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Pretendian (portmanteau of pretend and Indian^[1]^[2]^[3]) is a pejorative colloquialism describing a person who has falsely claimed Indigenous identity by professing to be a citizen of a Native American or Indigenous Canadian tribal nation, or to be descended from Native American or Indigenous Canadian ancestors.^[4]^[5]^[6]^[7] As a practice, being a pretendian is considered an extreme form of cultural appropriation,^[8] especially if that individual then asserts that they can represent, and speak for, communities from which they do not originate.^[3]^[8]^[9]^[10] The practice has sometimes been called Indigenous identity fraud,^[11]^[1] ethnic fraud, and race shifting.^[12]^[13]

Early false claims to Indigenous identity, often called "playing Indian", go back at least as far as the Boston Tea Party. There was a rise in pretendians after the 1960s for a number of reasons, such as the reestablishment of tribal sovereignty following the era of Indian termination policy, the media coverage of the Occupation of Alcatraz and the Wounded Knee Occupation, and the formation of Native American studies as a distinct form of area studies which led to the establishment of publishing programs and university departments specifically for or about Native American culture. At the same time, hippie and New Age subcultures 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". By 1990, many years of pushback by Native Americans against pretendians resulted in the successful passage of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 (IACA) – a truth-in-advertising law which prohibits misrepresentation in marketing of American Indian or Alaska Native arts and crafts products within the United States.

While Indigenous communities have always self-policed and spread word of frauds, mainstream media and arts communities were often unaware, or did not act upon this information, until more recent decades. Since the 1990s and 2000s, a number of controversies regarding ethnic fraud have come to light and received coverage in mainstream media, leading to a broader awareness of pretendians in the world at large.

History of false claims to Indigenous identity

Early claims

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.^[14] In his 1998 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,^[15] Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance,^[16] and Grey Owl.^[7]^[17]^[18]

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.^[19]

Post-1960s: Rise of pretendians in academia, arts, and political positions

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.^[20]

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn wrote of the influence of pretendians in American 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 Indian Nation heritage and blood directed the discourse. This phenomenon took place following the "Indian Preference" regulations in new hiring practices at the Bureau of Indian 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.^[20]

By 1990, as noted in The New York Times Magazine, many years of "significant pushback by Native Americans against so-called Pretendians or Pretend Indians" resulted in the successful passage of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 (IACA) – a truth-in-advertising law which prohibits misrepresentation in the marketing of American Indian or Alaska Natives arts and crafts products within the United States.^[2] The IACA makes it illegal for non-Natives to offer or display for sale, or sell, any art or craft product in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian, Indian tribe, or Indian arts and crafts organization. For a first-time violation of the act, an individual can face civil or criminal penalties up to a $250,000 fine or a five-year prison term, or both. If a business violates the act, it can face civil penalties or can be prosecuted and fined up to $1,000,000.^[21]

21st century: Contemporary controversies

United States 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 [sic] 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.^[22]

While modern DNA testing that can generally confirm if there is some degree of Native American ancestry and determine family relatedness, it is less able to indicate tribal belonging or Native American identity which is based on culture as well as biology.^[23]^[24] Attempts by non-Natives to racialize Indigenous identity by DNA tests have been seen by some Indigenous people, such as Kim TallBear, as insensitive at best, often racist, politically, and financially motivated, and dangerous to the survival of Indigenous cultures.^[25]^[a]

While Indigenous communities have always self-policed and spread word of frauds, mainstream media and arts communities were often unaware or did not act upon this information, until recent decades.^[8] However, since the 1990s and 2000s, a number of controversies regarding ethnic fraud have come to light and received coverage in mainstream media, leading to a broader awareness of pretendians in the world at large.^[2]^[4]^[8]

In April 2018, APTN National News in Canada investigated how pretendians – in the film industry and in real life – promote "stereotypes, typecasting, and even, what is known as 'redface'."^[30] Rebecca Nagle (Cherokee Nation) voiced a similar position in 2019, writing for High Country News that,

Pretendians perpetuate the myth that Native identity is determined by the individual, not the tribe or community, directly undermining tribal sovereignty and Native self-determination. To protect the rights of Indigenous people, pretendians like Wages and Warren must be challenged and the retelling of their false narratives must be stopped.^[31]

In January 2021, Navajo journalist Jacqueline Keeler began investigating the problem of settler self-indigenization in academia.^[32] Working with other Natives in tribal enrollment departments, genealogists and historians, they began following up on the names many had been hearing for years in tribal circles were not actually Native, asking about current community connections as well as researching family histories "as far back as the 1600s" to see if they had any ancestors who were Native or had ever lived in a tribal community.^[32] This research resulted in the Alleged Pretendians List,^[33] of about 200 public figures in academia and entertainment, which Keeler self-published as a Google spreadsheet in 2021.^[34]

While some people have criticized her for "conducting a witch hunt", Native leaders interviewed by VOA, such as Chief Ben Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe, report Keeler has strong support in Native circles.^[32] Academic Dina Gilio-Whitaker, who reviewed Keeler's documentation on Sacheen Littlefeather before it was published (see below), wrote that in her opinion Keeler did solid research.^[35] Keeler has stressed that the list does not include private citizens who are "merely wannabes", but only those public figures who are monetizing and profiting from their claims to tribal identity and who claim to speak for Native American tribes.^[34] She says the list is the product of decades of Native peoples' efforts at accountability.^[32] Academic Kim TallBear writes that all those mentioned on the list are public figures who have profited from their alleged Indigenous status, that Keeler's and her team's list documents that the overwhelming number of those who benefit financially from pretendianism are white, and that these false claims relate to white supremacy and Indigenous erasure. Tallbear stresses that people who fabricate fraudulent claims are in no way the same as disconnected and reconnecting descendants who have real heritage, such as victims of government programs that scooped Indigenous children from their families.^[36]

