DCI America

In the great world of "What Ifs", what if the notion of Blood Quantum never existed. Better yet, since Blood Quantum is here, what happens if we just get rid of it. It is a statistical fact that based on current requirements, most tribes will not see eligible members in 50 years and many tribes will be gone altogether within 100 years. Not by government interference, but by the tribes own Blood Quantum criteria.

Let's look at some numbers for a moment. Lets say you have a membership of 500 people, 235 males and 265 females, and your current criteria requires ¼ tribe specific blood. After some quick calculations, you determine that your average Blood Quantum is 5/16 and the average age of your tribal membership is 34 years old. Now you need to review your records from the last 40 to 80 years to determine 1) What your average members lifespan is, for this case we'll say 60, and 2) What your enrollment growth rate and rate of decline have been. From these figures you can see what your percentage of deaths to new enrollees was. Again, for our example we'll show that from 41 to 80 years ago this number was 17.8% and 40 years to present it is 30.6%. One last tid-bit you need to glean from those records - what your average rate of blood dissolution has been. For our case, our numbers show roughly 25% tribe specific blood dissolution rate per 20 year period. So what does all this mean and does something need to do be done about it now?

Some numbers to think about:
Year      Projected Eligible Membership
2006      500
2031      450
2056      230
2084      65
2109      0

By the way, these numbers are based from an actual projection facilitated for a tribe, and we are seeing this trend happening across the entire country.

Blood Quantum can be "played with", meaning the requirement can be reduced or a tribe could look at total Indian blood to fulfill requirements and add in lineal descent from a base roll, but the end result eventually remains the same.

So, how can membership requirements be fixed? I posed this question at a recent enrollment class and a lot of ideas were brought to the table: The most common being lineal descent. This option on its own could be a "Pandora's Box" and a greater problem than Blood Quantum. If the roll that determines lineal descent is almost 100 years old, like many are, then who knows how many family branches are out there that have not had contact with the tribe in years. Your enrollment office could be looking at a stack of applications a mile high. Then what about adding in "the biological child of a member"? On first thought that seems promising, but does it safeguard the longevity and cultural heritage of the tribe? And speaking of cultural heritage, does it factor in at all?

So, here are the top 5 reasons why to reconsider Blood Quantum Requirements:

1. Tribal Extinction Over Time
2. Split Families - Older siblings are enrolled while younger sibling are not eligible due to requirement changes.
3. Land Inheritance Losses
4. Blood Quantum vs Cultural Heritage
5. The Myth of ¼ Blood Quantum Requirement for Federal Services