I attended a concert in the Hult where the renowned Navajo/Ute flautist, R. Carlos Nakai performed. He met with people beforehand in the lobby.

"How many people here are Native Americans?" he asked. A few hands went up. "How many people here were born in America?" he next asked. Most of us in the room raised our hands. "If you were born in America, you are a Native American!" he said.

My grandfather, mostly Cherokee with a little Irish mixed in, had a different view of ancient artifacts that he passed onto me. As a youth I would find chips, points, and sometimes pottery pieces along the Columbia River in Eastern Washington near his farm. He said "These things belong to the earth, not in your room. Cover them back up and leave them where you found them."