On September 13, 2021, the CBC News reported on their ongoing investigation into a "mysterious letter", dated 1845 (but never seen before 2011^[37]) that is now believed to be a forgery. Based solely on the one ancestor listed in this letter, over 1,000 people were enrolled as Algonquin people, making them "potential beneficiaries of a massive pending land claim agreement involving almost $1 billion and more than 500 sq. kilometres of land".^[4] The CBC investigation used handwriting analysis, and other methods of archival and historical evaluation to conclude the letter is a fake. This has led to the federally recognized Pikwakanagan First Nation to renew efforts to remove these "pretendian" claimants from their membership. In a statement to CBC News, the chief and council of the Algonquins of Pikwakanagan First Nation say that those they are seeking to remove "are fraudulently taking up Indigenous spaces in high academia and procurement opportunities".^[4]

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.^[38] Research into her claims indicated that 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.^[38] 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.^[38] Bourassa was placed on immediate leave from her post at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research after her claims of Indigenous ancestry were found to be baseless.^[39]

In November 2021, writing for the Toronto Star about the Bourassa situation as well as the actions of Joseph Boyden and Michelle Latimer, K. J. McCusker wrote,

We have been so heavily affected by stolen identities that the word "pretendian" has become a colloquially used term. Stolen identities undermine us to the point where we end up fodder for the tabloids the likes of Daily Mail. We become a spectacle for those who at best think of us as a Halloween costume idea. To people like Bourassa, we are indeed a costume, except one you get to wear all year long and benefit from professionally because it checks that box that was created to even-out the field that cannot ever be evened out just by a box.^[5]

In October 2022, Macleans magazine published a detailed article that elaborated on Carrie Bourassa, in addition to a detailed look at Gina Adams. The article also discusses the questioned identities of Amie Wolf, Cheyanne Turions, and Michelle Latimer.^[33]

In October 2022, actor and activist Sacheen Littlefeather died. Shortly thereafter her sisters spoke to Navajo reporter Jacqueline Keeler and said that their family has no ties to the Apache or Yaqui tribes Sacheen had claimed.^[40] As Littlefeather had been a beloved activist, these reports were met with controversy, challenges, and attacks on Keeler, largely on social media.^[41] Academic Dina Gilio-Whitaker wrote that the truth about community leaders is "crucial", even if it means losing a "hero", and that the work Littlefeather did is still valuable, but there is a need to be honest about the harm done by pretendians, especially by those who manage to fool so many people that they become iconic:^[35]

The stereotype Littlefeather embodied depended on non-Native people not knowing what they were looking at, or knowing what constitutes legitimate American Indian identity. There is a pattern that "pretendians" follow: They exploit people's lack of knowledge about who American Indian people are by perpetuating ambiguity in a number of ways. Self-identification, or even DNA tests, for instance, obscure the fact that American Indians have not only a cultural relationship to a specific tribe and the United States but a legal one. Pretendians rarely can name any people they are related to in a Native community or in their family tree. They also just blatantly lie. Pretendianism is particularly prevalent in entertainment, publishing and academia. [...] Harm is caused when resources and even jobs go to fakes instead of the people they were intended for.^[35]

Motivating factors

There are several possible explanations for why people adopt pretendian identities. Mnikȟówožu Lakota poet Trevino Brings Plenty writes: "To wear an underrepresented people's skin is enticing. I get it: to feast on struggle, to explore imagined roots; to lay the foundational work for academic jobs and publishing opportunities."^[9] Helen Lewis, wrote in The Atlantic that perhaps personal trauma from unrelated events in their lives, such as a difficult upbringing, may motivate hoaxers to desire to be publicly perceived as victims of oppression – to identify with those they see as victims rather than the perpetrators.^[42]

Patrick Wolfe argues that the problem is more structural, stating that settler colonial ideology actively needs to erase and then reproduce Indigenous identity in order to create and justify claims to land and territory.^[43] Deloria also explores the white American dual fascination with "the vanishing Indian" and the idea that by "Playing Indian", the white man can then be the true inheritor and preserver of authentic American identity and connection to the land, aka "Indianness".^[44]

Academics Kim TallBear (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Colville), Robert Jago (Kwantlen First Nation), Rowland Robinson (Menominee), as well as journalist Jacqueline Keeler (Navajo Nation) and attorney Jean Teillet (great-grandniece of Louis Riel) also name white supremacy, in addition to ongoing settler colonialism, as core factors in the phenomenon.^[36]^[35]^[45]^[46]^[47]^[48] In Settler Colonialism + Native Ghosts – "Community, Pretendians, & Heartbreak", Robinson posits that

Quite often this seems to be a cynical ploy towards some kind of anti-Indigenous political programme, as Darryl Leroux and others have demonstrated quite convincingly and handily regarding the explosion of groups in eastern Ontario, Québec, the Maritimes, and parts of New England (2019) where quite often the absolutely astronomical growth in new claimants of Indigeneity can be clearly traced back to white supremacist, anti-Native, political projects in opposition to Aboriginal and Treaty rights. The assumption of Indigenous identity, through the growth of the so-called "Eastern Métis" movement, is clearly, at least in terms of its foundational leadership and organizational nature, antagonistic at a fundamental level towards Indigenous peoples and livelihoods.^[46]

