Pretendian

Historian Philip J. Deloria has noted that European Americans "playing Indian" is a phenomenon that stretches back at least as far as the Boston Tea Party.[5] In his book Playing Indian, Deloria argues that white settlers have always played with stereotypical imagery of the peoples that were replaced during colonization, using these tropes to form a new national identity that can be seen as distinct from previous European identities.

Examples of white societies who have played Indian include, according to Deloria, the Improved Order of Red Men, Tammany Hall, and scouting societies like the Order of the Arrow. Individuals who made careers out of pretending an Indigenous identity include James Beckwourth,[6] Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance,[7] and Grey Owl.[2][8][9]

The academic Joel W. Martin noted that "an astonishing number of southerners assert they have a grandmother or great-grandmother who was some kind of Cherokee, often a princess", and that such myths serve settler purposes in aligning American frontier romance with southern regionalism and pride.[10]

The rise of pretendian identities post-1960s can be explained by a number of factors. The reestablishment and exercise of tribal sovereignty among tribal nations (following the era of Indian termination policy) meant that many individuals raised away from tribal communities sought, and still seek, to reestablish their status as tribal citizens or to recover connections to tribal traditions. Other tribal citizens, who had been raised in American Indian boarding schools under genocidal policies designed to erase their cultural identity, also revived tribal religious and cultural practices. At the same time, in the years following the Occupation of Alcatraz, the formation of Native American studies as a distinct form of area studies, and the awarding of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction to Kiowa author N. Scott Momaday, publishing programs and university departments began to be established specifically for or about Native American culture. At the same time, hippie and New Age cultures marketed Native cultures as accessible, spiritual, and as a form of resistance to mainstream culture, leading to the rise of the plastic shaman or "culture vulture." All of this added up to a culture that was not inclined to disbelieve self-identification, and a wider societal impulse to claim indigeneity.

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn wrote of the influence of pretendians in academia and political positions:

[U]nscrupulous scholars in the discipline who had no stake in Native nationhood but who had achieved status in academia and held on to it through fraudulent claims to lndian Nation heritage and blood directed the discourse. This phenomenon took place following the "lndian Preference" regulations in new hiring practices at the Bureau of lndian Affairs in the early 1970s. Sometimes unprepared for such outright aggression or suffering polarization from the conflicts in the system, Native scholars in the academy often seemed to be silent witnesses to such occurrences. Their silence has not meant complicity. It has meant, more than anything, a feeling of utter powerlessness within the structures of strong mainstream institutions.[11]

U.S. poet laureate Joy Harjo (Mvskoke) writes: "We ... have had to contend with an onslaught of what we call "Pretendians', that is, non-Indigenous people assuming a Native identity. DNA tests are setting up other problems involving those who discover Native DNA in their bloodline. When individuals assert themselves as Native when they are not culturally Indigenous, and if they do not understand their tribal nation's history or participate in their tribal nation's society, who benefits? Not the people or communities of the identity being claimed. It is hard to see this as anything other than an individual's capitalist claim, just another version of a colonial offense."[12]

In recent times several controversies regarding ethnic fraud have come to light and found broad circulation within media.[4]

In January 2021, Navajo journalist Jacqueline Keeler posted an article and link to a Google spreadsheet of a list of individuals, almost all of whom she has alleged have no Indigenous ancestry or involvement in the communities they claim, or who lack documentation of these criteria.[13] The list has been amplified by some Indigenous academics such as Kim TallBear, who point out that there are few if any criteria to judge citizenship or other forms of tribal recognition employed in academia, media, or the entertainment industry and that, as a result, many supposed experts on Indigenous politics and cultures in these fields do not in fact have Indigenous ancestral or cultural ties. TallBear also notes that all those mentioned on the list have used their Indigenous status for monetary gain.[14]

Some have criticized the list for what they say is its lack of consultation, lack of rigor, the use of genealogists who have been criticized for anti-black racism, and potential lack of sensitivity given the multitude of challenges in reclaiming Indigenous identity.[15][16] Chris La Tray points to issues such as what he says is a lack of ethics around the list, lack of clarity on methodology, and the possibility of negative connections to ideas of "blood purity."[16]

In October 2021, the CBC published an investigation into the status of Canadian academic Carrie Bourassa, who works as an Indigenous health expert and has claimed Métis, Anishinaabe and Tlingit status.[17] Research into her claims by colleagues indicated her ancestry is wholly European. In particular, the great-grandmother she claimed was Tlingit, Johanna Salaba, is well-documented as having emigrated from Russia in 1911; she was a Czech-speaking Russian.[17] In response, Bourassa admitted that she does not have status in the communities that she claimed, but insisted that she does have some Indigenous ancestors, and that she has hired other genealogists to search for them.[17]

• Ward Churchill[21][22][23] – A professor of ethnic studies and political activist, Churchill built his career on his claims of Indigenous identity – claims that were unsupported by membership in any tribe or by later genealogical research that failed to find any evidence of Indigenous ancestry.
• Rachel Dolezal[24][25] – Although Dolezal is better known for claiming to be African-American, she began her career claiming to be Native American, telling people that she was born in a tipi and grew up hunting for food with bows and arrows.[25]
• Andrea Smith[26][27][28][29][30] – Smith has built a career as a scholar, author and activist based on her claim that she is a Cherokee woman. Despite many articles and statements by Cherokee people and genealogists stating she has no Cherokee heritage or citizenship, she has never retracted her claim.

