Did you know....That not all tribes today are made up of members of one specifice tribe that traces
all the way back in history as only one specific People?
Example: In the Tuscarora War of 1712, the Catawbas and the Muscogees Tribes were just beginning.
The Catawbas used this new name to describe a new nation that was being formed from
the remnants of other tribal groups that had been reduced in numbers by wars and epidemics. They were still in the process
of creating their new identity when they joined the attack on the Tuscaroras. After that war, other groups joined them as
well. James Adair reported that when he traded with the Catawba between 1736 and 1743, that there were twenty different
languages being spoken among the Catawbas that had formed their new tribe.
Another example:
The Muscogees or Creeks (a term that did not even exist until the late 17th or early 18th
century) were also a mixture of people who were from separate tribes in the past. At first, these tribal people were
loosely formed under an alliance of Yuchis, Cowetas, Alabamas, Coosas, Tuskegees, some Shawnees and numerous other groups.
The inhabitants of the founding or mother towns of the Creek Confederacy- Kashita, Coosa and Abihka,
spoke Muscogee, but most of the people who became Muscogees did not speak speak Muscogee. Like the Catawbas, the Muscogees
were in the process of creating themselves when they attacked the Tuscaroras.
These new alliances prove that Indian Societies did not all fall down and break amidst the turmoil
and changes of the times. Instead, they formed new political structures (tribes) to help them endure.
Source for the above: The Native Americans-An Illustrated History, ISBN: 1-57215-298-2, pages 263-264
As can be learned from the above examples, many of our tribes today who are ethnocentric and say
that they are made up of only one People who trace back through time, are in fact made up of many tribal groups. This ethnocentrism
only creates further division among our people today. Add to the above information, the fact that most tribes relied heavily
on captives of other tribes to replenish their numbers that were reduced by warfare or disease, and you will easily see that
there are very few tribes today that are "pure bloods" of any specifice tribal people. Many other people were brought into
tribes and adopted as full members, yet they might not even have been Native at all. All of this information is important
to think about today as our People continue to be divided by the false images of full blood tribal groups of People.