In October 2022, Teillet published the report, Indigenous Identity Fraud, for the University of Saskatchewan.^[49] Discussing her research, she wrote for the Globe and Mail,

Who are these people? In the academy and government, they are mostly white women. In the hunting and fishing realm, they are mostly white men. ... What these claims have in common is that they are entirely disconnected from any living Indigenous people.^[48]

Why do they do it? Indigenous impersonation is not an accident. People do it to get something they want – to stop Indigenous people from closing a land claim, to access hunting and fishing rights, or to gain access to jobs. And the payoff is well worth it. Imposters in the academy gain six-figure jobs, prestige, grants and tenure in exchange for a few lies. This kind of impersonation can only be carried out by those with immense privilege. It takes a person with enough knowledge of the gaps in the system to exploit them. It is also another colonial act. If colonialism has not eradicated Indigenous people by starvation, residential schools, the reserve system, taking their lands and languages, scooping their children, and doing everything to assimilate Indigenous peoples, then the final act is to become them. It's a perverse kind of reverse assimilation.^[48]

Law and consequences

In Canada in 2024, Karima Manji and her two daughters, a non-Indigenous family, were charged with defrauding the Nunavut government of over $150,000 by claiming Inuit identity. ^[50] Manji must serve jail time as a result.^[51]

In Canada in 2024, the government funding “tri-agencies” announced an 8-month pilot project to ensure that grants, awards, and jobs intended for Indigenous people go to those that are genuinely Indigenous.^[52]

Notable examples

Individuals who have been accused of being pretendians include:

Academic

Ward Churchill (born 1947) – A professor of ethnic studies and political activist, Churchill built his career on his claims of Indigenous identity that were unsupported by membership in any tribe or by later genealogical research that failed to find any evidence of Indigenous ancestry.^[53]^[54]^[55]
Qwo-Li Driskill (Paul Edward Driskill) (born 1975)^[56] – Former Associate Professor at Oregon State University claiming to be Cherokee, Lenape (Delaware), Osage, Lumbee and African.^[57] Driskill resigned from their position in September 2024, after accusations of academic misconduct and misrepresentation of their ethnicity.^[58]
Rachel Dolezal (born 1977)^[59]^[60] – Although Dolezal is better known for claiming to be African-American, she also identified herself as black, Native American and white on college application materials.^[61]^[62]^[63] Dolezal's parents later publicly denounced her mixed race identity, revealing her to be of primarily Czech and German heritage. Although they stated that they believe Dolezal does have 'faint traces' of Native American heritage, they described their family as white. Any claims to Native ancestry remain unverified.^[64]^[65] Dolezal later changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo, and continues to identify as Black.^[66]
Nadya Gill and Amira Gill (twins born in 1998) – In September 2023, the twins, along with their mother, were charged with two counts of fraud for posing as adopted Inuit children in order to benefit from the 1993 Nunavut Agreement, which entitles Inuit students to benefits and scholarships, which the twins erroneously claimed.^[67] Before their deception was uncovered, the twins had been awarded over $158,000 in benefits.^[68] In February 2024, charges were dropped against the twins after their mother pled guilty to one count of fraud.^[69] In June 2024, the twins' mother was sentenced to 3 years in prison.^[70]
Elizabeth Hoover – University of California Berkeley professor and Native food sovereignty activist with documented childhood identification as native and involvement within native culture. Following questions on her proven ancestry and after she conducted her own family genealogical research, she announced in 2022 and 2023 she was not Native American nor of Mikmaw or Mohawk descent. Hoover did not resign from her university position.^[71]^[72]
Kay LeClaire – Madison, Wisconsin-based co-owner of "an Indigenous and queer art and tattoo space" who held a paid residency at the University of Wisconsin. LeClaire, who has also gone by the name Kathryn Le Claire and the self-chosen spirit name nibiiwakamigkwe,^[73] misrepresented themself as two spirit and was paid to educate students and LGBTQ audiences about food sovereignty, Indigenous queer identity, and the dangers of cultural appropriation. They were briefly a member of a state task force focused on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. LeClaire has since resigned and the tattoo collective has apologized to the community for the harm that they say was done by LeClaire, stating that they have cut all ties with LeClaire.^[74]^[75]^[73]
Dr. Julie Nagam – Professor of Art History at the University of Manitoba and freelance curator, reported in August 2024 by the Winnipeg Free Press of making misleading claims of belonging to the Métis community.^[76] Nagam had claimed 'French and Aboriginal' heritage, but the Manitoba Métis Federation later confirmed that Nagam had not been accepted for citizenship of the Métis nation due to a lack of genealogical corroboration of her claims, with six generations of Nagam's family self-identifying as white.^[77]^[76]
Susan Taffe Reed^[78] – Former director of Dartmouth College's Native American Program. Fired in 2015 "after tribal officials and alumni accused her of misrepresenting herself as an American Indian".^[79]
Andrea Smith^[2] – Smith 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.^[80]^[81]^[82]^[83] Smith is currently employed as a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, Riverside. In August 2023, the university announced that she would resign from the university as an emerita professor in August 2024, due to charges that she "made fraudulent claims to Native American identity in violation of the Faculty Code of Conduct provisions concerning academic integrity".^[84]
Terry Tafoya^[85] – Now going by the name Ty Nolan. A former psychology professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, claimed Warm Springs and Taos Pueblo heritage. False claims reported by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2006.^[86]^[87]
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond (born 1963)^[88]^[89]^[90] – A lawyer, academic, and former judge, for whom false claims to Indigenous ancestry were alleged by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 2022. She was dismissed from a university faculty position, and various honors and awards that she had received were revoked or relinquished, including all her 11 honorary degrees and the Order of Canada. However, in 2024, the Law Society of British Columbia released a report which stated that DNA analysis indicated that Turpell-Lafond most likely had recent Indigenous ancestry, while confirming she had made numerous "mischaracterizations" in her credentials.^[91]

