How a California member discovered her American Indian heritage

Diane Tells His Name, a DAR member with both Patriot and American Indian heritage, always knew she was different. While her sister was the spitting image of her mother, Ms. Tells His Name, who used to be called Mrs. Buchanan, looked—and acted—nothing like her.

“When I would ask why I was so different, my mother would tell me we had American Indian in my dad’s family,” said the member of Rincon del Diablo DAR Chapter, Escondido, Calif. “And I was always satisfied with that answer.”

When she had her first child, a doctor questioned Ms. Tells His Name about spots on the child’s back during a checkup. They were Mongolian spots, which occur in about 80 to 85 percent of American Indian children. A few years later, at a dental appointment, her dentist asked if she was American Indian because she had shovel-shaped incisors, a common distinguishing trait.

Several more years passed, and Ms. Tells His Name saw a photo of her mother in 1951, two months before she supposedly gave birth to her but showing no signs of pregnancy. Ms. Tells His Name was 37 years old when she found out she was adopted and started the search for her birth mother, a process that got off to a rocky start.

“Because of American Indian law, it was very difficult,” she said. “I couldn’t get anyone to talk to me.” Finally, she connected with a knowledgeable volunteer who had experience helping people gain access to their adoption records. Five months later, Ms. Tells His Name was holding her birth certificate that listed her birth name, mother’s name and the names of two siblings. Her mother was a Lakota American Indian; her birth father, she would later learn, was descended from a Revolutionary War Patriot.

“In that instant, it all made sense,” said Ms. Tells His Name, who had always been drawn to American Indian art and culture and even studied it in college—for her final art project, she had made a Lakota cradle board.

Once they met, her birth mother, Isabelle Tells His Name, a traditional Lakota elder, gave her long-lost daughter a crash course in Lakota traditions and culture. A few months later, Ms. Tells His Name was at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota preparing for a traditional Lakota ceremony called a “give-away,” in which visitors are honored by having them give away gifts to tribal members. She donated more than $1,000 worth of California trinkets, T-shirts and bags of oranges as a show of generosity. It was then that she received her Lakota name, Falling Star Woman.

Back home in California, she continued to embrace her newfound heritage. She submitted her official tribal enrollment paperwork—a process that took 21 years to complete due to red tape and other bureaucratic roadblocks. In 1992, she and her husband, Jim Buchanan, adopted their fifth child, Bonnie, through Indian Child Family Services.

“Now I take my grandchildren to powwows and tell them stories,” she said.

She has also made them all authentic Lakota American Indian dolls. Some of her dolls, which feature intricate beadwork and horsetail hair, have been accessioned to museums across the country. Medallion Woman is in the collection of the Autry National Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, while Fur Trader’s Granddaughter was accepted for accession into the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. She also markets the dolls through Lone Elk Creations.