Blood Feuds Over Lineage

But now that each member collects close to $350,000 a year in gambling revenue, nearly everyone with a drop of Chumash blood wants in.

"A lot of people found out they were Indian," joked George Armenta, chairman of the Chumash enrollment committee.

Infighting over lineage is tearing apart many tribes with gambling operations. Fueling the disputes is simple math: If tribal enrollment shrinks, each remaining member will collect more money.

In March, the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians in Temecula evicted about 130 members of one extended family.

Dozens of members of the Santa Ynez Chumash have faced challenges to their ancestry in recent years.

One member caused an uproar during a 2002 general council meeting when she declared that more tribal members "are not Indian" than are.

Bylaws of the Santa Ynez band require applicants to prove that their ancestors appear on the tribe's 1940 census roll, and that they possess at least one-quarter "Indian blood of the Band."

Yet because records are fragmentary, establishing the necessary "blood quotient" can be arduous. Critics contend that decisions on membership are often based on personal and family feuds.

Decades-old records of the government's Indian Census Roll suggest the difficulty of tracing Chumash bloodlines.

"It is practically impossible to obtain accurate data regarding the Santa Ynez Indians," states a notation that appears on census reports between 1924 and 1936. "The parish priest for these Indians stated that there were but few of the tribe that he called genuine Indians, the others being mixed bloods, who do not call themselves Indians."

The Ortega clan is among those whose lineage has been called into question. Tribal members point to a notation in the 1925 census: "Agency physician reports that the Ortegas have Spanish blood and resent being classed as Indians."

Robert "Ted" Ortega is vice chairman of the band. Ortega, 38, said his family's status is being challenged by a faction seeking to remove as many as 90 of the 153 Indians enrolled in the tribe.

"A lot of it is greed," said Ortega, asserting that the challenge to his family's ancestry is without merit. "For them to say, 'You don't belong,' I don't understand it."

One of the most contentious cases involves the Talaugon family.