#fakelore

The indigenous tribes that once populated this continent have had it rough over the centuries. Losing their land, cities, families, language, and now even their own stories. The people tend not to like fakelore whenever it crops up, mainly because it's just not part of their cultures. For example, the legend of the rainbow warriors was completely made up in 1962 by an evangelical Christian tract and then co-opted during the 70s at the height of the hippie movement. It is associated with the Hopi and Cree tribes, who were surprised that it even existed.

Another similar story happened with the Rainbow Crow, a supposed genesis story from the Lenape people. This story's origins can be traced back to 1989, when it appeared in a book written by Nancy Van Laan, who attributes the story to Chief Bill "Whippoorwill" Thompson. The story has no previous known sources, and the crow has no significance in the culture.

Next up, we have Baphomet, the goat demon we heavily associate with the occult. Its origins come from the first crusade, and turns out, it wasn't even the goat man we know today. Variations of the name were just what the Templars called Muhammad and the mosques. It wasn't until a medieval satanic panic in the 1300s that the occult imagery began taking shape. The Knights Templars in France were on trial in a sort of witch hunt and tortured into confession of all sorts of debauchery. The name Baphomet appeared in transcripts. The tortured prisoners, of course, would say anything to make the torture stop, so wild descriptions of Baphomet started flying around, as well as the rituals involved. From there, the rest is history.

Something I found going through the Greek fakelore is that a lot of it relates to the origins of various plants. These can easily fly under the radar, as the culture already had a lot of these baked into its stories. There was even an entire race of people whose whole thing was that they turned into plants. There were also many Apollos' lovers who would die and be turned into a garden. That much we know is real. The stuff that is fakelore of course, has its origins much closer to modern times. A lot of these flower tales, like Rhodanthe, Orchis, and Acantha, are never traced to known ancient transcripts. Instead, they are often traced in a web of citations on the web, with some modern books sprinkled in.