Since the early 1970s, a legend of Rainbow Warriors has inspired some

environmentalists An environmentalist is a person who is concerned with and/or advocates for the protection of the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that se ...

and

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

s with a belief that their movement is the fulfillment of a Native American prophecy. Usually the "prophecy" is claimed to be

Hopi The Hopi are a Native American ethnic group who primarily live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona, United States. As of the 2010 census, there are 19,338 Hopi in the country. The Hopi Tribe is a sovereign nation within the Unite ...

Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...

. However, this "prophecy" is not Native American at all, but rather from a 1962

Evangelical Christian Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exper ...

religious tract A tract is a literary work and, in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the 21st century, a tract referred to a brief pamphlet used for religious and poli ...

, titled ''Warriors of the Rainbow'' by William Willoya and Vinson Brown from Naturegraph Publishers. Brown is also the founder and owner of Naturegraph Publishers. Discussing the legend, scholar Michael Niman said, "If anything, it was an attack on Native culture. It was an attempt to evangelize within the Native American community."

Origins

The modern story has been misrepresented as ancient prophecy. While this falsification may have been done consciously by the creators of the story, those who pass the story on may sincerely believe the story is authentic. This phenomenon is an example of what scholar Michael I. Niman calls "

fakelore Invented traditions are cultural practices that are presented or perceived as traditional, arising from the people starting in the distant past, but which in fact are relatively recent and often even consciously invented by identifiable historical ...

." The legend is frequently circulated by members of the counterculture group, the

Rainbow Family The Rainbow Family of Living Light is a counter-culture, in existence since approximately 1970. It is a loose affiliation of individuals, some nomadic, generally asserting that it has no leader. They put on yearly, primitive camping events on ...

. While there are variations on the theme, especially as it has become popularized in

Internet meme An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme ( ), is an idea, behavior, style, or image that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. What is considered a meme may vary across different communities on the Internet ...

s, the common thread in all versions of the story is that a time of crisis will come to the Earth, that people of many races will come together to save the planet, and it is always erroneously credited as being a Native American or

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

prophecy. Niman adds, "It is said there will be a time when the trees are dying, blah, blah, blah. There will be a tribe of people who come and save the Earth and they will be called the Rainbows." Some modern versions of the fictitious story specifically state that this new "tribe" will inherit the ways of the Native Americans, or that Native ways will die out to be replaced by the new ways of the "Rainbow" people.Morton, Chris and Thomas, Ceri Louise (1998) ''The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls: A Real Life Detective Story of the Ancient World''. Vermont,

Bear & Company Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the North ...

. In ''The Mystery of the Crystal Skulls'', Morton and Thomas write:

The legend said he Native Americanswould also be joined by many of their light-skinned brothers and sisters, who would in fact be the reincarnate souls of the Indians who were killed or enslaved by the first light-skinned settlers. It was said that the dead souls of these first people would return in bodies of all different colours: red, white, yellow and black. Together and unified, like the colours of the rainbow, these people would teach all of the peoples of the world how to have love and reverence for Mother Earth, of whose very stuff we human beings are also made.

''Warriors of the Rainbow'' relates these fictitious "Indian" prophecies to the

Second Coming The Second Coming (sometimes called the Second Advent or the Parousia) is a Christian (as well as Islamic and Baha'i) belief that Jesus will return again after his ascension to heaven about two thousand years ago. The idea is based on messi ...

of Christ and has been described as purveying "a covert anti-Semitism throughout, while evangelizing against traditional Native American spirituality." The book ''The Greenpeace Story'', states that

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...

co-founder Bob Hunter was given a copy of ''Warriors of the Rainbow'' by a wandering dulcimer maker in 1969 and he passed it around on the first expedition of the

Don't Make a Wave Committee The Don't Make a Wave Committee was the name of the anti-nuclear organization which later evolved into Greenpeace, a global environmental organization. The Don't Make a Wave Committee was founded in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to protest ...

, the precursor of Greenpeace. The legend inspired the name of the Greenpeace ship, '' Rainbow Warrior'', used in environmental protection protests. Native American author and poet

Sherman Alexie Sherman Joseph Alexie Jr. (born October 7, 1966) is a Spokane- Coeur d'Alene-Native American novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His writings draw on his experiences as an Indigenous American with ancestry from se ...

has addressed this belief in the "inner Indian" and the ways "American whites have co-opted Indian culture," notably in his poem, "How to Write the Great American Indian Novel":

Popular culture

The track "Rainbowarriors" from the

CocoRosie CocoRosie is an American musical group formed in 2003 by sisters Sierra Rose "Rosie" and Bianca Leilani "Coco" Casady. The group's music has been described as folktronica, freak folk and "New Weird America", and incorporates elements of pop, blu ...

album

The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn ''The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn'' is the third studio album by American musical group by CocoRosie, released by Touch and Go Records on April 10, 2007. Recording CocoRosie made the preliminary recordings for ''The Adventures of Ghos ...

was partly based on the Legend of the Rainbow Warriors. The song has been criticized for "race-baiting" and "naïve and insensitive appropriation of Native American mythology."

Response

In 2015, a group of Native American academics and writers issued a statement against the

members who are "appropriating and practicing faux Native ceremonies and beliefs. These actions, although Rainbows may not realize, dehumanize us as an indigenous Nation because they imply our culture and humanity, like our land, is anyone's for the taking." The signatories specifically named this

misappropriation In law, misappropriation is the unauthorized use of another's name, likeness, identity, property, discoveries, inventions, etc without that person's permission, resulting in harm to that person. Another use of the word refers to intentional a ...

as "cultural exploitation."

group that cites a fictitious "Native American prophecy" as informing their self-identification as "warriors of the rainbow" and willfully appropriates Native cultural practices, is not only adventurist and dangerous, but offensive to many of us who advance and continue to defend the spiritual, the cultural, the sacred, and, most importantly, the political vitality and vision of the ''
Oceti Sakowin The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (; Dakota language, Dakota: Help:IPA, /otʃʰeːtʰi ʃakoːwĩ/) are groups of Native Americans in the United States, Native American tribes and First Nations in Canada, First Nations peoples in North America. The ...
''.

References

Literature

*Willoya, William, and Vinson Brown. ''Warriors of the Rainbow: Strange and Prophetic Indian Dreams''. Healdsburg, California: Naturegraph, 1962. *Dahl, Arthur. "Brown, Vinson." In ''Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature'', edited by Bron Taylor, 227. London & New York: Continuum International, 2005. * Deloria, Philip J. ''

Playing Indian ''Playing Indian'' is a 1998 nonfiction book by Philip J. Deloria, which explores the history of the conflicted relationship white America has with Native American peoples. It explores the common historical and contemporary societal pattern of non ...

''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. *Niman, Michael I. ''People of the Rainbow: A Nomadic Utopia''. Nashville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997.

External links