Believing in Indians: A Mixed-Blood Odyssey
Tony Tekaroniake Evans' story-with episodes ranging from lighthearted and humorous to painful and poignant-is a moving tale of one man's search to find meaning in the world around him and ultimately to understand how his Indigenous ancestry helps him connect with the people and places he encounters.
Coming of age during an era of assimilation and cultural erasure, Tony Tekaroniake Evans was told by his third-grade teacher that Indians no longer exist. How could this be when his grandmother spoke Mohawk in the house? Thus begins a comical, informative, and heartbreaking literary journey in search of his Indigenous identity. From childhood fantasies to altered states of consciousness, studies in cultural anthropology, and travels in Indian Country, Evans takes an uncle's invitation to learn the deeper significance of his Iroquois traditions, yielding a personal philosophy based on Indigenous values that resist the excesses of consumer culture and could renew the American Dream.
Through a revealing examination of religious, historical, and political ideas that have shaped his life, Evans provides a critique of U.S history shaped by the dual consciousness that comes with being Indian and non-Indian. He traces a decades-long odyssey of memorable encounters with teachers, books and conflicting ideas about Indians that reaches from his privileged upbringing in rural Georgia to adventures in New Mexico, Asia and Europe, on the path to becoming an author and journalist. Along the way, he offers candid insights on his own as well as other Native peoples' struggles and triumphs, both today and across centuries.
The author's close relationship with his gregarious older brother puts them both to the test when their shared idealism draws them to a reckoning with the racial, cultural, and psychological challenges stemming from being mixed-blooded in mainstream, post-colonial society. With irony and wit, Evans shatters stereotypes and challenges assumptions on both sides of the cultural divide to arrive at pivotal moments during the 1990 Oka Crisis of Mohawk armed resistance, and a life-changing ceremony at the Iroquois Grand Council at Onondaga. He finds no easy answers, and instead experiences a growing sense that being Indian at all will be a political act and require a certain amount of faith. Ultimately, his story becomes an affirmation that loyalty to family, with all its quirks and heartaches, is the quintessential ideology.
