I totally feel you. My whole life I've had that issue where I've felt like I've been trying to walking "with my feet in two canoes." I'm mixed with a lot of interesting bloodlines that I've always wanted to know more about (Korean, European, Native American, Roma). I was mostly brought up between Korea and the States, so I've already been walking that line between "raised Asian but never fully accepted because I'm a half-breed and not quite accepted as European because I'm very clearly mixed." I feel like I've had a seperation from really essential parts of my ancestry, but in some cases that couldn't be helped. My grandmother who is the Native American and Roma one was adopted when she was born, so she's had that seperation her whole life and couldn't tell us a thing about that part of us. Okay, rambling... Trying to get back to my point, if I even had one.

I try not to think of it as walking with your feet in both canoes. What I've been trying to do is find a balance between all the things that I feel are so essentially part of it, taking those parts and making my own self. I've been feeling a strong pull towards my NA side as well as bellydance the last few years, I've been feeling a strong pull towards my Korean side, my Roma side, my European side... sometimes I feel like each is grabbing a limb and pulling, but I think it's possible to find a centre and, hell, build a new canoe out of spare parts!

I can idendify with what you are feeling too...Like Astra, I'm also mixed with other very interesting heritages. I'm part Irish, and also part Spanish. It has difficult for me in the past, I would feel like I was neglecting parts of my heritage if I was showing more interest in another. I suppose that is where my fascination for other cultures came from. I guess for a while, I really paid more attentention to ANY other culture besides my own. So I went from totally embracing each of my heritages, to completely ignoring them to learn about others.
The result of that though, has been quite beautiful...I realize now, that it is okay to venture outside of my box and find beauty and interesting things about other cultures without being, what I thought was "untrue" to my own. I like what I've become.

Finding that you are "powerfully drawn" to bellydance (which may not be part of your bloodline) doesn't mean that you are being untrue to your Native side, or trying to be what you are not. All it means is that you find it interesting to express yourself through bellydance. You are being true to yourself.



By the way...putting together the Native American and Bellydance worlds is H-O-T!

Ahhhhhhh...... SO much to talk about in our little half-breed world!

And I, unlike many, don't mind the term "half-breed" at all. And all the Indians I know call themselves Indian most of the time and Native American only on occasion... But I'm neither politically correct nor fond of insulting or upsetting people -- so I use both. JUS' SO YA KNOW! Feel free to throw the terminology around, I find none of this stuff offending!

I'm an All-American Mutt myself -- besides Cherokee (and possibly Choctaw, but I'm not sure about that), I'm also English, Scottish, German and Greek. And probably a few other things, too! But when I was about 5 years old, I got it into my head that I was an Indian -- even though my mother kept telling me I wasn't, something inside me told me she was wrong! Well -- it was no surprise to me later when my grandmother told me that we ARE indeed Indian -- and explained that when she was little and when my mom was a kid, being an Indian was NOT something you'd cop to if you could avoid it! My grandmother and her mom lived a life of of "passing for white". And when my mom was a kid, Westerns were huge! And the Indians were the bad guys and that's all there was to it. So either my grandmother never told her, or told her and she had a hissy fit of embarrassment over being Indian, so it got dropped and forgotten. When I brought it up to my mom again, it was after my grandma died, and my mom looked at me like I was crazy, because she didn't remember ever being told she was Indian.

Anyway, I went through the Two Canoes thing in regards to my Indian heritage and White upbringing about 15 years ago. Having an Indian heart and an Indian way of thinking, that was an easy one for me. (People always asked me if I'm Indian because I look pretty Indian, I guess.... but having my ex-husband's obviously Indian last name and a half-breed son also made it easy to be accepted as Indian in everyday life.)

But where did this bellydance thing come from??? This was another thing I "thought" I was when I was very small -- a bellydancer! I'm technically "old" now (44) but when I was about 20, I wanted to take up bellydance and my family and friends were basically appalled and labeled me "weird", like "Aren't you weird enough already being a rock musician?". So I just continued to dance the way I always did -- like a bellydancer -- throughout my metal/punk/techno/rap club kid days and ever after, but never pursued bellydance until a couple of years ago.

When I finally got around to taking lessons a couple of years ago, I took to it like a duck to water. My teachers couldn't believe I wasn't middle eastern and had never taken lessons before. This past summer I married my second Indian husband (adopted and raised white, completely out of touch with his being Indian until now) and we moved to NW Wisconsin ("Indian Country" for sure), and here the Two Canoes thing came up again --

I think I was actually starting to become a bit accepted in the Indian community up here, til I told someone I'm also a bellydancer, and now I'm back on the "weirdo" list again! (Although I've managed to stay off the "new age freak" list.... I THINK! lol)

Sheesh. People are soooooooooooooo hardcore. :-)

OK, I'll quit babbling now and wait for your responses! I loved reading them and can't wait to delve into this more and more..... and we'll take this to a whole new level. :-)

Honey, next time you have someone tell that "you can't walk with your feet in two canoes" you can say that you can walk just fine in a longboat.

*grin*

While I am not First Nation (can you tell I'm Canadian?) I can understand wholeheartedly the feeling of separation. I am a Black Canadian who was raised by a British colonial in a Polish/Ukranian neighbourhood. I am not so much an Oreo as I am a chocolate covered graham cracker...

~Kristine Inez

Growing up I always felt like I wasn't "enough" Native American to claim it. Then my aunt told me about a couple of stories she read. One of them being about how if someone has one drop of African blood we still call them "black" or African Americans, And it continues thru many ethnic groups like that. So if you have one drop of Cherokee blood, you are Cherokee. The other was about a man who told an old native woman that he was "part Indian" and she asked him "what part" and teased him with questions such as, Was it his pinky? Now I have this One World One Tribe philosphy. Go back far enough and whether you view it spiritually or scientifically, we all came from the same place. We are all natives in our souls it just depends on how you choose to honor it. Some people are more separated from it than others. I'm glad that most forms that ask race have an "other" box now. I am way too Heinz 57 to declare only one.

We all are one, interconnected. The nice thing about America is it is the melting pot. Hardly any of us are "pure blood". Does it matter? We are Americans. I am part Hawaiian and part Italian heritage. I am proud of both heritages. Like to absorb what I can of both cultures. Why can't you have you feet in 2 canoes? Who is 1 to say you can not embrace all that makes up who you are? All of us are unique. We should embrace that. Belly dance versus hula versus jingle dance versus fancy shawl dance, who says 1 dance is better than another?