Wannabe Indians – Although this term derives from Native Americans (see principally Green 1988) who have criticized nonNative writers for marketing their work as if it were actually by a Native author—“simulations of tribal identities in the literature of dominance,” as Gerald Vizenor has put it—the “wannabe” label is sometimes applied to all neo-shamans, New Agers, Pagans, and others who can be seen by Native Americans as appropriating their spiritual traditions. Such well-known neo-shamanic writers as Carlos Castaneda, Lynn Andrews, and Sun Bear have been singled out for specific criticism as “wannabe Indians” by the American Indian Movement.
SOURCE:
Historical Dictionary of Shamanism by Graham Harvey and Robert J. Wallis 2007
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