Herschel Walker Says His Grandma Was 'Full-Blood Cherokee.' His Mom Says Otherwise.

Walker is campaigning in Georgia. The photo was taken by Chris McGonigal of Huffington Post.

At a little-noticed campaign event late last month, Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker announced that his grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee and that he is Native American.

Walker's mother told him that his grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. I'm a Native American.

He said he's a super mutt. I have no idea what I am, but this was hilarious. This was hilarious. I asked why you didn't say anything to us. A lot of the Native Americans were treated worse than Blacks.

There is a video clip of his comments.

Walker has been claiming for months that he has significant Native American ancestry, saying each time that he had just been told by his mom.

He stated at the University of Georgia that his mother is 40% Native American.

He repeated his claim at four campaign events in May as if he had just found out. He said at one point, "My mom is part Native American, a big part, and I am also." He said he's proud to be black. He just found out that his mother is Native American. He said that his mother is a big part of Native American.

At a June 20th campaign event in College Park, Georgia, Walker said he found out that he is part Native American.

He claimed in September. His mother told him that his grandmother was a Cherokee.

Walker doesn't have any evidence to back up his claims that he has Native ancestry.

The Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians were contacted by HuffPost to see if they had any records that could back up Walker's claims.

They did not reply. The Cherokee Nation, which has more than 360,000 citizens, has no record of Walker in its database.

There is no one listed in the Cherokee Nation's registration database with that name and date of birth.

Walker's campaign did not respond to a request for comment about his claims of being part Cherokee or to a request for proof that his grandmother was Cherokee. The name and birth date of Walker's grandmother can be found in the Cherokee Nation's database. The campaign did not reply in a timely manner.

The source of Walker's claims was his mother, who said she didn't know if her ancestors were Cherokee.

Christine Walker said she was told about her great-grandmother being a member of the tribe.

She said that she was related to Cherokee. When she was a child, her grandmother was thought to be related to the Cherokee people, but she didn't know how.

She doesn't know how far back her Cherokee ancestry goes. She died when I was young. I don't know a lot about her connections.

Walker's campaign did not respond to a follow up request about his mother's account of their family's Cherokee ancestry, which is at odds with Walker's claim that his grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee.

A lot of Americans think they have Cherokee ancestry, even though they can't point to a Cherokee in their family tree. According to Slate, one of the reasons people perpetuate this myth is that shifting one's identity to claim ownership of an imagined Cherokee past is at once a way to authenticate your American-ness.

The narrative Walker is trying to create is similar to this one.

At one of his May campaign events, the GOP Senate nominee said, "Forget about this color thing and get back to the right thing: America." People that represent America.

Chuck Hoskin, Jr. rebuked Elizabeth Warren for releasing the results of a genetic test. Republicans mocked and criticized Warren for a long time, with Donald Trump calling her a "Pocahontas" many times. Warren apologized for linking herself to Native Americans.

A request for comment from Hoskin, the tribe's principal chief, was not responded to.

Each tribe has a different requirement for proving ancestry. The final lists of people accepted as eligible for tribal membership in the so-called Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chicka require documents that directly connect a person to anEnrolled Lineal Ancestor.

The article was first published on HuffPost.