Blood

Dana writes about her world all the time and as far as I am concerned she is Lakota brought up with the ways, learning the customs she is as fully Lakota as you can get but a certain anonymous poster on her blog is saying that she cannot possibly be as "Indian" as they are because she isn't full blood well I say rubbish to that
The amount of blood coursing through your veins of any particular race has nothing to do with it, its the culture that makes you who you are.
An Aboriginal living in the city who doesn't know the culture is less Aboriginal than another living and breathing the culture. The Aboriginal people were massacred and killed too, the children taken away in an effort by the government at the time to 'thin' out the blood there are many half blood Aboriginal people here but it doesn't make them any less Aboriginal than a full blood in fact depending on where they live how much they have learned about their culture and history possibly more. A city dweller wouldn't know the dances, how to collect food or the culture and rules of their own society as they have been brought up in a white culture.

I've become Australian now lived here for 34 years I'm no longer English don't ask me who the prime minister of England is , don't ask me to speak French either apart from hello as I can't but I do have very distant French ancestors
Don't call me a 'convict' because I'm not, not all Australian settlers where convicts some, like my relatives in Tasmania where free settlers (1880's) even though Tasmania was a penal colony my relatives were NOT convicts
and Dana is not any less Lakota because of the amount of blood in her veins its culture, community and surroundings that make you who you are not blood