General Discussion

My father told us stories of her using “Indian medicine” on him twice to save his life. It seems to have been a combination of some very smart folk medicine (plunging him in cold water to break a fever and swinging him around by the ankles to dislodge fluid in his lungs when he had pneumonia) and a laying on of hands and chanting, “talking the fire out of a burn.” This is a well known technique used many years ago in Native American lore. My father, who was as meanly judgmental as anyone I’ve ever known, spoke of her worshipfully and since much of my childhood was spent watching my mother slowly die I took to her as a source of hope that I had inherited something strong and admirable.

So, I took a DNA test. It shows no NA ancestry. At the same time the line is through my father’s mother so the haplogroups are tricky. And the grandmother in question’s father can’t be traced on ancestry sites. We’ve got everyone else way, way back. And of course that dreamy, longing for connection kid in me still wants it to be true.

I never put NA on a form, and if it was sheer opportunism I can see it as a mistake. But it isn’t a simple thing either. Facts and hearts sometimes battle over things. I really like EW and I hate that there seems no way to forgive a mistake when real good can be accomplished thereby. How she continues to handle it will mean a lot.