Your ethnicity.

[The Grand Nudger]

Your average Joe on the res isn't so different than the average Joe off. Hey Pha, you might get a kick out of googling all the racist jokes and slurs that natives had for each other. Especially the Cherokee..lol.

[Phaedra]

Your average Joe on the res isn't so different than the average Joe off. Hey Pha, you might get a kick out of googling all the racist jokes and slurs that natives had for each other. Especially the Cherokee..lol.

Why would I get a kick out of that?

[5thHorseman]

I'll bite.

Because they might be funny. I think rhythm has written that in a way he did not intend.

[Phaedra]

I don't get a kick out of people being nasty to each other...I'm funny like that.

[5thHorseman]

'I'm funny like that.'

That's not being funny, that's pretty normal.

[Napoléon]

Frog munching garlic sucking cheese eating surrender monkey.

Yeah well, at least I ain't a cunt.

[The Grand Nudger]

Far be it from me to insinuate that some racist joke somewhere might be marginally amusing.

That being said, One could perhaps be amused that Native Americans themselves operated on many of the same principles we now hold to be bigoted. Many names for tribes being exonyms, and apart from some pretty interesting musings on the value of gifts, they suffered the same sorts of societal problems we see today, if on a smaller scale. The Cherokee feature heavily into this, as a heel of many of the jokes made (and what small fraction of those must have survived) by members of other tribes. These jokes are a good source for satire for a lot of the same reasons that any racist joke deserves tongue in cheek ridicule. They range from being too black, to being to white. It seems that racists everywhere and throughout history have had trouble deciding what it is exactly that they want to say. A less flippant observation would be the implications for the aptly named "myth of the noble savage".

Cherokee is by far the most popular claim to native ancestry by Americans. There are a few interesting things at work here. Firstly, and most obviously, there are still Cherokee in the world (there's a joke about that, as told me by a Sioux...and there's a joke about that too). Secondly, there was a time when "Cherokee" was used as an excuse for traits that may have led ones fellows to the conclusion that you were something much less desirable, "black" (and amusingly even today these sorts of claims can be effective smokescreens, my cousin Cletus likes to tell people he's half Cherokee because he'd rather not be half white). Estimates on just how much mingling has gone on in the background of your run-of-the-mill Neo-Nazi can go all the way up to 20% on average for any given minority demographic. Thirdly, it's impossible to discount the the effect of "family folklore" in the absence of genetic testing. Even then, the parameters are rarely agreed upon, and the results can be difficult to interpret. Thankfully we have events we can point to as a vector for this sort of genetic transfer.

The best part about this whole thing, as it relates to heritage and the Cherokee specifically, is that many of those claims to native ancestry are entirely possible. Couple of links at the bottom here that deal with "The Beaver Wars", and the Iroquois specifically as they had a little tradition we've called a "mourning" war (this was actually a common tradition on the East Coast, much more heavily so in the NE Coast) that had a part to play. The first thing you might notice when you open the link on the Beaver Wars is the map which shows the general area of the conflict (though smaller raids went further afield). Most of this land would have been the frontier in the time period were dealing with. The area to the south of this conflict zone would be where we'd find our Cherokee (though there is one disputed incident). Similarly much of that land to the south was virgin or very young with notable exceptions along the coast (port cities). So the Iroquois, facing being edged out of the fur market, began an offensive aimed at securing larger hunting grounds, more people, etc. There were some treaties signed with France, England, and the Dutch as the major European players that further complicated the issue. With this sort of military action the Iroquois were looking at heavy losses, more than any mourning war could honestly replace (multiply this by the effect of contact with Europeans and all that this entailed from disease to access to superior weapons etc). So they needed bodies, they had enemies to the north, they had a treaty which meant very much to them in terms of supplies for war (despite some skirmishes against the British) with the people to the east. They headed south and west.

The "Mourning War" was a very strange custom for Europeans to understand. Taking captives (live) brought more honor and value than land or money for most of these people. It's the likely vector for the exaggerated claims of stolen European women that took hold right around this time and continue into present day culture through Westerns. Now, being assimilated into Iroquois culture probably wouldn't have been too difficult for your average Cherokee, they had similar beliefs, shared language family, etc. That doesn't mean that the Cherokee would have wanted to be taken captive. Those treaties mentioned before made integration into European society something that would grant you some modicum of protection. The Cherokee did attempt to integrate, so far as to engage in the slave trade with Europeans. Ultimately, they were still not strictly speaking, human beings. This sort of thinking continued for centuries. There is of course another player here, a white sub-human. The umbrella term we use now didn't suit the tastes of the people at the time, and there were many many distinctions between what we would call whites today. Scots, specifically in the south, and the Irish and a whole slew of others into and beyond the Appalachians to the west. Isolated settlers intermarrying. You could buy a woman if you wanted one. Some actually were taken captive. Most often native communities were razed for some perceived injury, leaving the children and whoever else was left (if there was anyone left) to try their luck fending for scraps from the fringes of European settlements. Of course it's not entirely unbelievable that some natives transitioned just fine, making their living and names as intermediaries. The Iroquois and the associated peoples of the eastern seaboard were already a melting pot, and then we introduce constantly increasing numbers of Europeans.

So, actual heritage, family folklore, smokescreen for socially awkward pedigrees, greatly embellished claims to actual heritage. This all gives me the giggles. I enjoy this sort of thing. To top it off it's all set against a backdrop of native american history that really doesn't get much attention anymore. First contact, and the trail of tears are compelling, but the 5 Nations have a history and an influence which surprised me when I was introduced to this stuff.

You're right though. Just because I occasionally can't help but laugh at racist jokes, or the strange places and people they come from, doesn't mean that you would. No insult intended, mea culpa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee
http://daphne.palomar.edu/scrout/native.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_t...ted_States
(you folks have my grandmother to thank for that little explosion of uselessness above. When her siblings started to die off she became obsessed with geneology. She was the first person to describe how difficult it is in reality to trace the average american family with any certainty beyond a very small window of time. My ex wife re-enforced this notion, she's the one that got me hooked on Teh Injuns)

[Shell B]

Oh, Christ. We're not getting all sensitive again, are we? I'm going to come back from hiatus and everyone will be singing Cumbaya.

[Phaedra]

It didn't insult me. I just don't find things like that funny. And I'm sure someone will learn something from what you've written.

---

Not sensitive, Shell. I'm just not amused by racist jokes. They don't offend me, though.

[Jackalope]

Turkey is the means by which Americans ceremoniously ruin their own health in the name of false piety.

Silly me, I always thought that the fall/winter holidays were just a good excuse to have too much stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. What is this piety thing you speak of? Is it good with butter or gravy?