#native 101.

naming your native muse

do not make up a "native-sounding" name for your character. names like "red thunder," "greyeyes," "whitefeather," etc. are often used by non-natives trying to signal indigeneity in the rpc, but they come from a very specific historical context.

these weren’t just aesthetic choices. many native people were forced to continue these names during colonization, often by government officials or missionaries, when forced to register for census, land allotments, boarding schools, etc. these names were often translations, misunderstandings, or simplifications of actual indigenous names or meanings. they were not chosen in the way settlers chose surnames. they became permanent family names through colonization, not by cultural tradition.

so when non-natives try to replicate that style, without knowing what the names mean, why they were given, or what community they come from, it’s shallow at best and disrespectful at worst.

what you should do instead: most often, native people today have common surnames just like anyone else (smith, johnson, etc.), or inherited names from the colonization period. best rule of thumb: pick a european name. of course, some natives have traditional names used within the community. if you're not native, don't try to replicate traditional names. it's not your place. for example, i have a kiowa gordon named joseph anderson. doesn't make him any less native to have a "european" name.

*also, try to stay away from "native sounding" words for names. i know non-natives can be named these things, but i always give a little side-eye to natives who are: sage, willow, river, storm, wolf, bear, echo, etc.

how much background should you include?

it’s important to say where your muse is from, what tribe or nation they belong to, what area they live in or grew up in, but you need to know your limits. don't info-dump cultural details unless you fully understand them, which, if you’re non-native, you probably don’t.

saying someone is diné (navajo), from arizona, and maybe was raised around certain customs or ceremonies? that’s fine. pretending you can describe those ceremonies or the "spiritual meaning" behind them? not fine. mentioning things to understand your character more is welcomed! we just don't want non-natives to write about the ceremony of a powwow in depth.

your native muse is more than trauma

one of the most harmful patterns non-native writers could fall into is making their indigenous character's entire identity revolve around suffering, pain, trauma, hurt, etc.

yes, native communities live with ongoing impacts of colonization; boarding schools, land loss, mmiw, racism, addiction, environmental harm, the foster system, and more. these are real, lived traumas. but reducing your muse to only these things strips them of their full humanity.

your muse should be more than what’s been done to them. they should laugh. they should have hobbies, bad habits, complicated family dynamics, love interests, favorite foods, weird dreams, inside jokes, petty opinions, and goals for the future. joy, humor, and resilience are central to indigenous life.

don’t write a tragedy with a face. write a person who exists, who happens to be native, whose life is shaped by history, but not defined only by it. again, having these things in a muses backstory / mentioning them does not necessarily mean it's a "bad" thing (i, for one, love fucked up tragic pasts) but give them more substance outside of that, too.

"native american" is not a culture

this should be obvious, but it’s often overlooked: there is no single native culture. there are 500+ federally recognized tribes in the americas alone, each with their own language, traditions, government, and worldview. if you're writing a native muse and just labeling them as "native american" without choosing a specific nation, you’re already off track.

"native american" is a broad political term. it’s not cultural shorthand. it doesn’t tell you where someone’s from, how they were raised, what language their family spoke, or what their values are. saying someone is "native" and stopping there is like saying someone is "european" and expecting people to know if they're french or romanian or english.

what to do instead: pick a specific tribe or nation, and do real research. if you’re not sure where to start, choose a region and look up federally recognized tribes in that area. don’t blend cultures. don’t invent one. specificity shows respect.

your muse is not a magical being

please don’t write your native muse as if they have innate spiritual powers, a mysterious connection to the earth, visions, or vague "ancestral wisdom" just because they’re indigenous. this is a colonial trope, built out of the "noble savage" stereotype, and it’s incredibly dehumanizing.

you might not think you’re doing it. but if your muse is always the one to deliver cryptic advice, commune with animals, feel the spirits in the air, or silently guide others with intuition, take a step back. are you writing a person, or are you writing an aesthetic?

native people have spiritual practices, yes. but those are specific, tribal, and usually not open to outsiders. spirituality isn’t a personality trait. it’s not something you can generalize or sprinkle in to make a character seem deep. if you wouldn’t do it with a character of another background, don’t do it here.

don’t box your muse into stereotypes

not every native muse has to be quiet, wise, brooding, or angry. let them be awkward. let them be funny. let them be annoying, overly ambitious, soft-hearted, selfish, bubbly, arrogant, flirtatious, whatever fits.

when all your ideas of indigeneity are rooted in solemnity or pain, you miss the huge spectrum of native personalities. native people are just people. some are loud. some are shy. some are deeply cultural, some are disconnected and trying to reconnect. some are traditional. some are queer. some are both.

don’t flatten your character into a type. don’t let their "nativeness" be their only character trait. and definitely don’t limit how they act because you’re afraid of getting it wrong. get curious. do the work. and write a full human being.

