Kiesha Crowther exposed as fraud

Here's a typical New Age wannabe posing as a Native "shaman." Hundreds or thousands of these people are pretending to be Indians and making false claims to fleece gullible customers. They're like flies: individually insignificant but collectively annoying.

Normally, I wouldn't bother with one New Ager like Kiesha Crowther. But she's noteworthy because activists have been campaigning against her for the last few months on the Internet. They've forced her to back way off her claims of being Native or having Native approval.

Now Al Carroll, an occasional correspondent of mine, dissects her background and shows what a fraud she is.

Tribe of Many Colors or Tribe of Many Dollars?

By Dr. Al CarrollKiesha Crowther AKA “Little Grandmother” has garnered a lot of attention, over a thousand followers, perhaps millions in cash, and even more controversy in less than two years. Falsely claiming to be the “shaman” for the “Sioux Salish tribe,” Crowther has gathered an all white, mostly European “Tribe of Many Colors” around her with bizarre claims. Native activists and former followers have vowed to oppose her and expose her.

From Santa Fe to Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands, and soon to that most “American Indian” of places, Palm Springs, Kiesha Crowther draws crowds of hundreds with each gathering of ceremony selling, charging from several hundred to up to $6,000 a person. Crowther is a small red haired woman of 33, yet looks young enough to be a teenager. Adding to the strangeness, Crowther calls herself “Little Grandmother” (she is not one) and often talks in a little girl voice with fanciful (and largely false) stories about her childhood.

Crowther mixes in stories of vulnerability with dire prophecies of doom and fantastic claims, none of which are true. She claims to be the “shaman” for the “Sioux Salish tribe.” She claims to be the descendant of famous Lakota and Salish leaders, with a “fullblood Indian mother” and a grandmother supposedly on the reservation. Crowther claims to be made “shaman” by an alleged Salish elder named Falling Feathers. She claims to be recognized by dozens of tribes from New Zealand to United States to the Arctic Circle to Scandinavia to Central America. She claims to have been recognized by Native tribes at as young as age eight and to be the fulfillment of a supposed prophecy about a “fair haired girl.” She even suggests in one video that she is the returned White Buffalo Calf Woman of Lakota prophecy, a claim sure to outrage the Plains Indian tribes that hold the prophecy sacred.

Yet not a single one of these claims are true. Most are extremely obvious lies.Comment:  Carroll goes on to challenge and refute these lies in great detail. It's a masterful job of shredding a New Age fraud's defenses. If we had the time and energy to do this for every New Ager and wannabe, there wouldn't be any left.

For more on New Agers, see Business Off for New Age Sweat Lodges and Indian Wannabes = Celebrity Wannabes.

Below:  Alleged "shaman for the Sioux Salish" wielding a crystal.