WANT TO BUY EARLY?
Unlock 30 minutes early on our mailing list
Blood Quantum
by Winona Nelson
All my life I’ve been disturbed by the idea of blood quantum. At 25% I am an enrolled member of the Leech Lake Band Of Minnesota Chippewa. This is the minimum required by my tribe to be granted tribal citizenship. Unless I had children with another registered and enrolled Native person with sufficient blood quantum, my children will not be able to be enrolled as tribal members.
I’ve known this since I was a kid. It’s a complicated subject and is embraced by some tribes as a safeguard for their cultures, but one thing is certain: blood quantum is a colonial concept, not one that comes from traditional kinship ties. It is designed to slowly breed us out of existence.
When determining who was a full blooded Indian after the passage of the Dawes Act, one of the tests used required the tester to scratch the testee’s chest with their fingernail and to measure the response using a color scale. This method of testing was eventually discredited for being inaccurate, but its results in tribal citizenship surveys weren’t reexamined. In this and other ways many Native people were disenfrachised to free up their land for white settlers. The basis for initial “blood quantum” was always intended to erase rather than protect Indians.
Graphite powder, acrylic, and glass beads on canvas.
Product Width: 10 inches
Product Surface / Material: Canvas
$400 $400
Out of stock
![](https://everydayoriginal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Winona_Nelson_bio_photo.jpg)
Winona Nelson
PAST ORIGINALS
A few you might have missed!
-
Satyr in the Deep Woods
By Paige Carpenter $1,200 $1,200 Add to cart -
Ellie’s Version
By Rick Price $626 $626 Add to cart -
Albenfluten
By Matsya Das $280 $280 Add to cart -
Infinite
By Amelia Leonards $300 $300 Add to cart -
Doug Jines Likes Bacon Crisp
By Breeyn McCarney $225 $225 Add to cart -
SoMK-Parthenos sylvia study
By So MK $325 Add to cart -
Priestess
By Mark Stroud $100 $100 Add to cart -
Sky Spirits
By Anthony Schmidt $400 $400 Add to cart -
Kenai Fjords Series – Tufted Puffin
By Brenda Lyons $250 $250 Add to cart -
Hummingbird Medallion
By Danny Schwartz $350 $350 Add to cart -
Origin of Raven
By Nina Pommelin $500 $500 Add to cart -
Queen of the Harvest
By Andrew Sides $1,300 $1,300 Add to cart