Business

Guillaume Carle (born 1960) – A Canadian businessman and community leader. Carle was elected leader of the Native Alliance of Quebec in 2003. In 2005 he was expelled from the alliance after an audit lead to an investigation into his financial activity. Questions also arose about the potential misrepresentation of his educational background. He went on to form the Confederation of Aboriginal People of Canada where he assumed the position of "national grand chief" for life. In 2016, The Confederation helped form the Mikinaks, a group claiming to be a new indigenous community. The Mikinaks stated that anyone with even 1% native DNA could be a member and Carle has claimed the group had over 50,000 members. They issued status cards to their members who used them to gain access to benefits such as tax exempt status at retail stores. Members paid a fee to the organization to receive their cards. An investigation by the CBC using the DNA of a Chihuahua showed that the DNA testing that the Mikinaks used was fraudulently producing results showing indigenous ancestry. Throughout his career, Carle has been accused many times of lying about his indigenous ancestry and history. An investigation by Canadaland suggests that he is likely French-Canadian.^[92]^[93]

Film, television, and music

Kelsey Asbille (born 1991)^[94] – Born Kelsey Asbille Chow, this Chinese-American actress has been cast in numerous Native American roles. Her early roles were under the name Kelsey Chow. When cast in Native American roles, she began using the name Kelsey Asbille. She has falsely claimed descent from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) and a "Cherokee identity".^[95] In response, the EBCI issued a statement that "Kelsey Asbille (Chow) is not now nor has she ever been an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. No documentation was found in our records to support any claim that she descends from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians."^[96]^[97]^[98]
Cher (born 1946) – Actor and singer who has assumed Indigenous identities.^[99]^[100]^[101]^{[better source needed]}
Mona Darkfeather (1882–1977)
Chief Thundercloud (1899–1955)
"Iron Eyes" Cody (1904–1999)^[102]^[103] – Born Espera Oscar de Corti, and later becoming known as "The Crying Indian", this Italian-American actor is most well known for his appearance in a 1970's anti-littering PSA. Cody pretended to be from various tribes and denied his Italian heritage for the rest of his life.
Johnny Depp (born 1963)^[104]^[45]^[105] – This actor has claimed both Creek and Cherokee descent on numerous occasions, including when cast as Tonto in the 2013 film The Lone Ranger, but has no documented Native ancestry, is not a citizen in any tribe,^[106] and is regarded as "a non-Indian"^[107]^[108] and a "pretendian" by Native leaders.^[105]^[104]^[45] During the promotion for The Lone Ranger LaDonna Harris, a member of the Comanche Nation, adopted Depp, making him her honorary son, but not a member of any tribe.^[109]
Michelle Latimer – Canadian actress and film director whose claims of Indigenous ancestry and tribal membership have been questioned by the CBC,^[110] the Globe and Mail^[111] and other media.^[112] Latimer has said that her identification as Indigenous rested on the oral history of her maternal grandfather.^[113] A previously commissioned show was cancelled by CBC after Latimer's misrepresentations were made public.^[114] Latimer later produced genealogical records to bolster her claim that she was a 'non-status Algonquin'; these claims were rejected by tribal leaders.^[115] However, one genealogical researcher has found that Latimer had two Indigenous ancestors dating from 1644,^[113]^[116] while others have found that Latimer has Indigenous ancestry from both her paternal and maternal lines that originate from a "historical community of Baskatong that was known for its Algonquin and Métis population."^[117] In 2020, Latimer apologized for having claimed historical roots to the Kitigan Zibi community.^[118]
Sacheen Littlefeather (1946–2022) – Born Maria Louise Cruz, this actress took the stage in Plains-style attire at the Academy Awards to decline the 1972 Best Actor award on behalf of Marlon Brando for The Godfather, on being hired by him to do so and advocate for Native American rights. Subsequently presenting herself throughout her life as a White Mountain Apache and Yaqui as she had portrayed on-stage, who had grown up in a hovel without a toilet, her sisters and others later said her father was a Mexican-American of Spanish descent with no known ancestors who had a tribal identity in Mexico, while her mother was of French, German, and Dutch descent.^[40] An investigation by the Navajo writer-activist Jacqueline Keeler and her team, and reviewed by academics prior to publication, revealed no apparent ties to any tribe in the United States.^[40]^[41]^[35]
Ian Ousley (born 2002)^[119] – This actor was described as being a "mixed-race, Native American" and a "Cherokee tribe member" in an official bio released when he was cast in the live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.^[120] It was later reported by the Cherokee Phoenix that he is not a member of any of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, and is instead a member of the Southern Cherokee Nation of Kentucky, an organization that self-identifies as a tribe. The organization has received some acknowledgement at the state and municipal level in Kentucky, but is not recognized as a tribe by the state government, the federal government, or any of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes.^[119]
Heather Rae (born 1966)^[121] – Born Heather Rae Bybee, having falsely claimed to be Cherokee, Rae became a prominent producer in Hollywood. She ran the Indigenous program at the Sundance Institute from 1996 to 2001, producing a number of projects centered around Native American experiences including the Oscar-nominated Frozen River (2008).^[122] She serves on the Academy of Motion Pictures' Indigenous alliance, which "recognizes self-identification"^[121] for Native American identity. She has supported the casting of pretendians in Native roles – defending Kelsey Asbille Chow's false claim of Cherokee heritage,^[122] as well as leading the charge for an apology by the Academy to fellow pretendian Sacheen Littlefeather.^[121]^[123] She is an adviser for IllumiNative,^[122] which says they are a "Native woman-led racial and social justice organization dedicated to increasing the visibility of—and challenging the narrative about—Native peoples".^[124] The Cherokee Nation has stated that Rae is not a citizen of their nation and she did not receive funding for the film Fancy Dance (2023), which they funded.^[121] Research by the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds into her public family records shows that Rae's family identified as white across multiple records and no documented ties to a tribal community.^[122]
Buffy Sainte-Marie (born 1941) – Born Beverly Jean Santamaria, Sainte-Marie is an American musician. She has said since 1963 that she has Cree Indigenous Canadian roots. A 2023 investigation by CBC News featured her birth certificate verifying that she had been born in Stoneham, Massachusetts, in the United States, of European (primarily Italian and English) ancestry and that the couple who she had asserted were her adoptive parents were in fact simply her biological parents.^[125]^[126] In the 1960s, she had performed at a powwow and falsely claimed that she might be the long-lost daughter of a Piapot First Nation family, and a couple she met there then adopted her into the family and still claim her to this day.^[127]^[125]^[126] She responded to the report with a video statement saying her mother had told her she was adopted and had Indigenous heritage,^[128] despite several close family members consistently contradicting that claim since at least 1964 when her uncle said she "has no Indian blood in her", "not a bit".^[127]^[125] For about 60 years, she had built a storied career in part on her claimed Canadian and Native heritage, from being introduced as a regular character on the Sesame Street television series in 1975 saying "Cree Indians are my tribe, and we live in Canada" and "I'm real" in response to a child character noting that among tales about Native Americans, "some are just pretend", to being featured on a Canadian postage stamp in 2021.^[127] The CBC investigation concluded that "her account of her ancestry has been a shifting narrative, full of inconsistencies and inaccuracies".^[127]

