A Native American activist who claims ancestry from the same Virginia tribe as Pocahontas, the Pamunkey indigenous group, is not an enrolled member of the nation, according to the group’s former leader.
Last month Kiros Auld was featured on a National Public Radio program that was critical of the work of researchers who expose fake Indians, known as ‘Pretendians’.
The program’s hosts said Auld, who founded and runs Indian Country, the largest native forum on Reddit, and served on the board of a Baltimore-based native health center that organized vaccinations for native people, was unfairly targeted by Jacqueline Keeler, a Navajo investigative journalist.
Auld says his mother and grandmother belonged to the Pamunkey in the 1980s. He claims he found out in 2021 that he was on a list of 200 suspected Pretendians that Keeler had compiled.
After the list was leaked in the native community, he said he and his family were harassed. “It’s not normal for someone to make a list of 200 enemies, digging up family, degrading those ancestors who can’t speak for themselves,” he said on the Nov. 20 podcast.
Auld was featured on NPR’s Code Switch program “When Pretendian Investigations Go Wrong,” where he said Keeler’s conclusions about his native identity were “unsubstantiated” and forced him “to tighten security measures” after he appeared on her list of alleged Pretendians.
Code Switch is a podcast “hosted by journalists of color” that examines issues of race, according to its website.
Auld’s credentials with the Pamunkey group were questioned by Robert Gray, the tribe’s chief until his retirement Nov. 30.
“He is not an enrolled citizen, and he’s never been a member,” Gray, 66, told The Post. “We are the tribe of Pocahontas and we get a lot of people who claim they are descended from her.”
Gray, who spent nine years as chief and 25 years on the group’s tribal council, said he was not contacted by NPR to check on Auld’s affiliation with the Pamunkey, who number just 500 and are based in King William County, Virginia.
Gray said that in in the 1980s the chief of the tribe, who was married to an amateur geneologist, handed out “paper cards” to Auld’s mother and grandmother.
“It happened at a time that we didn’t pay much attention,” he told The Post. “But when we went through federal recognition in 2016, we tightened down.
“We spent several years using exact criteria, and they didn’t meet it. Kiros’s family know they are not enrolled citizens of the tribe.”
Tribal recognition allows enrolled members to apply for financial aid to colleges and universities as well as health insurance and help with living and other expenses.
Although Auld admitted he was not a card-carrying member of the Pawmunkey tribe himself, he says he is embraced by the community.
“My sole comment is that I encourage the many other victims of Ms. Keeler’s years-long stalking and harassment campaigns, independently described by third party journalists as ‘bullying’ and ‘not journalism,’ to prioritize their safety,” Auld said in an email to The Post.
“This a criminal matter and [we] will continue to refer all incidents to law enforcement.”
Keeler denied she unfairly targeted anyone in her research.
“I am disappointed in NPR Code Switch’s rebroadcasting across the US during Native American Heritage Month a poorly reported Canadian podcast attacking an American Indian journalist’s work exposing people monetizing American Indian identity in the US,” Keeler told The Post, referring to the podcast which Auld appeared on, which is called “Pretendians” and first aired on the Canadaland network in Canada.
“They did not seek comment from me…regarding claims in the podcast that I stalked or targeted individuals or that my work is a ‘hit job’ on people I dislike,” she added.
Keeler has exposed many for faking their native heritage, including Oscar-winning folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, who pushed back against the allegations after she was labelled a Pretendian.
“Being an ‘Indian’ has little to do with sperm tracking and colonial record keeping: it has to do with community, culture, knowledge, teachings, who claims you, who you love, who loves you and who’s your family,” said Sainte-Marie, 83, wrote in a written statement last year after Keeler’s investigation went public on a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program.
The Pamunkey tribe played “a vital role” with English colonists who arrived at Jamestown in 1607, according to the group’s website.
Pocahontas, who was born around 1596, was the daughter of Powhatan, the powerful chief of the tribe until his death in 1618.
Keeler was denounced in a violent social media post that was reposted by Auld on Dec. 4. The meme shows a man in a trench coat labeled “Jacqueline Keeler” shooting another man slumped in a chair. labelled “her credibility.”
Despite the attacks against her, Keeler refuses to back down. She said she has been trying to correct the record since June, when the podcast first aired on Canadaland.
She also plans to publish Auld’s family tree that shows he has no connection to the tribe and also accuses his mother of marketing her artwork as “American Indian” in possible violation of federal law.
“This reporting harms efforts to hold opportunists falsely claiming to be American Indians in the US accountable,” she told The Post.
“As a federally funded nonprofit, NPR must uphold the trust relationship the federal government has with federally recognized tribes like the Pamunkey — not to undermine their sovereignty by featuring coverage that unquestionably supports people they find falsely claiming to be tribal members.”
Courtney Stein, a supervising editor on the NPR’s “Codeswitch” did not return a quest for comment.