if you’re non-native, you’re writing from the outside. that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to do with care, but it does mean you have to move slower, be willing to be corrected, and know when to back off.

there are plenty of indigenous people in the rpc, so feel free to ask me for more indigenous blogs you can use as a reference. i hope this guide provides you guys with some more insight and understanding; so you can stop asking us the same question, with differing fcs, every other week.

i’m going to put this disclaimer here, so i don’t keep repeating myself later on. if you’re not indigenous, your opinion does not matter when it comes to pretendians, blood quantum, “looks”, etc. but, if you have updated information on a faceclaim (whether they are or are not a pretendian) please send it! education is key.

the steps below does not mean that every single person doing these things are a pretendian! (example: a common pretendian nation is cherokee. malese jow is actually cherokee!) everybody keeps asking “how we know” so i figured to let y’all know what we work through and look for.

how do they identify themselves?

a lot of the time, pretendians will do one of two things.

one. they won’t ever name a specific nation. how many “native” people out there just call themselves native american? they don’t give any other factors, they don’t elaborate, they just leave it as that. for the most part, indigenous people will always give their nations name. we take pride in where we come from and are outspoken on our nations. even cody christian, for example, who has not played a native character and is extremely “not native looking” has his nations listed on his own website. any time you google “cody christian ethnicity” it will come up. so it doesn’t mean natives have to talk about it 24/7 to “be” indigenous, but it simply starts at naming a nation!

two. give the top pretendian tribes. care to take a guess? correct! cherokee! blackfoot is also a popular one, as well. it’s less often you catch a pretendian going for smaller known tribes. i personally think it’s because it’d be easier to look at tribal records and quickly find out they’re not apart of it, but maybe these pretendians just don’t know other nations! any time i hear somebody claim cherokee it’s like an immediate eye roll. (did y’all know there’s also different bands of cherokee?) the biggest culprit would be kelsey chow, who claimed eastern band! the nation themselves had to come out and say there is no record of her. but that was after she’d already taken native roles, where others were boasting about her indigeneity. being known for “being native” does not make you native! case and point.

two contd. speaking of claiming “lesser known” tribes, that still doesn’t give pretendians a pass! could also be you believe them because they’re not as well known. like julia jones claiming chickasaw and choctaw, tyler blackburn claiming comanche, etc. this isn’t an end all be all when people claim well known nations vs not well known ones, but just something to keep in mind! when looking to see if someone is pretendian, we don’t just look at one thing, like this, it’s a combination of basically everything in this post. so don’t let the nations fool you! it’s just one piece of the puzzle.

i will be talking a little later on about people who are known for being native and how harmful that impacts actual native people down below.

how do they connect to their nation?

are they from the rez? do they have traditional clothing? are they actively reconnecting (and what does that look like)?

not every native person has grown up in their culture, that’s not what being native is, but there still should be some sort of connection to them! an example of a native person who did not grow up in the culture and has since been reconnecting is kristin chirico who is cayuga and seneca! kristin has actively been taking the steps to connect to the cayuga and seneca people for the last few years and is very outspoken on that fact. other people have actually grown up in their nation (doesn’t necessarily have to be on a rez, but has had that close contact with their family and people). like kiowa gordon, martin sensmeier, quannah chasinghorse, khadijha red thunder, malese jow, cody christian, etc.

being native doesn’t equal growing up around native people, i want to make that clear. there is a lot of different avenues to be connected to one’s indigeneity, as listed above! but it’s important to see what real connection looks like when we brings up others who have no real connections because they’re pretendians. an example being tinsel korey - from twilight! she played sam’s wife. her real name is actual harsha patel and she’s indian (from india!). she’s claimed for so long that she was indigenous (she finally landed on claiming ojibwe, but has also previously claimed mohawk, cherokee, and cree) yet she had no active connection to the nation she claimed, she didn’t try to reconnect, she didn’t have ancestral grounds, etc.

there are many ways to be native. don’t mistake not being super connected / outspoken as them being fake or not “native enough” and don’t think anybody who is loud about being “native” in hollywood is. context is vital.

well known “natives” =/= being native.

please don’t then go ask “well so-and-so said they’re native and they’re an actor so does that mean they’re lying?” not necessarily! pay attention! get a grip!

kelsey chow, julia jones, tyler blackburn, and blair redford are just some of the ~popular~ pretendians around. but at one point, many thought that they were entirely indigenous. notoriety, getting indigenous roles, or just presenting yourself that way (to seem cool, to get jobs, to... idk) doesn’t mean somebody is inherently indigenous. in my pretendians masterlist, i have even more names there that you might not even realize aren’t native, as well as the phrase “it’s not about who you claim, it’s who claims you.” this doesn’t mean if you can be enrolled in a nation (i.e. blood quantum) but if there’s any record of your ancestors being apart of that nation! or you actively being apart of it / reconnecting.