Literary

Joseph Boyden (born 1966)^[129]^[130]^[10] – A Canadian 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.^{[citation needed]} Boyden has claimed Mi'kmaq, Métis, Nipmuc, and Ojibway heritage. He registered with the Ontario Métis Aboriginal Association, also known as the Woodland Métis Tribe.^[131] In January 2017, Boyden said he had erroneously identified himself as Mi'kmaq in the past and that he was a "white kid with native roots".^[132]^[133]
Asa Earl Carter (1925–1979)^[134]^[135] – Published using the pseudonym Forrest Carter as a supposed Cherokee. 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 (1888–1938)^[7]^[17]^[18] – An Englishman born as Archibald Stansfeld Belaney 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.
Roxy Gordon – an American writer and musician who identified as being of white, Choctaw, and Assiniboine ancestry. A report from Texas Monthly alleged that he was a pretendian, concluding that he had no Native American heritage. The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma has stated that Gordon was not enrolled with the tribe. Gordon's son John Calvin has stated that he has found no evidence that his father had Choctaw heritage.^[136]
Jamake Highwater (1931–2001)^[137]^[138]^[139] – 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 (1890–1932)^[140] – The persona of the African-American journalist, writer, and film actor Sylvester Clark Long, who falsely claimed Blackfoot and Cherokee heritage.
Brooke Medicine Eagle (born 1943)^[141] – the pseudonym of Brooke Edwards, an American author, singer-songwriter, and teacher specializing in a New Age interpretation of Native American religion.
Nasdijj (born 1950)^[142]^[143]^[144] – The pseudonym of writer Tim Barrus, 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 (1919–1996)^[145] – Born Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, also known as Carlos Westez, 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.
Sat-Okh (1920–2003), also known as Stanisław Supłatowicz, was a writer, artist, and soldier who served during World War II, who claimed to be of Polish and Shawnee descent. His origins were heavily disputed.^[146]
Margaret Seltzer (born 1975)^[147]^[148] – The writer of a "memoir" of her supposed experiences as a half–Native American foster child and gang member in South Central Los Angeles was later revealed to have completely fabricated the story after growing up in an affluent neighborhood with no Native American background or heritage.
Hyemeyohsts Storm (real name Charles Storm or Arthur C. Storm, born 1931 or 1935) is an author of German ancestry variously claiming Cheyenne, Sioux, Crow, and Métis ancestry, but has not provided credible evidence for these claims.^[149]^[150]^[151] He is considered by many to be a plastic shaman,^[152]^[153] and actual Cheyenne consider his purporting to present Cheyenne religion in his works as blasphemous, exploitative, disrespectful, stereotypical, and racist.^[150]^[154] When challenged, he presented a fraudulent Cheyenne enrollment card to his publisher, Harper and Row.^[150] Historians have criticized Seven Arrows as falsifying and desecrating the traditions of the Cheyenne due to the numerous errors in his descriptions.^[155] He is known for inventing the medicine wheel symbol in his book, Seven Arrows (originally published as non-fiction but later reclassified as fiction in a settlement between the publisher and the Cheyenne tribe).^[150]^[155]^[151]^[156]^[157]^[158]
Erika T. Wurth is a novelist who self-identifies as being of Apache/Chickasaw/Cherokee descent whose novel White Horse was reviewed favorably in The New York Times.^[159] Native American activists have alleged that Wurth is white and has no Native American ancestry.^[160]^[161]

