[sentient]

Originally Posted by Little Creek77

I seen authentic stories called "Fake" by these bullies.

Native spirit
Many people are affected by Name calling etc

This does become a very hurtful problematic situation.

Besides, what Indigenous group on the planet hasn’t suffered loss?
Because of assimilation etc. etc. (in my experience) many feel like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing and how one then goes about making one’s self whole again is an individual choice or path. Plus if one now is a racial mixture there is that duality within to come to terms with, to reconcile, to juggle and the divided/mixed loyalties to observe - unless one wants to become a self-hater, but that doesn’t work in the long run.
So I cannot see how one can compartmentalize people into neat little boxes or moulds with definite black (red) & white borders such as bullies perhaps would have people conform into.

One mixed heritage artist's work I admire:

Aboriginal artist Lin Onus uses pieces of jigsaw puzzle to symbolise the pieces of his story that are missing. None of these pieces quite fits back correctly showing that the damage to Aboriginal people and culture can never fully recover even if the pieces are all found. This predominantly Western style persists throughout his career partly because of his love of the environment and admiration for its beauty, but possibly also to acknowledge his mother’s Scottish heritage.

One of my own (jigsaw) missing pieces was a Saami Noaidi/Noita (‘Shaman’) in our family tree, who during the Swedish occupation & witch hunts was sentenced to death for being one – which made my grandparents go totally silent about that side of family - in fear - they still carried because their/our culture had been so demonized and shamed.
As was my (more recent) Siberian ancestor kept hidden & I think because of fears about racial discrimination set by the "racial purity - ethnic hygiene" policies of their time.


SaturninePluto

I do not understand people.

Why this name calling and labeling the wannabees, the frauds, this association with shamanism, why this need to distinguish the true shamans, from the plastics, the frauds, the fakes the deceivers?

My initial reaction to this was (I think) similar to yours. Bewilderment, disbelief, hurt, anger (as masked hurt), defensiveness, especially since I had never irl. come across this phenomena called “Plastic Shamans” and thought I never would – and feeling really hurt because - just for being an Euro one can and does even end up being accused of Native American practices one has never even seen, let alone practiced (nor understood why people would even want to in the first place!)

*

But a workshop: “Many people, now you too can become a Shaman” - is coming to town, and the teacher is claiming to be a representative of my ancestry who is channelling a Siberian Shaman – yet carries a Native American “Medicine People” ‘title’ (we are not “Medicine Men/Women”) and the channelled Siberian Shaman’s name (meaning “True Path”) is not Siberian either.
So things just do not add up and the whole thing starts to sound like one of those anti-cultural-appropriation-group-think-script soap opera propaganda episodes (and I am not even kidding).
So - Is this a scam targeting gullible people (New Agers) who do not know anything about FennoScandian/Saami/Siberian history or culture? (As people generally do not, so they can easily be taken for a ‘ride’)?

I don’t know.

But SaturninePluto, - What would you do if somebody claimed to be from your ancestry/ethnicity and culture, if/when they aren’t?
And if you did discover that the whole thing is a scam?

If neither bullying: naming, shaming and ridiculing (i.e. creating a modern day witch hunt) the leader and the followers is not the appropriate response to this – is doing nothing either? As in - letting the phenomena of the scammers, their marketing enablers and ‘victims’ play itself out as their Karma only, ignoring that your cultural identity has been ‘stolen’ and/or misrepresented?

This is a problematic situation also.