Infinity, eternity, and forever are terms that have changed radically and scientifically. Yet most people have not realized this because they don't consider those concepts. Science does, esp. since it is the reason the terms have changed. We say "deep time" and "thick history" in attempts to talk about these dawning radical and thought-changing terms. Those who understand see how much we struggle with concepts that have changed meaning.
This is particularly true of the indigenous people of this continent, misnamed "America." Take for example "Blood quantum," which began as a European metaphor for inheritance and battle field valor, but cannot stand for the same things in the revelations of DNA. It is not even possible to tell who is in which tribe by looking at DNA, though companies make a lot of money pretending that they can. Two people can marry, one with the DNA marker that is associated with a tribe that may have only formed after the tragic dynamics set in motion when 1492 changed everything and the other without, which will have little to do with their skin. Each of their children will have a 50/50 chance of inheriting the marker set definable as "indigenous". If every person in the tribe according to the rolls were given a complete DNA genome test, who is "in" and who is "out" will not match provenance. People who by inheritance are on the rolls may not have the markers and people who by inheritance are excluded may have the markers.
Luckily, genetics are not the only way to define who is indigenous and who is not. Genetics are scientific, but the concept of "race" is an uneasy and undependable one, as much a result of culture as flesh. Malcolm MacFee. anthropologist, in his book, "Modern Blackfeet, Montanans on a Reservation" (1972) explained that some people were "indian" by inheritance, some were "white" by inheritance, but both could be either "indian" by culture or "white" by culture. He proposed that instead of "half-breed" we think of the 150% man. DKR, the Harvard Blackfeet, liked this idea and tried to be that kind of "double-breed."
But those who get their genetics from Oprah will not be able to understand the double helix of 4-formula molecules with their specific chromosomal arrangements and epigenomic selective influences imposed by environment and modifications contributed by the resident parasites, much less the true nature of genes -- not beads on a string but whirling bits of energy interlocking and altering and continuous with the rest of creation except for the container of skin.
There is something unexpectedly central to this whole issue, which is the knowledge and skills taught at Blackfeet Community College. They know the sophistication necessary to understand today's indigenous identity. The science building and program there is State of the Art, and the potential for studying specifically the genome and its interactions with the east slope of the Rockies over millennia, is right there. Who more appropriately to study and OWN the inheritance of the Blackfeet than the Blackfeet themselves?
When I last looked at "story theology", an approach to theories of the world that came out of experience, is was particularly useful to people who did history of religions/comparative religion. Including but not confined to written materials -- this way of thinking depended on the witnessing and testimonies of people's experience. Parallel to it was a theology of landscape, which is partly geology -- the stories told by evidence in the very earth which upended the confined and stubborn theological theories of the 19th century by showing fossils on the tops of mountains and traces of events long before the invention of writing or the existence of humans.
When I googled and wikied for "story theology", I found that both social platforms were dominated by conservative Christians, who are only a subdivision of a particular "religion" which takes the name of a prophet they rarely follow. So now we need to reclaim the term of "story theology" with dimensions that are eternal, universal, limitless, infinite, and conditional -- that last because of the conditions of the perceiving mind. Here and now are merely vantage points.
Years ago when I played with "story theology," I did two things. One was pointing out that we each carry as identity at least three stories: the one about where we came from and how we got here, one about where we intend to go, and the one that is a kind of ur-story about what it's all about. That last might be the same as the one we formed at birth with our first caregivers.
The other approach I had was revisionism/reversal/revanchism. That is, playing out the plot from the other end, reversing the terms, breaking assumptions, introducing new concepts. Science fiction has been doing this for a long time. Those who like high-flown philosophy investigate Derrida, Foucault, and so on -- the Hermeneutics of Suspicion. The guys who hang around in front of Ick's in hopes of booze do it all the time, but just don't know it. It's why I get interested in demographics forbidden as wicked or in writing that is completely innovative, almost to the point of incoherence. And why I'm interested in psychotherapy that speaks in metaphors.
I should say a word about "revanchement" which is another French interpellation. It refers to revenge, which is a major response to unjust history and disparate status. it is real and motivates much of what happens, but we need to think about it a lot more. Commonly, it is forbidden.
One of the deadliest of confinements is that of a small idea of the world and insistence that anything out of that is crazy. They say the rez is the cosmos and it's a mistake to look beyond that. But it's just as much of a mistake to allow the boundaries of the rez to be wiped away because they are a legal map, an arbitrary bit of politics. As alternative I suggest a boundary based on natural cohesion of land and people, animals and climate, innovation and persistence. Again, I see that embodied and extended by Blackfeet Community College.
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