Legal Question in Native American Law in Oregon

Re: blood quantum

First, in relation to determinations of tribal membership, no US standard will exist. US law leaves all jurisdiction over determinations of tribal membership to the particular recognized tribe or band in question.

Second, the degree of relationship of a party to a tribal member and the percentage of a party's tribal heritage or percentage of overall Indian heritage may be determined by any standard the particular tribe or band chooses to recognize. For example, a tribe might choose to count adopted relationship in one case and choose not to recognize adopted relationsip in another in another. No appeal to federal courts is be possible. The tribe's highest court or tribal council would simply determine, including simply determining what rules would apply -- temporarily or permanently.

Finally, the science of blood testing permits very authoritative determinations of parentage on either side, and also determination of sibling relationship. Determination of grandparent status is possible but rests on slightly less reliable statsitical results. All those blood-type and DNA tests are admitted routinely in paternity and probate cases. A tribal council therefore could not reasonably argue that the science underlying blood-type or genetic testing was unreliable.

A still more exotic and unusual form of testing rarely or never yet used in family matters, mitochondrial DNA analysis, can determine the matrilineal status of parties (mother's mother's mother's mother, etc.) running back for unbelievably long periods -- sometimes tens of thousands of years. Where an Indian father was proven and some quantum of Indian blood on the mother's side was suspected, the mitochondrial DNA test could bring the forefront of genetic testing into use in domestic relations for possibly the first time.