Remembering Ladonna Brave Bull Allard

LaDonna Tamakawastewin Allard, also known as LaDonna Bravebull Allard, passed on. She was preceded by her husband Miles by two years. I'm proud to say I knew her for many years as part of NAFPS, or New Age Frauds Plastic Shamans. She was best known to most for her leading role in the NoDAPL movement.

LaDonna was from the Standing Rock Sioux tribal nation, located in both North and South Dakota. Its people are Hunkpapa and Sihasapa Lakota and Ihunktuwona, Pabaksa, and Hunkpatina Dakota. She was a lifelong fighter for her people active in tribal government. She was both a degreed historian and the tribe’s tourism coordinator.

She joined NAFPS over fifteen years ago. Tourists, their heads filled with New Age falsehoods, were constantly asking her to recommend a medicine man or so called shaman. LaDonna, frustrated with having to repeatedly explain to outsiders why what they believed was false, and also why what they wanted was offensive and destructive, started sending them to NAFPS at NewAgeFraud.org.

NAFPS began in the late 90s as a Yahoo group, launched from the old Our Red Earth group. Almost all of the online information about Native religious and spiritual traditions and practices is false. Unless it comes from a university, established Native activists, or tribal government page, online websites absolutely cannot be trusted to give an accurate or even non-offensive picture.

There is a multi billion dollar New Age and “neo shaman” industry spreading these falsehoods, with hundreds of white imposters, con artists, and outright cult leaders abusing their followers for cash, power, and often sexual abuse. But outsiders know so little about Native people and cultures, they become easy prey. New Age abusers and their followers also often outnumber actual Natives online. NewAgeFraud.org was set up as Native run, with members from dozens of tribal nations, even Aboriginal and Sami members.

LaDonna became a member in 2007, one of our most active and vocal ones. She spoke out against or personally confronted New Age culture vultures and abusers over 1,400 times in 15 years, on average several times a week. Not surprisingly, she was angriest over imposters posing as teaching Lakota ways.

There are at least half a dozen of the most offensive frauds who pose as White Buffalo Calf Woman, or claim to channel her. This is as despicable as falsely claiming to be the Virgin Mary would be to a Catholic. LaDonna showed them little mercy, condemning them as “liars,” “crazy,” “sick people,” and in obvious cases, their followers as mentally ill and taken advantage of by their leaders.

She proved also to be a valuable resource. No frauds or their followers could make false claims about Lakota religion without being corrected by her. No one could falsely claim teaching by actual Lakota medicine people without LaDonna offering to personally talk to the healer or their family to confirm the imposter was lying.

She took time off when the Dakota Access Pipeline was being built over angry Native objections, racists rerouting it away from mostly white towns to instead border on Indian reservations. LaDonna put out a call for anyone willing to stand up to gather at Sacred Stone Camp on her family land.

Thousands came, with hundreds in camp at any one time. Natives from over 200 tribes and reservations, Black Lives Matter, environmentalists, hippies, church groups, veterans’ groups, bikers, you name it, all gathered to defend Native lands non violently. Even Bernie Sanders and Green Party candidate Jill Stein briefly showed up. NoDAPL put themselves in harm’s way, with amazing discipline, facing heavily armed mercenaries, militarized state troopers, armored cars, fire hoses, tear gas, attack dogs, and regular beatings that even left some activists with permanent injuries.

The anti pipeline movement expanded to dozens of other reservations threatened by the pollution of their water supplies.
But Sacred Stone was the largest, with the most public attention. Water defenders stayed during some of the coldest winters in American memory, with donations of food and fuel.

Along with that came those same New Age exploiters leaching off of NoDAPL:
Andras Corben Arthan -Falsely claimed to be doing Native ceremony.
Sean Henry AKA Nanyu Shaabu Eil- Black supremacist claiming to be a Native leader.
Anne Wilson Schaef- Cult leader claiming to be Cherokee, history of abusing followers.
Sylina Talini Yona AKA Sylina Two Bears AKA Sylina Lynch Buehne, falsely claiming to be a Cherokee medicine woman and Mayan Shaman, soliciting donations.
Rachel Holzwarth AKA White Eagle Medicine Woman, white imposter claims Mohawk.
Jose and Laralyn Rivera AKA Joseph and Laralyn Riverwind, a Puerto Rican and a white imposter leading a phony tribe and part of an anti-Muslim hate group, Act For America.
Jim Petruzzi AKA Greywolf falsely claimed to be Lakota healer, feeding off NoDAPL.

Some posed as supporters to try to gain legitimacy. Many other New Agers often showed up at the fringes of the camp to pose, demanding and draining away donations.

NAFPS did what it could to spread a series of warnings to the public, urging non Natives to be responsible allies and not harm the cause just to stroke their own egos. LaDonna came back to NAFPS frequently to add what she knew, encourage supporters, and target the frauds and the ignorant preyed upon by frauds.

Obama heeded the protests and federal judge orders, halting NoDAPL. Trump, personally profiting from the pipeline, opened the pipelines up within weeks of taking office. Its first pollution of the water supply was only weeks later.
And the pipelines polluted water supplies four more times, just what Natives had warned against. Currently the pipeline cases are still being decided by the courts. Biden has declined to take any action against the pipelines, despite his campaign promises to consult with and listen to tribes.

One thing I could do as a college professor was nominate NoDAPL for the Nobel Peace Prize. I did so, and publicly announced it in articles in December 2016. The award instead went to the President of Colombia for his attempts to end his country’s civil war.

Much of the world recognized LaDonna’s great and tireless work. She was awarded the 2019 William Sloane Coffin Jr. Peacemaker Award. She often appeared on the news and at numerous conferences and universities. She even spoke before the US Congress and the United Nations.

She was a lifelong fighter for her people who will be greatly missed. RIP.

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Al Carroll is Associate Professor of US, American Indian, and Latin American History at Northern Virginia Community College and author or editor of six books and numerous articles for Academia.edu, Articles Base, Beacon, Bristle, Counterpunch, History News Network, Indian Country Today, LA Progressive, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Truth Out, Wall Street Examiner, World News, and elsewhere. He is best known (and often vilified and demonized by racists) for his work as a human rights and anti-racist activist for New Age Frauds Plastic Shamans, a multiracial and multi-faith organization of over 3000 members from dozens of tribes and supporters based at http://www.newagefraud.org. His next work will be Genocide Denial in America: The Seven Genocides Against Natives in the US That Are Rarely Taught.