'New Age Fraud'
New Age Fraud
'Wanna-bes', Fakes, Frauds, Phonies, Twinks, etc., etc..
Let us begin by saying that we abhor name-calling. We are not in the business of attacking people, no matter how bad they may seem. We are in the business of education. So allow us to explain what all this 'wannabe' and 'fraud' stuff is about to Native people. For centuries, we had everything we knew stolen from us - our land, our languages, our culture and our identity. All these things which make us who we are were taken. Not only that, but the image of who we are as people was twisted and contorted by white society into something either barbaric or ridiculous. In short, we were reduced to novelties and curiosities in the minds of most mainstream Americans. Today, when a non-Indian person decides to 'borrow' a few attributes from our culture in an effort to seemingly appear Native, it continues an age-old practice of stealing and twisting our culture. This is why so many of our people react with such outrage when they see someone 'playing Indian'. It is an insult to our identity. These days this practice has taken on a new term: cultural appropriation.
Allow us to offer some some examples in the interest of clarity on this issue....
Authentic Native people do not sell 'Indian names'.
Though it is right to 'gift' someone who leads a traditional ceremony, authentic Native people do not 'charge' a fee for it.
Authentic Native holy men/women, and medicine men/women will rarely announce their sacred gifts to a stranger, or identify themselves as a healer or a 'pipe carrier'. These kinds of things are never put on display, nor are they to be used to inflate the ego. They are private, and held in utmost humility. Native people also will rarely if ever use the word 'shaman' or 'shamanic' in reference to Native spirituality.
There is more, but you get the idea. Now, we'd like to share a few last thoughts on this which we hope will lay some things to rest. Sometimes legitimate, authentic Native people get caught in the cross-hairs of those who label people 'New Age Frauds'. We know this is true because we are aware of several such instances. Which is why the focus of our activism is always education. We feel that anyone who can put names on a list and label them 'New Age Frauds' without ever having met and vetted out in person the people they are accusing has no business educating anybody about American Indian issues. In our view, that isn't activism, it's public slander. And yet, we understand that there are some among us who are so angry that they lose sight of reality and decency. For the non-Native person reading this, you can see the kinds of cultural strife 'playing Indian' can cause within our own communities. This is why it is so important to share these things, so that we all may learn to live together with respect.
'Wanna-bes', Fakes, Frauds, Phonies, Twinks, etc., etc..
Let us begin by saying that we abhor name-calling. We are not in the business of attacking people, no matter how bad they may seem. We are in the business of education. So allow us to explain what all this 'wannabe' and 'fraud' stuff is about to Native people. For centuries, we had everything we knew stolen from us - our land, our languages, our culture and our identity. All these things which make us who we are were taken. Not only that, but the image of who we are as people was twisted and contorted by white society into something either barbaric or ridiculous. In short, we were reduced to novelties and curiosities in the minds of most mainstream Americans. Today, when a non-Indian person decides to 'borrow' a few attributes from our culture in an effort to seemingly appear Native, it continues an age-old practice of stealing and twisting our culture. This is why so many of our people react with such outrage when they see someone 'playing Indian'. It is an insult to our identity. These days this practice has taken on a new term: cultural appropriation.
Allow us to offer some some examples in the interest of clarity on this issue....
Authentic Native people do not sell 'Indian names'.
Though it is right to 'gift' someone who leads a traditional ceremony, authentic Native people do not 'charge' a fee for it.
Authentic Native holy men/women, and medicine men/women will rarely announce their sacred gifts to a stranger, or identify themselves as a healer or a 'pipe carrier'. These kinds of things are never put on display, nor are they to be used to inflate the ego. They are private, and held in utmost humility. Native people also will rarely if ever use the word 'shaman' or 'shamanic' in reference to Native spirituality.
There is more, but you get the idea. Now, we'd like to share a few last thoughts on this which we hope will lay some things to rest. Sometimes legitimate, authentic Native people get caught in the cross-hairs of those who label people 'New Age Frauds'. We know this is true because we are aware of several such instances. Which is why the focus of our activism is always education. We feel that anyone who can put names on a list and label them 'New Age Frauds' without ever having met and vetted out in person the people they are accusing has no business educating anybody about American Indian issues. In our view, that isn't activism, it's public slander. And yet, we understand that there are some among us who are so angry that they lose sight of reality and decency. For the non-Native person reading this, you can see the kinds of cultural strife 'playing Indian' can cause within our own communities. This is why it is so important to share these things, so that we all may learn to live together with respect.