‘Playing Indian’, ‘Becoming Indian’: Comparing ‘Indigenous Identity Fraud’ in 1910/20s and 1970/80s North America and Europe

Taking a transepochal, comparative approach, this article analyses two exemplary cases of ‘In-digenous identity fraud’. The first traces the life and career of Edgar Laplante, active in the 1910s and 1920s. Assuming Native American identities, he travelled across North America and Eu-rope as Tom Longboat, Chief White Elk, or Capo Cervo Bianco, grifting and spending large sums of money. The second examines the pursuits of Craig Carpenter from the 1950s to the 1970s, who likewise claimed to be Native American but built a life of activism on this assumed identity; he played a critical role in infusing Hopi traditionalism with elements of Western metaphysics. Comparing these two cases of transnationally active ‘pretendians’ across time allows to draw conclusions about this specific form of ethnic imposture. While both cases involve false claims to Indigenous descent, Edgar Laplante was a prototypical impostor who deliberately assumed a false identity for cultural prestige and material gain. Craig Carpenter, by contrast, was a Neo Indian who felt a deep spiritual connection to Native American traditions that he could explain only through biological descent. Together, these cases show that Indigenous identity fraud is a transnational and transepochal phenomenon, even as shifts in the media landscape and broader sociocultural contexts have transformed the character of such forms of ‘playing’ and ‘becoming Indian’.