The current draft of HB 2261 effectively eliminates a large number of current Indian artists (to include those in visual and performing arts or literature) from continuing to produce their art and writings as Indian people without the threat of financial penalty and prison time.
Recently, two members of the Oklahoma House and Senate sponsored HB 2261 in order to overstep the authority of the federal Indian Arts & Crafts Act and redefine the term “Indian”. In their proposed bill, which recently passed the House with a 90-0 vote and is pending in the Senate, the sponsors, both of whom are citizens of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, seek to redefine legitimate Indian art work, visual performance, and literature in Oklahoma as only that which is created by a citizen or enrolled member of an American Indian tribe recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the United States Department of the Interior, more commonly known as a “federally-recognized tribe.” Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma Chief Bill John Baker recently wrote an article asking for support of this bill. The emphasis for this is primarily due to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma’s long standing grievance with individuals and groups who they feel are misappropriating Cherokee identity.
The intended or unintended consequences of this bill if passed will be significant and produce, in my opinion, a regression of sensible dialogue and ways of engaging the complexity of identity in Indian Country. The current draft of HB 2261 effectively eliminates a large number of current Indian artists (to include those in visual and performing arts or literature) from continuing to produce their art and writings as Indian people without the threat of financial penalty and prison time. In Oklahoma this will mean the elimination of the following persons from consideration as Indian artists:
1. Members of the Yuchi/Euchee Tribe of Oklahoma, whose petition for federal recognition was denied by the Office of Federal Acknowledgement in 2000, will experience extreme prejudice with the implementation of HR 2261. If passed, Yuchi/Euchee artists will be forced to misrepresent themselves as Muscogee (Creek), due to the legal reality that this tribe has federal control of the Yuchi community despite having a separate language and culture. The elimination of Yuchi representation within the state is an egregious act committed against a tribe with numerous full-blood, as well as fluent speaking tribal members.
2. Individuals with multiple tribal lines from blood quantum tribes in Oklahoma and beyond who require ½, ¼, and 1/8 degree for enrollment, but because of not possessing enough Indian ancestry from one particular tribe are unable to enroll. Many people in Oklahoma fall under this reality despite being ¼ or more total Indian by blood.
3. Individuals of these same tribes whose blood degree may be just under ½, ¼ or 1/8 (with the rest being non-Indian).
4. Members of historic “non-federal” tribes currently residing in Oklahoma or whose work is displayed and sold here. Some of these tribes such as the Mattaponi in Virginia and Unkechaug in New York control and reside on the nation’s oldest Indian reservations. Twenty others generationally attended federal Indian boarding schools to include Chilocco in Oklahoma and closely related mission Indian boarding schools such as Bacone in Muskogee. During the time of their attendance most were listed in BIA records of being ¼ to full-blood. Many of these attendees intermarried with the Oklahoma Indian population and have made their home in the state for many generations. These tribes include the MOWA Choctaw, Nanticoke, Chickahominy, and many others.
5. Members of Canadian First Nation communities will be excluded as Indian artisans despite most being of high Indian ancestry, physicality, and cultural retention. Substantial numbers of these individuals reside and are intermarried here in Oklahoma.
6. Indigenous people from Mexico and Central and South America will also be removed from consideration even though communities in Mexico for instance, hold the highest rates of fluent speaking Indian people in all of the Western Hemisphere.
7. Members of tribes whose status was dissolved by the federal government during the Termination Period extending from the 1940s to 1960s and who have not been reinstated today.
8. Members of nearly 70 tribes across the United States who have been disenrolled in the past two decades due to political corruption and greed.
While some members of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma tribal leadership and their tribal citizenry who hold state offices will provide numerous examples of what they view as identity fraud, they will not also be providing a full accounting of those impacted by this legislation. The full accounting is what raises significant ethical, moral, and lastly, legal challenges, which we all must ponder, discuss, and debate with a sense of fairness and full context.
The at times accusatory tone and rhetoric of these consistent identity debates may also need to be conducted in a mirror. If they are asking for the dismissal as Indian of those listed above, are they also legitimizing those of 1/256, 1/512, and 1/8,192 (all current blood quantum of some Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma citizens) as Indian artists, visual performers and authors? Does Indian identity rest solely on a legal spectrum or should its primary identification rest in social, cultural, racial, and linguistic forms? Maybe it is a plus or minus of any combination of these. Nonetheless, this legislation does not serve to answer this question (which may never be answerable) in a manner that is contingent and dependent upon equitable rationale.
– Cedric Sunray is an enrolled member of the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians (a reservation based tribe whose community members generationally attended Indian boarding schools, yet were denied federal recognition during the same time period as the Yuchis of Oklahoma. He holds a Master of Indigenous Studies from the University of Kansas and a Master of Legal Studies in Indigenous Peoples Law from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. He also attended Haskell Indian Nations University. He has taught American Indian Studies/Indigenous Studies at six colleges and universities and served as a Cherokee language instructor at both Rogers State University and Tahlequah High School. His writings have appeared in major academic press outlets such as The University of Arizona Press and the University Press of Florida. He can always be reached at