• "Iron Eyes" Cody, born in 1904 as Espera Oscar de Corti, who came to be known as "The Crying Indian" (deceased 1999)[31][32] – An Italian-American actor most well known for his appearance in a 1970's anti-littering commercial. Cody subsequently pretended to be from various tribes and denied his Italian heritage for the rest of his life.
• Johnny Depp[33][34][35] – An actor who has claimed both Creek and Cherokee descent on numerous occasions, including when cast as Tonto in the 2013 film The Lone Ranger, but who has no documented Native ancestry nor membership in any tribe.[36]

• Joseph Boyden[37][38][39] – A novelist of Irish and Scottish ancestry best known for writing about First Nations culture who has no recognized tribal membership and whose familial and DNA-based claims to Indigenous ancestry have failed efforts at verification and were summarized by his ex-wife as "no DNA that can be traced to the First Nations people in Canada or the Americas at large".
• Asa Earl Carter (deceased 1979), who published using the pseudonym Forrest Carter as a supposed Cherokee[40][41] – The founder of a Ku Klux Klan paramilitary group and a white supremacist politician under his birth name, he used his pseudonym to write popular books including The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales and The Education of Little Tree – also known for co-authoring George Wallace's tagline, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever".
• "Grey Owl"[2][8][9] – An Englishman born as Archibald Stansfeld Belaney (1888–1938) who became a woodsman and wrote books and gave lectures as an activist primarily on environmental and conservationism issues, but was exposed after his death as having falsely claimed his Indigenous identity.
• Jamake Highwater (1931–2001)[42][43][44] – A prolific American writer and journalist born as Jackie Marks who passed as Cherokee and used Native American culture as his writing theme although he was actually of eastern European Jewish ancestry
• "Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance", the persona of the African-American journalist, writer and film actor Sylvester Clark Long (deceased 1932),[45] who falsely claimed Blackfoot and Cherokee heritage.
• "Nasdijj", the pseudonym of writer Tim Barrus[46][47][48] – An American author and social worker best known for having published three "memoirs" between 2000 and 2004 while presenting himself as a Navajo.
• "Red Thunder Cloud", born Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, also known as Carlos Westez (deceased 1996), a singer, dancer, storyteller, and field researcher who was promoted as the last fluent speaker of the Catawba language, but was later revealed to have learned what little he knew of the language from books and to have been of African American heritage.
• Margaret Seltzer[49][50] – The writer of a "memoir" of her supposed experiences as a half–Native American foster child and gang member in South Central Los Angeles and was later revealed to have completely fabricated the story after growing up in an affluent neighborhood with no Native American background or heritage.

• Kaya Jones[51] – A singer and model who joined the National Diversity Coalition for Trump as their "Native American Ambassador"; falsely claimed to be Apache[51][52][53][54]
• Elizabeth Warren – A U.S. Senator and presidential candidate who claimed Cherokee and Delaware ancestry. She attempted to support her claim by releasing a video with DNA analysis, but her DNA claims were rejected by the Cherokee Nation,[55] with Cherokee Nation Secretary of State, Chuck Hoskin Jr. stating in a press release in response, "Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong."[56] Warren eventually expressed regret and apologized for "claiming American Indian heritage".[57][58][59] The claim gained significant attention after being satirized by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has a long history of insulting Native Americans.[60]

• Gina Adams[61][62] – A visual artist who has claimed Ojibwe and Lakota ancestry who asserted that her great great grandfather and great great uncle were among the signers of the 1867 federal treaty with the Chippewa of the Mississippi and that her grandfather was taken from the White Earth Nation and sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (on a timeline later investigated and found inconsistent between the dates of his lifespan and that of the institution), but who is not enrolled in any tribe and has not shown any evidence to support her claims
• Jimmie Durham[63][64] – An artist and activist who claimed one-quarter Cherokee descent by blood and to have grown up in a Cherokee-speaking community, Durham exhibited his work in the U.S. as Native American art until the passage of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 prohibiting false claims of Native production of arts and crafts that are offered for sale; he subsequently left the United States and has continued to claim Cherokee identity in European exhibitions. He was also formerly an organizer and central committee member for the American Indian Movement, including working as chief administrator for the International Indian Treaty Council. However, he has been reported to have "no known ties to any Cherokee community" and to be "neither enrolled nor eligible for citizenship" in any of the federally recognized Cherokee tribes.
• Cheyanne Turions[65][66] – An artist and art curator who claimed Native American identity for grant applications until "outed" in 2021. Turions later stated that she had investigated her family's history and that as a result "I changed my self-identification to settler," and resigned from her position as a curator.[67]