"Ever since Europeans encountered the American Indians there has been endless worrying about "who are the Indians?"

Early European settlers interpreted things in light of their own religious culture. The suggestion that the American Indians were the Lost Tribes of Israel seems to have been the most common. The tribes themselves had no such identity crisis. They all had their own accounts of their origins, widely varying though they were. And modern science has solidly confirmed that their major origins lie in northeastern Siberia. The DNA tells a consistent story, not always welcomed by the tribes themselves.

But now, among numerous tribes at least, there is indeed an identity crisis of "Who are we?" and "Who belongs to our group?" And the big argument concerns whether DNA can give reliable answers.

Among other sources, the June 18 issue of the journal New Scientist gives introduction to the very complex problem. There has been a tremendous amount of mixture of tribal members with other tribes and peoples over the past few centuries. Formal tribal adoption of outsiders has complicated things even further."

Get the Story:
Duane Jeffery: Who qualifies as American Indian? (The Provo Daily Herald 9/21)

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