for example, cody christian isn’t super outspoken on being indigenous, nor has he taken (as far as i know) any native role. that’s his own choice! this isn’t about that. you see him and you see a white man. but his mother grew up on the reservation, so did her parents, and so on. he is claimed by his people, even if he isn’t extremely vocal about it. he doesn’t need to prove that to you, it’s simply inherent. meanwhile, kelsey chow ran up and down hollywood screaming she was eastern cherokee. she then got cast as an indigenous woman (based on her words of being indigenous) and the eastern band said hold up! not on my watch! and explained they did not claim her.

you don’t need a specific blood amount or look to actually be indigenous. you need that ties to your culture and nation (no matter how far back it is) to be indigenous.

booboo stewart (looks).

firstly. he can choke. hollywood stop casting booboo the fool stewart as your indian fav challenge.

secondly! read my post about him here.

booboo stewart is quite possibly the most harmful pretendian there is. he’s made it so far on the notion he’s native. it’s just words. he’s made no effort to connect to his people, to be apart of the culture, but on top of that! they also haven’t claimed him. i’m not sure why they haven’t come out and said he is or is not apart of their nation. i wish they would! he’s taken multiple, countless, numerous roles from real native people.

his “looks” are the only thing he has going for him. he’s an asian man! he’s got small eyes and high cheekbones but non-natives are so stupid they think that means he’s a redskin! this is why we’re so vocal about looks not being important to be considered indigenous. because people see someone with ambiguous features calling themselves generokee and run with it.

i don’t want to write a dissertation on him, but he’s been silent on native issues, not speaking up or spreading awareness, and actively taking roles away from indigenous people. he’s not taking any asian roles the way he’s taking native roles, even though his mother is entirely asian, and he has never spoken about his culture or people apart from “being” native american. i’m not even sure if he, himself, has ever named a nation or if blackfoot got tossed around.

this man is a menace and it’s on sight for anybody who is a booboo apologist. thank you and goodnight.

conclusion.

thank you for reading all of this! send it to your friends, spread the word. i’m not taking any more excuses after this.

i want to end this by saying, again, this does not give non-natives a pass to cast judgements on others for their indigeneity. this can be used as a tool to help distinguish why we call someone a pretendian, or for people to come to us (after reading this) because they think so-and-so is a pretendian because of what we look for! do not go around saying someone is or isn’t indigenous unless a native person has already said so. now, we ask that nobody come to us inquiring “why” we say x, y, z is a pretendian. we’ve laid it all out for you. you don’t have to understand, that’s not your job, but you do have to listen to us about our issues. neewe! thanks.

tribe  ----  tribal communities have fought to be federally recognized and not even all of them are. this is our land, whether you like it or not, whether it’s “recognized” as such or not, and being apart of a tribe is more than you and your besties getting together to have mimosas at brunch. tribe is engrained in colonialism and racial derogatory views, no matter which way you want to spin it. even when speaking about native “tribes” try to incorporate “nations” (i.e. the miami nation, the cherokee nation, etc) our tribes pass down knowledge, traditions, recipes, medicine, language. it’s who we are as a people. though the term tribe is now outdated (we tend to use nations, like we ask for you to use) it’s still something we’re able to call ourselves and use as a reclamation.

spirit animal  ----  this is pretty self explanatory, but it seems as though people don’t understand that this is intrinsic to our culture. most times it’s framed as a joke, or something light hearted, and people often get upset when they’re told not to use it since they weren’t “being mean”. it’s a spiritual tradition that is different in every single nation. it makes it seem as though you’re picking apart our culture to fit your own personal narrative because you think it’s quirky and cute. these spirits will often come to you in a time of need, they can provide strength, resilience, answers to questions, or just be there for you to lean on. spirit animals are due to tens of thousands of years of connections to our environment; you have no idea what that’s like. (this is not the same thing as an animal spirit, which many different cultures and religions have. please do research on animal spirit guides for more information!)

sports teams  ----  now this is a bit different because it’s not just a word you can use in every day life, they’re titles of sports teams (chiefs and indians, for example) many will argue saying they were named with respect, or wanting to honor native people. think what you want, but do not be ignorant to the fact that native people were oppressed for being native. they were made into these savage caricatures to be paraded around and gawked at. these names perpetuate this stereotype with their racist mascots and using this “brave warrior” persona, along with wearing feathers, headdresses and tomahawks. not to mention these sports teams are run by white people! they weren’t made by natives, for natives. they were made to make fun of us and now they’re creating millions of dollars in profit. (this is more so for information, the names are still the names, but i urge you to fight for name changes and stand with indigenous people when they protest these racist titles.)

