ABSTRACT
The contested tropes of blood, tribe, sovereignty, and survival are at the heart of indigenous experiences and imaginings of identity, just as the tropes of discovery, progress, and freedom are central to the American national imaginary. The need to objectify identity in the idiom of blood courses through Native American life. Blood quanta were codified in various forms in many of the tribal constitutions and bylaws written as a result of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which defined tribal members and nonenrolled Indians through a mixture of descent, residence, and "blood". Blood is thoroughly embedded in the construction of Native American identity, and any act of speaking or writing within or against this idiom must be assessed in terms of the particular "cultural work" that it does. The works of Cardinal-Schubert, Annharte, Linda Hogan, and Paula Gunn Allen expose the tragic absurdity of the essentialized discourse of "Indian blood".
