RED FLAGS THAT PRETENDIANS WAVE

• They never provide their parents' or grandparents' names in public statements, or they claim broad groups like "Anishinaabe" or "Apache" without ever identifying a specific community. 

•  Fraudulent groups discuss the 17th and 18th century (on the East Coast) in great detail but don't discuss the 19th or 20th centuries. Real tribes have continuing histories up through the present. 

• They have a spaghetti western ‘Indian’ name – self bestowed or given by another wannabe. 

• They are not a citizen of a sovereign federally recognized American Indian Nation.

• They immediately become defensive and angry when you ask them where they’re from or who they’re family are (which is a simple cultural norm among Indians who have face such widespread diasporas).

• They dress like your ancestors.

• They bead better than you but know nothing about any of the treaties or Supreme Court cases that involve the Nation they are claiming. 

• They can’t tell you what NAGPRA, MMIWG, IACA, ICWA, IHS stand for. 

• They think the repository is the local recycling center or cannabis dispensary.
• They claim full blood ancestry.

•  They claim to be a traditional healer or medicine person but does not speak the language.

• They have zero tribal community affiliation or kinship yet tries to “out-Indian” the Indians.

•  They either have no idea what a 49 is OR collected Indians at every 49 ever held.

• They think skoden is a city in Sweden.

• They are a member of a state-recognized CPAIN, most of which consist of non-NDN people who pay a membership fee to join. The states do not have the same historical, constitutional authority to recognize a group of people as an American Indian tribe as the federal government does, based on hundreds of years of treaty law, the U.S. Constitution and the mutually agreed upon OFA process. They do not follow the same strict criteria. That said, not all state-recognized tribes are fake and a few communities of legitimately American Indian people are not recognized at all. A state-recognized CPAIN is a red flag. 

• “I don’t have to prove anything to you….” or “I don’t need a U.S. government card in my pocket to prove anything.”

• “I’m not a tribal member because my ancestors hid to avoid being documented."

• “Long ago my ancestors concealed the fact that they were Native.”

• They label and insult the very people they are claiming to be as ‘cowards’ for ‘succumbing to colonization’ while claiming that their fake CPAIN (Corporation/Club Posing as an American Indian Nation) ‘rose above such abuse and fought back’… 

•  They use family pictures and relies on phenotype stereotyping to prove they are Indians: “Just look at this picture of my grandma and you can clearly see she was an Indian!” 

• "But my DNA says ..."

•  They drop the word “a’ho!” after everything. That word belongs to a particular tribe, and it has indeed become a rather pan-Indian word as well, used by legitimately Native people. But it has also become a pretendian password so it’s a red flag. 

•  They claim to be a “shaman”, brag about ‘vision quests’, ‘sweat lodges’ and being a ‘pipe carrier’. The word “shaman” belongs to the Evenki people of Siberia. Other peoples have their own words in their own languages for the various roles of healers and ceremonial leaders within their Nations, and if they are legit, they will know what those words are. Lakota people, for example, who do the above things and more, never brag about them. 

• They “collect” legitimate Indian friends in real life and especially on social media.

• They actively seek to be adopted by real Indians.

• They join Indian causes on social media and in real life.

• They spend lots of time “helping” and developing friendships and loyalties.

• They take hundreds of photos of themselves doing “Native things” like taking selfies at Standing Rock, in tribal council house chambers, at tribal homecomings, posing with Chiefs, Indian musicians, and other tribal ambassadors, pictures of themselves at powwows, cozying up to as many real Indian people as possible, and all of this is posted on FB as if they are the best of friends or family with all these people.

• They distort and abuse Indian concepts such as hunka, tiospaye and ‘mitakuye oyasin’ (to use a Lakota example) or pan-Indian concepts like ‘walking the Red Road’ without ever even understanding those concepts or acknowledging that we are not a monolith. (To a Cherokee, the ‘Red Road’ would be a path of war, for example.)

• They go to great lengths to create these “Native” personas, complete with regalia, fake names that sound “Native” (even going to the extent of legally changing their names!), and attaching themselves to Indian causes and events to center *themselves* in order to try to make themselves relevant to those people and causes so they can then center *their* voices and agendas.

• They do these things so that no one will challenge them because they are so “nice” and “helpful”. They do it to cement friendships so that if they are ever challenged, they will have real Indian friends who will defend them out of a sense of loyalty.

• They deflect and avoid conversations about pretendians or ancestral legitimacy.

• They will harm real Indians in order to protect their imaginary Indian persona at any cost.

Prestige or Pity | Feeding the Ego:

• Playing the exotic sage Indian among non-Indians for clout, attention or influence.
• Race-shifting / Avoiding Whiteness and the accountability associated with whiteness.
• Playing the victimized Indian.
• Playing medicine person to the vulnerable.
• Winning competitions meant for real Indians.
• Pushing real Indian academics out of academia to steal the limelight and resources in spaces meant for Indians.

Sexual Predation:

•  Many pretendian men use their fake Indian personas to attract victims.

 Predatory Profiteering:

•  Seeking to create a fake CPAIN and open a casino or a bank.
• Making millions of dollars facilitating cults that follow them.
• Accruing money and resources teaching at universities where they push out real Indians and usurp their spaces, often writing books when they can never speak, write or teach from the perspective of an Indian.
• Soliciting as poor downtrodden Indians when they’ve never experienced the intergenerational grief or trauma of being an Indian.
• Winning thousands of dollars in prize money at powwows and national hoop dancing championships, etc., earmarked for real Indians.
• Taking scholarships meant for real Indians.
• Selling “tribal memberships” to people like undocumented immigrants, telling them it will allow them to remain in the U.S. legally.
• Selling fake “Native” art / jewelry, steal film/TV roles, write books, etc.
• Appropriating all kinds of government funds through states that should go to real Indians.

Other Motivators:

• Taking eagle feathers meant for real Indians.
• Getting fishing and hunting rights meant for real Indians.
• Getting property tax exemptions for their fake “tribal grounds.”