So we’re patriarchal but was this always???

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

I’m reading my friend Luis’s MySpace blog and he asks a good question about when did we shift from matriarchial to patriarchial. I’m doing another big research project on mixed race persons in the US. This is much more extensive then the one done last year, with a broader scope. It is also being done vis a vis the context that the primary reference is the dominant culture. As such it also looks at the experiences of monoracial groups so that there is a better understanding of why these groups have responded to issues of declaring mixed race identities in the new millennium. Many monoracial groups are not down with these declarations, but there is a historical mindset that contributes to all of that which is based in social experiences of minority groups.

So… here’s part of the info from my paper…

In pre-Columbian times, traditional Native peoples usually designated their societies based on matrilineal descendency, and the majority of these were matrilineal because it was easier to trace a child from its mother. In contemporary times, Native American membership has shifted so that in some tribes members must be born on the reservation, have certain blood quantum, and other structurally defined requirements. One of the consequences of the IRA (Indian Reorganization Act) is that the act was defined in patriarchal terms. This created a major social disruption when, in Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez (436 US 49,1978) the male dominated leadership among Pueblo society in New Mexico took away tribal membership from a woman and her children because she married a Navajo man outside of the tribe. The pre-IRA tradition of matrilineality that existed among the Santa Clara people would have prevented this legal decision by this skewed male dominated Pueblo council leadership (James, 1995: 136).

The Dawes Allotment Act in 1887 stipulated that for any eligible Indian to receive their allotments, they must be half or more Indian blood. This restrictive determination quantified who could or could not “identify” as being Indian. The Dawes Act had its roots in US Governmental policy that focused on trying to force Indians into the white man’s civilization, and as a result of this act, there was even a campaign for non-Indian men to marry Indian women who were allottees, since the US based system was patriarchal. In some cases this led to the early death of the Indian wife, giving clear title transfer to the “white” male spouse (Jaimes, 1995:137). The hidden agenda in this legislation was to co-opt the land for non-Indian use and eventual ownership (Jaimes, 1995:137). The Cherokee communities in Oklahoma saw at least two thirds of their land expropriated by the federal government with cooperation by non-Indians. This imposed exclusion policy has resulted in the use of blood quantum and enrollment requirements in order to insure federal recognition as well as federal funding. Different tribal entities designate different blood requirements that may or may not differ from the BIA criteria of quarter blood. The Cherokees of Oklahoma are unique in that they do not require any blood quantum standard, and as such have surpassed the Navajo-Dine population in numbers, despite being restricted to tracing their Indian descendency as required by the Dawes Act.

and further into the paper…
The nature of mixed race Native Americans is not a new one and is not only about the Métis, who are mixed Indian and French and were primarily fur trading families. Creole families in the American Midwest were formed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when French Canadian and French fur traders traveled into the Great Lakes region and married into Indian customers’ families. These biracial and bicultural households developed hybrid societies. As colonizers came into the United States, they arrived intending to build arms, towns and businesses, with “manifest destiny” in mind, and believed they were creating a new society and that none existed before their arrival. Many mixed race persons experienced both cultural prejudice and racism from the colonizers, who were shocked and displeased to find high ranking women of color as well as men of color in these communities, since the Creole social structure was a product of bi-culturalism. This bicultural environment leant itself to women who could control, own and convey property and manage independent decisions, influenced by traditional Indian cultures. This was due to many Creole women being usually either Native American or part Native American, and Indian women of the time played more active roles in politics, religious leadership and management (JWH, 2003).

 Comments:

Posted by Poimandres on Tuesday, December 28, 2004 at 4:00 PM
This is very interesting..it is very unfortunate to see that the “dominant society” has sought to coerce their frame of reference on other people hence (sexism/ race elitisms). As far as The mixed people (speaking from my own experience) I could imagine the inner conflict that they dwelt with every day in terms of being aware that they bloodline is purged with two opposing monoracial groups. However, from reading the above it is obvious that the Creole people were still looked upon as less in the eyes of the white masses. My country was originally inhabited with aboriginal people, they were known as the Taino Indians…but as history shows the Spaniards colonized the island of Cuba and also enslaved people from West Africa and coerced them to work on the plantations of Cuba and is sad to say but that is how “black people in Cuba learn how to speak Spanish. Several Chiefs who spoke in the original language had there tongues severed because they were aware that a common language with the pride of history and culture empowers people to keep on fighting and till this day we see this going on throughout the entire world….. The Aboriginal/African has a common struggle against the “dominant society “. The Vatican also partook in the process of “institutionalizing” the minds of the people into denouncing their beliefs…and of course we know that this was not a simple process…in the meseums in Havana you will paintings of Indians being burned on the stake for not accepting the Catholic religion and what is hypocritical and creepy about the paintings is that there is a priest holding a cross while pouring holy water on the aboriginals while their being burned alive…is sad to see that history tells us that their is people who feed of destruction and chaos and shun peace and love…as for me I learned about the history of africa but it makes the inner conflict even more stronger…because my mothers side of the family is Spaniard however, just like the Creole Indians am still black! lol

My interest in discovering the origins of the matriarchal society derives from the awareness that ancient religions held the Woman Goddess as the Co-Creator which makes sense because a Child is created towards the Union of Both……and apart from spirituality…. I do not understand why the colonizers brought death and destruction everywhere they went….