Political

Carrie Bourassa^[39] – A scientific director of the Indigenous health arm of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research who claimed to be Métis, Anishnaabe and Tlingit. She was placed on immediate leave after the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) found no evidence to support her repeated claims of Indigenous ancestry.
Kaya Jones (born 1984)^[162] – A singer and model who joined the National Diversity Coalition for Trump as their "Native American Ambassador"; she falsely claimed to be Apache.^[162]^[163]^[164]
Kevin Klein – Manitoba politician whose ongoing claims of Metis ancestry were debunked in a July 31, 2023, piece by the CBC^[165]^[166]
Sherri Rollins – Winnipeg City Councillor whose ongoing claims^[167] of being "...a proud Huron-Wendat woman" were refuted in a CBC article^[168] as well as on APTN News, both published on November 23, 2018.^[169]
Danielle Smith – Premier of Alberta who claimed to have a Cherokee great-great-grandmother who was a victim of the Trail of Tears. An investigation from APTN National News found no evidence that Smith's ancestors were Indigenous or part of the Trail of Tears.^[170]
Elizabeth Warren (born 1949) – A U.S. Senator and presidential candidate who said she grew up believing she had Cherokee and Delaware ancestry due to family members saying so, and then claimed such heritage publicly. After her heritage was called into question, she attempted to support her claim by releasing a video with DNA analysis, but her DNA claims were rejected by the Cherokee Nation,^[171] who formally requires a documented lineage.^[72] Then Cherokee Nation Secretary of State, Chuck Hoskin Jr. (who became Principal Chief of the Nation in the following year) stated 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."^[172] Warren eventually expressed regret and apologized for "claiming American Indian heritage".^[173]^[174]^[175]
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond (born 1963) – A Canadian lawyer, former judge, and advocate falsely claimed Treaty Indian status as a Cree Nation member.^[176]^[177]

Visual arts

Gina Adams (born 1965)^[178]^[179] – A visual artist and assistant professor at Emily Carr University,^[180] Adams claims White Earth Ojibwe and Lakota ancestry,^[33] and that her grandfather lived on the White Earth Indian Reservation and was removed at age eight to attend Carlisle Indian Industrial School,^[33]^[181] which closed in 1918. Genealogists reported that Adams' grandfather "was a white man named Albert Theriault, who was born in Massachusetts to French-Canadian parents."^[33] Adams has also claimed that her great-great-grandfather was Ojibwe chief Wabanquot (1830–1898),^[33] a signer of the 1867 federal treaty with the Chippewa of the Mississippi. She has shown no evidence supporting any of these claims. She claims to be only a descendant, not an enrolled tribal member, so she and her gallery have so far successfully evaded the US Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990.
Jimmie Durham (1940–2021)^[82]^[182] – 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 1990 passage of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act (which prohibits false claims of Native production of arts and crafts that are offered for sale). He subsequently left the United States and continued to falsely claim Cherokee status in European exhibitions. He had formerly been an organizer and central committee member for the American Indian Movement, and worked as the chief administrator for the International Indian Treaty Council. He was found to have "no known ties to any Cherokee community" and to be "neither enrolled nor eligible for citizenship" in any of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes.^[82]^[182]
Yeffe Kimball (1906–1978)^[183] – An artist who claimed to be Osage. Born Effie Goodman, under her assumed identity she made art that she misrepresented as Native American, and also engaged in Native American political activism.
Cheyanne Turions^[184]^[185] – An artist and art curator who claimed an Indigenous Canadian 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.^[186]

Notes

^ While there are some genetic markers that are more common among Native Americans, these markers are also found in Asia, and in other parts of the world.^[26] The commercial DNA companies that offer ethnicity tests do not have a large enough pool of North American DNA to provide reliable matches. The most popular companies have admitted to having no North American DNA, and that their "matches" are to Central Asian and South or Central American populations; smaller companies may have a very small pool from one tribe who participated in a medical study.^[27]^[28]^[29] The exploitation of Indigenous genetic material, like the theft of human remains, land and artifacts, has led to widespread distrust to outright boycotts of these companies by Native communities.^[28]^[29] While a DNA test may bring up some markers associated with some Indigenous or Asian populations (and the science there is fairly problematic, as TallBear describes in her book Native American DNA), as Indigenous identity is based in citizenship, family and community, a genetic marker does not make a person Indigenous.^[24]

