Page 78 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - September 2021

78 Around the Campfire: Fake Indians

Around the Campfire:

Fake Indians

by Dr. Dean Chavers

Non-Indians started speaking for Indians shortly
after European contact. Most of these writers
were authentic translators, teachers, ministers,
writers, novelists, and journalists. Some, such as
Helen Hunt Jackson, have done tremendous
good. Her book “A Century of Dishonor,” about
how the government lied to Indians, cheated
them, and took their lands, is the most important
Indian book ever published.

But some have distorted the picture, misled
people, presented imagined happenings as facts,
and tried to make people believe they were
Indians when they were not. Some of them have
been little people who got a teaching job at a
college or school, and suddenly discovered that But Hill persisted, and made herself somewhat Wallace’s first inaugural speech, “segregation
they were “Indians.” They then become the of an annoyance nationally. Jo Allyn now, segregation tomorrow, segregation
authority on all things Indian. They do the pow Archambault exposed her as a fraud shortly after forever.” The University of New Mexico Press,
wows, the convocations, the celebration weeks, her book was published. Several other people unfortunately, is still selling his fake book. It has
the Indian days, and the poetry readings. exposed her as a fraud and her book as fake, but sold in the millions. They will not answer my e-
she had the spotlight long enough to make some mails about why they continue to sell a fraud.
And a few have gone off the deep end. Carlos money from her book. Unfortunately, it is still
Castaneda, who was born in South America, got selling. Some Other fake Indians include:
his Ph. D. from UCLA on the strength of his
account of a Yaqui holy man named Juan Matus. I had seen her type before—conniving, smarmy, Jamake Highwater, who was a Greek named Jay
But there were times he was supposed to be and trying to be ingratiating. One of them, a Marks or Markopolus when he finished high
meeting with the holy man that he was actually medical type, showed up at my office at Cal school in California in 1950. Hank Adams
holed up on the campus in the library. He made State Hayward in 1974. She wanted to recruit exposed him as a fake in the 1970s, after he had
fantastic claims: that Don Juan could turn people some of our male Indian students, give each a obtained a huge federal grant to make a PBS
into animals (“shape shifters”), that datura, six-pack of beer, let them drink it, and then documentary called “The Primal Mind.” He also
marijuana, and other drugs had magical measure the rate at which they metabolized it. wrote a number of “Indian” books.
properties, and that people could fly. But his Her “theory” was that Indians had a drinking
fake shamanism fit right in with the druggies of problem because they metabolized alcohol at a Ward Churchill, who had a quarter century run
the sixties. UCLA finally took his Ph. D. away. slower rate than whites. I threw her out, and did at the University of Colorado and published
the same to Hill. more than a dozen Indian books. The university
Nevertheless, he died leaving a considerable dismissed him in 2008 for plagiarizing. He had
estate of several million dollars to his children Lynn Andrews, a sometime movie actress, made exposed himself to ridicule after he called the
and family. Many colleges are still using his fake a fortune off her series of fake Indian books. widows of the September 11, 2001 attack “little
books as authentic textbooks. An article in Time And she took it to another level. She charged Eichmans.” He led the Colorado chapter of the
Magazine in 1973 charged that the accounts people stiff fees to go through what she said American Indian Movement for the whole time
Castaneda gave of his training under Don Juan were authentic Indian rituals. These rituals were he was at the university. The tribe that enrolled
were fictitious, and that Don Juan did not exist. conducted in grand ballrooms of hotels in New him took it back.
Castaneda soon went into seclusion, not York and San Francisco, giving coronaries to the
appearing in public for two decades. UCLA Indian people who follow true Indian religions. Timothy Patrick Burrus, who went by the fake
Press is still selling his books, shamelessly. name of Nasdijj and had three hugely successful
What a bunch of hypocrites! An inauthentic Indian tough guy, played by a books in the early 2000s. They were based on
white guy, made his appearance in several fake his faked Navajo childhood, which was full of
Hyemeyohsts Storm, whose first name is hard to Indian movies of the 1970s period. The “Billy death, child molestation, and domestic violence.
spell and to say, was another faker who made a Jack” movies made money for the actor and Several people exposed him in 2006. After that
minor fortune with his fake Indian book, Seven writer, Tom Laughlin, who soon stopped he could get no more of his fake Indian books
Arrows. It tried to be a genuine representation of pretending to be a half-breed Indian. published.
the ceremonies of the Cheyenne people, but it
came out as hippie mish-mash, just right for the Forrest Carter, who had been a member of the Margaret Seltzer, who published under the fake
1970s. After a minor smash, the man faded Ku Klux Klan and a speechwriter for George name Margaret B. Jones, and who claimed to
away, but apparently never stopped pretending Wallace, wrote another fake Indian book called have been brought up in South Central Los
to be Indian. He sold lectures and ceremonies to The Education of Little Tree. It was about a Angeles. She claimed to be half white and half
unsuspecting people for years. Cherokee boy and his growing up in the Navajo. But she was all white, not brought up in
mountains of North Carolina. It was supposed to a ghetto in South Central, and had gone to prep
A white woman named Ruth Beebe Hill showed be true. The book sold in the millions, and schools. NPR exposed her almost immediately,
up at my office in California one day in 1978. spawned a movie. The only problem was that and the publisher recalled all her books.
She was promoting her novel, Hanta Yo, which Carter had never been to North Carolina, and
she claimed was an authentic story from the had made the whole thing up. (Continued on Page 79)
days when the Dakota Indian people were still
free. She claimed to have an Indian man as her His real name was Asa Earl Carter, and he had Dare to Believe - Dare to be Heard
informant. She got upset at me when I declined been raised by his parents in Anniston, Alabama. The ‘X’ Zone Radio Show
to help her by reviewing her book or endorsing He wrote the famous words for George www.xzoneradiotv.com
it.