With his blue eyes and sandy blond hair, Richard Snelding hardly resembles the classic American Indian of Hollywood films and history books. But he may be the Indian face of the future.
Snelding has one-sixty-fourth Kaw blood--enough for membership in Oklahoma's Kaw Nation tribe, if not for complete acceptance from Indian friends who call him "Casper" and "Wonder Bread."
There's more to being an Indian than a pedigree, the 22-year-old says: "What you feel inside of you is what's important."
He doesn't have to look far for an argument. With gambling profits raising the stakes of tribal membership, deciding who is a "real" Indian has become one of the most divisive issues facing American Indians today.
Never mind the New Age pretenders who claim kinship to a Cherokee princess they saw in a dream. More nettlesome for the nation's 554 federally recognized tribes is what to do with their own sons and daughters.
Often, their Indian ancestry is unquestioned, but generations of intermarriage have crowded their family trees with non-Indians as well.
Many tribes are easing membership requirements just to survive, prompting worries that tribal traditions will fade along with blood levels.
"If tribes aren't careful, they can turn into big business corporations that say to hell with culture," said Jerry Bread, a professor of Native American studies at the University of Oklahoma. "I'd like to see the physical traits of American Indians remain, but it's not happening."
One federal study estimated that the percentage of Indians who are full-blooded--60% in 1980--will fall to 34% by 2000 and to 0.3% by 2080.
But even as bloodlines thin, being Indian has never been so popular. The number of people identifying themselves as American Indian has nearly tripled since 1970, rising from 827,000 to more than 2.2 million, census figures show.
A renaissance of Indian pride is partly responsible. So is an upturn in the fortunes of some tribes, notably those involved in gambling.
In Connecticut, the 383 members of the Mashantucket Pequot tribe share profits from a casino that clears more than $1 million a day from slot machines alone.
The tribe gets about 50 calls a month from people who figure they must have Pequot blood in them. "Some of them can't even pronounce the name of the tribe," tribal spokesman Bruce MacDonald said.
