities, and this tragedy calls to mind the fatal altercation between a Seattle police officer and a Native woodcarver John T. Williams in 2010. In both cases, the victim was confronted and killed by a man with a gun who thought he was protecting his community.
John T. Williams
Dr. Arica Coleman, a professor of African American studies at the University of Delaware, is of both Native American and African American descent and knows well the constant threat posed by racial profiling. “Just being a woman of color makes me a target,” says Dr. Coleman, who then recounts a recent incident that—although it had a peaceful resolution—reinforces her point. “I was dressed in athletic wear, taking a walk through my nice, white suburban neighborhood with an exercise weight in each hand—I was not the only one walking with exercise weights—pumping my arms vigorously so as to get an optimal workout,” she says. “I turned my head and spotted a police cruiser slowly trailing me. When the officer flashed his lights I immediately stopped.”
After Coleman gave the police officer the hand weights and her address, she says he expressed surprise that she was a resident of the community. “He blurted out, ‘Oh, you live in this neighborhood,’” she recalls. “With a wide smile I informed him that I had lived here for almost 20 years. His eyes widened when he heard that. I cracked a couple of jokes. We laughed, wished each other good day and I continued my walk, but I knew better than to believe that this was simply a case of curiosity; this was a case of Walking While Being a Person of Color in a pristine white neighborhood,” she says.
Dr. Arica Coleman, a professor of African American studies at the University of Delaware, is of both Native American and African American descent. (Vincent Schilling)
Dr. Coleman says racial profiling is something she and all people of color must live with and negotiate around nearly every day to avoid becoming a victim. “I am a woman of color and as such my very existence and value are defined in this society based on where I fit in the American racial hierarchy. Consequently, I am never viewed as a professor, but rather a black professor who thinks she’s Native American. As a female colleague from Trinidad once told me, ‘I did not know I was a Black woman until I came to the U.S.’”
Walter Lamar knows racial profiling from both sides of the lens. He is the President and CEO of Lamar Associates, a company specializing in law enforcement, security and emergency preparedness. He is also a former FBI agent and served as the Deputy Director of the Indian Affairs Office of Law Enforcement.
Lamar says that although shooting deaths of both Martin and Williams were tragic, they were very different scenarios. He says Williams may have been killed because the officer was doing racial profiling, but it’s also plausible that the officer would have shot anybody—black, white or Native—holding a knife on a city street that day.
Walter Lamar
He says the Trayvon Martin case, however, is a completely different situation, and racial profiling was clearly a factor. He hastens to point out, though, that Zimmerman was not a trained law-enforcement officer, nor even a registered Neighborhood Watch volunteer. “He was just a yahoo with a 9mm pistol,” Lamar says. “The most dangerous person out there is a fool with a gun who has a hero complex.”
He adds that racial-profiling is a serious problem on border towns near reservations. “There are going to be border-town police who don’t like Indians and they are going to say ‘There is a carload of Indians—I bet somebody in that car is drunk and I’m going to pull them over.’”
Lamar says that even though racial profiling is against the law, many people—cops and civilians—have prejudices, and those prejudices come into play every day. “What you have to do is have cultural awareness training and you have to acquaint officers with the Native way of life,” he says.
Coleman says that in light of recent events, comparisons of racial profiling in African American and Native American communities can—and should—be drawn. “When it comes to people of color, we must justify our presence in the public arena when we are within our so-called designated spaces, i.e., segregated urban communities and reservations—which are over-policed. When African Americans and Native Americans dare venture outside of those spaces and into communities deemed to be off-limits, we are suspicious simply by virtue of our race and declared guilty of the crime of ‘Walking While Black’—Trayvon Martin—or ‘Holding a Knife While Indian’—Jonathan T. Williams.
“While African Americans have always experienced forced exclusion from the American mainstream and been denied equality with whites, Native Americans have always experienced forced inclusion, wherein mainstream America demands that Indians give up their race and culture to become honorary white people. African Americans are profiled based on the assumption that they do not belong; Native Americans are profiled based on their refusal to go along.”
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