eskimo  ----  this is a slur against inuit people, plain and simple. they’re called inuit (“people”), for plural. and inuk (“person”), for singular. this was used as an umbrella term for “indians” in the arctic. it’s considered extremely derogatory and that should be simple enough not to use, but people don’t know (or don’t understand) that still to this day. the expression “eskimo kiss” was a made up myth about indigenous people in the arctic rubbing their noses together and is completely false. eskimo is not only a slur, but it ignores indigenous people all across the arctic from russia to greenland. it’s simply outdated and gross.

indian  ----  here’s the big one y’all. the question of the century! why can’t i call native people indian/american indian? if you’ve ever read a history book, you know columbus was looking for india. when he landed in america, he thought it was india, thus calling the native people: indians. this was obviously not true, and the name should’ve been filtered out when he realized this, but it wasn’t! so who calls people from a specific place the wrong name simply because they don’t want to stop? fools. uneducated fools. at this point, it’s simply a slur. this term was used by colonizers to demean us, to categorize us, to hurt us. in an example, “indian giver” is meant to make us look like liars (where the term indian = liars/deceivers) which is harmful and racist and y’all have to stop.

chief  ----  in direct relation to a native person, or in terms of using it towards somebody in a position of power. the word was taken and put on native leaders in the 1700s and people have been using it since. this is a tough one because there are titles like “commander in chief” that aren’t really going to change, but this is more for the history lesson and something you should not use against native people. this used to be a heated thing to say to a native person, at one point it was something derogatory against us, without knowledge about the power it holds. chiefs are vital to nations. they are either passed down through blood lines or people vote their chief in. they are highly respected and revered and are in charge of making sure the whole tribe is well and taken care of. simply tossing this off as a “hey, chief!” is disrespectful.

savage  ----  now the origin of this word is about somebody who is wild, from the forest, unkempt, etc. natives were considered wild beasts that would kill and rape everybody they saw, especially colonizers. they were rabid and untamed, a commodity for white people to come look at. no matter how you use it. (calling somebody savage in a negative way - cold-blooded, ruthless, no remorse - or saying “that was savage!” when you really mean that something was cool, amazing, awesome, etc., does not matter. use synonyms for what you mean.) this word was specifically meant to dehumanize native people, period.

[savage continued] it’d been used as a tool of oppression and quite often a slur against us; it was repeated quite frequently in indian residential schools, making these native children believe they were not worthy, they were wrong and disgusting, for simply being native. these places sole goals was to eradicate the native culture, to assimilate us into mainstream “white” society, to ruin our language, our heritage. all the while calling us wild, savage animals. it’s been used against us to make it easier when it comes to justifying abuse. if you beat somebody that is nice, kind, respected, that’s not a good look for you. but if you do it to somebody who is savage, ruthless, wild, an animal... then you’re doing them a favor. just use a different word instead. it’s really not that hard.

pow wow  ----  not a lot of people understand this one, either. the word itself is even derived from the narragansett word powwaw, meaning spiritual leader! it’s inherently a native term. this is a gathering for ceremonial purposes that honors our culture. this is not a little team meeting or trust building exercise. it’s a spiritual retreat which features sacred ceremonies that are vital to our people. again, every nation is different, they have their own practices, which makes it even more special. using it in such a mundane way trivializes our beliefs (beliefs we had before colonizers even stepped foot on our land) and in a way, infantilizes us. this is offensive and disrespectful to our culture. you have no idea what you’re saying, or what it means.

other phrases that are not often said, but if you hear/say them, please be mindful of their past. (i suggest looking them up if you come across them, there are too many to fully explain):

too many chiefs, not enough indians (slurs)

circle the wagons (derogatory)

hold down the fort (derogatory)

they’re on the warpath (stereotyping / was apart of the washington redskin’s fight song)

calling us redskin (slur)

rain dance (trivializes native practices)

climbing the totem pole/low man on the totem pole (trivializes native practices)

off the reservation (derogatory)

long time, no see (derogatory - also can be attributed to chinese people, as well as indigenous people)

calling us apple (derogatory - not often used, but means “red on the outside, white on the inside” i.e. not acting your race)

questions to never ask a native person

how [much] indian are you?

do you pay taxes?

did you grow up on a rez?

do you get a discount at casinos?

can you do a war cry?

do you drink a lot?

do you get free college?

do you have a tribal/id card?

literally anything other than: “oh, i’d love to know more! what can you share with me?”

addition

please don’t tell us about how your family was early colonizers... how they came to this country from europe back when america was “being created” or shit like that. it’s great you have these ancestors and the knowledge and history, but like so many natives, i’ve lost a lot of my culture. we’ve had documents, paperwork, ties to my tribe completely lost and severed because of colonizers. it’s gross and we don’t care.