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External links

APTN Investigates: Cowboys and Pretendians APTN National News television report featuring many of the examples in this article, notably those in film
The Convenient "Pretendian", Canada Land podcast
Ghost Warrior Society, an anti-Pretendian task force based in Canada
"Indigenous 'Race Shifting' Red Flags: A Quick Primer for Reporters and Others", by Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton)
"Playing Pretendian", Code Switch, NPR
Pretendians and Their Impact on Métis Identity in the Academy - University of Saskatchewan panel discussion including Maria Campbell (Métis) - December 10, 2021
The Pretendian Problem - Indian Country Today video report on pretendians and fake Métis - January 28, 2021
Raceshifting, resource on Eastern Euro-Canadians and Euro-Americans posting as Indigenous peoples
Unsettling Genealogies Conference - A Forum on Pseudo Indians, Race-Shifting, Pretendians, and Self-Indigenization in Media, Arts, Politics and the Academy - Series of eight panel presentations in Spring 2022, at Michigan State University.
- Unmasking Pseudo Indians: Opening Remarks at by George Cornell (Ojibwe), Ben Barnes (Shawnee), Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton) - March 21, 2022
Teillet Report on Indigenous Identity Fraud - October 2022 report for the University of Saskatchewan
Tribal Alliance Against Frauds, an intertribal anti-fraud task force

[DNA-30] While there are some genetic markers that are more common among Native Americans, these markers are also found in Asia, and in other parts of the world.^[26] The commercial DNA companies that offer ethnicity tests do not have a large enough pool of North American DNA to provide reliable matches. The most popular companies have admitted to having no North American DNA, and that their "matches" are to Central Asian and South or Central American populations; smaller companies may have a very small pool from one tribe who participated in a medical study.^[27]^[28]^[29] The exploitation of Indigenous genetic material, like the theft of human remains, land and artifacts, has led to widespread distrust to outright boycotts of these companies by Native communities.^[28]^[29] While a DNA test may bring up some markers associated with some Indigenous or Asian populations (and the science there is fairly problematic, as TallBear describes in her book Native American DNA), as Indigenous identity is based in citizenship, family and community, a genetic marker does not make a person Indigenous.^[24]

[PretendianNYT-1] Isai, Vjosa (October 15, 2022). "Doubts Over Indigenous Identity in Academia Spark 'Pretendian' Claims – Some Canadian universities now require additional proof to back up Indigenous heritage, replacing self-declaration policies". The New York Times. Retrieved October 28, 2022. 'pretendians' (short for 'pretend Indians')... Ms. TallBear said, there is no excuse for outright lies. 'If they're lying and they've gotten job benefits or scholarship benefits, they should be required to figure out how to make restitution,' she said, likening fake identity claims to falsifying academic credentials. 'It's fraud.'

[NYTdef-2] Viren, Sarah (May 25, 2021). "The Native Scholar Who Wasn't". The New York Times Magazine. Archived from the original on May 27, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2021. the 1990s saw the beginning of what would eventually be significant pushback by Native Americans against so-called Pretendians or Pretend Indians

[Robinson235-3] Robinson, Rowland (2020). "4. Interlude: Community, Pretendians, & Heartbreak". Settler Colonialism + Native Ghosts: An Autoethnographic Account of the Imaginarium of Late Capitalist/Colonialist Storytelling (Ph.D.). [Waterloo, Ontario]: University of Waterloo. p. 235. OCLC 1263615440. Archived from the original on December 28, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2021. [The] phenomenon of what I and many other Indigenous people have for some time called Pretendians, as well as the related, and very often overlapping, phenomenon of Fétis*. This not-new phenomenon, to put it perhaps overly simply, is the practice of settler individuals (and sometimes others, but primarily settlers) putting forth a false Indigenous identity, and placing themselves out in front of the world as Indigenous people, and sometimes even attempting to assert themselves in some way as a kind of voice of their supposed peoples. *Portmanteaus of "Pretend" and "Indian" and "Fake" and "Métis", respectively. Pretendian, as a descriptive term, has been around most of my life, to the extent that I am not sure that placing its origin on the timeline is readily possible.

[AlgPretendiansCBC-4] Leo, Geoff (September 13, 2021). "Push to remove 'pretendians' from Algonquin membership rekindled after CBC investigation – Analysis revealed letter linked to 1,000 Indigenous ancestry claims is likely fake". CBC News. Archived from the original on December 26, 2021. Retrieved December 26, 2021.

[TStarMcCusker-5] McCusker, K.J. (November 30, 2021). "The violence of pretending to be Indigenous - The recent call for organizing a Canada-wide dialogue about Indigenous identity by the First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv) is a solid step toward recognizing this as an ongoing problem. We must proactively address the issue of fraudulent proclamations". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on December 24, 2021. Retrieved December 27, 2021. We have been so heavily affected by stolen identities that the word "pretendian" has become a colloquially used term.

[6] Polleta, Maria (November 30, 2017). "'Pretendians': Elizabeth Warren not alone in making questionable claim to Native American heritage". The Arizona Republic. Archived from the original on March 22, 2022. Retrieved November 11, 2021 – via AZCentral.,

[StrangeHistory-7] Irwin, Nigel (January 12, 2017). "Joseph Boyden's Apology and the Strange History of 'Pretendians' – Boyden is hardly the first person to be alleged to have faked Indigenous roots for material or spiritual gain". Vice Media. Archived from the original on June 8, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021.

[APTN-Ridgen-8] Ridgen, Melissa (January 28, 2021). "Pretendians and what to do with people who falsely say they're Indigenous". APTN News. Archived from the original on July 13, 2021. Retrieved July 13, 2021. Pretendians – noun – A person who falsely claims to have Indigenous ancestry – meaning it's people who fake an Indigenous identity or dig up an old ancestor from hundreds of years ago to proclaim themselves as Indigenous today. They take up a lot of space and income from First Nation, Inuit and Metis Peoples.

[BringsPlenty-9] Brings Plenty, Trevino (December 30, 2018). "Pretend Indian Exegesis: The Pretend Indian Uncanny Valley Hypothesis in Literature and Beyond". Transmotion. 4 (2): 142–52. doi:10.22024/UniKent/03/tm.648. Archived from the original on November 25, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2021.

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[BecomingIndigenous-13] Leroux, Darryl R. J.; Gaudry, Adam (October 25, 2017). "Becoming Indigenous: The rise of Eastern Métis in Canada". The Conversation. Retrieved November 5, 2022. In 2011 there were over 250 self-identified Cherokee 'tribes' in the U.S., according to anthropologist Circe Sturm. Like efforts by self-identified Métis, Sturm suggests that "race shifting" among white Americans to Cherokee identity is an attempt to 'reclaim or create something they feel they have lost, and … to opt out of mainstream white society'. The end result, however, has been the proliferation of self-identified Cherokee 'tribes' in the U.S. and 'Métis communities' in Eastern Canada with minimal connections to Indigenous peoples who they claim as long-ago ancestors.

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[APTN-Original-17] Murray, John (April 20, 2018). "APTN Investigates: Cowboys and Pretendians". Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Archived from the original on October 7, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021. Canada's most famous pretendian is a man who called himself Grey Owl.

[Smith1990-18] Smith, Donald B. (1990). From the Land of Shadows: The Making of Grey Owl. Saskatoon: Western Prairie Books.

[19] Martin, Joel W. (1996). "'My Grandmother Was a Cherokee Princess': Representations of Indians in Southern History". In Bird, Elizabeth (ed.). Dressing in Feathers: The Construction of the Indian in Popular Culture. London: Routledge.

[CookLyn-20] Elizabeth Cook-Lynn. "Who Stole Native American Studies?" Wíčazo Ša Review, Vol. 12, No. 1. (Spring, 1997), p. 23.

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[22] Harjo, Joy (2020). "Introduction". In Harjo, Joy; Howe, Leanne; Foerster, Jennifer (eds.). When the Light of the World Was Subdued Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 4. ISBN 9780393356816. Archived from the original on March 22, 2022. Retrieved December 30, 2021.

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[HCNdrKT-25] TallBear, Kim (January 17, 2019). "Elizabeth Warren's claim to Cherokee ancestry is a form of violence - Be it by the barrel of a carbine or a mail-order DNA test, the American spirit demands the disappearance of Indigenous people". High Country News. Archived from the original on November 22, 2021. Retrieved November 5, 2019.

[bldl2-26] Kim TallBear (2008). "Can DNA Determine Who is American Native American?". The WEYANOKE Association. Retrieved May 11, 2009.^{[permanent dead link‍]}

[tennant-27] Tennant, Amie Bowser (February 9, 2018). "Why Your DNA Results Didn't Show Your Native American Ancestry". The Genealogy Reporter. Archived from the original on December 5, 2018. Retrieved May 28, 2019.

[SureshGLP-28] Suresh, Arvind (October 6, 2016). "Native Americans fear potential exploitation of their DNA". Genetic Literacy Project. Archived from the original on November 23, 2021. Retrieved September 7, 2021.

[CareyNHGRI-29] Carey, Teresa L. (May 9, 2019). "DNA tests stand on shaky ground to define Native American identity". National Human Genome Research Institute. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved September 7, 2021.

[APTN-C&P-31] Murray, John (April 20, 2018). "APTN Investigates: Cowboys and Pretendians". Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Archived from the original on October 7, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021. Actors who do this are sometimes called "pretendians" but that term is also used for people who play at being Indigenous in their real life.

[HCN-RN-32] Nagle, Rebecca (April 2, 2019). "How 'pretendians' undermine the rights of Indigenous people - We must guard against harmful public discourse about Native identity as much as we guard against harmful policy". High Country News. Archived from the original on June 19, 2019. Retrieved December 26, 2021.

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[ForgeryCBC-38] Leo, Geoff (August 9, 2021). "Mysterious letter linking 1,000 people to $1B Algonquin treaty likely fake, CBC investigation finds – Author of conspiracy theory books says letter was dropped in his mailbox in 2011". CBC News. Archived from the original on December 26, 2021. Retrieved December 26, 2021.

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[BourassaLeo-40] Leo, Geoff (November 1, 2021). "Health scientist Carrie Bourassa on immediate leave after scrutiny of her claim she's Indigenous". CBC News. Archived from the original on November 29, 2021. Retrieved December 20, 2021.

[KeelerSacheen-41] Keeler, Jacqueline (October 22, 2022). "Sacheen Littlefeather was a Native American icon. Her sisters say she was an ethnic fraud". San Francisco Chronicle.

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[43] Lewis, Helen (March 16, 2021). "The Identity Hoaxers". The Atlantic. Retrieved July 21, 2023. The need to be associated with the victims rather than the perpetrators in such a context was, he said, often linked to another trauma in a person's life. [....] Perhaps the subconscious reasoning runs like this: White people are oppressors, but I'm a good person, not an oppressor, so I can't be white.

[44] Wolfe, Patrick (2006) Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native, Journal of Genocide Research, 8:4, 387-409, DOI: 10.1080/14623520601056240

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