There were already accusations of fraudulent behavior shadowing Kay LeClaire when they showed off their intricate bead- and basket-work on Etsy and social media over the last two years. The posts described the “visions” and dreams that led the Wisconsin artist — who identifies as non-binary and Native American — to create the elaborate pieces of art.
But more than once, the real creators of the work had come forward to take ownership of pieces that LeClaire, 28, tried to appropriate, said a Native American administrator who has known LeClaire since 2020.
“[LeClaire] passed off people’s crafts as their own, and made up stories about the visions,” said Jon Greendeer, the Health and Wellness Coordinator at the Ho-Chunk Nation, in Black River Falls, Wis. “In this way, they did more damage than any European colonizers did in the old days.”
This week, LeClaire — who has claimed since 2017 to be of Metis, Oneida, Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Cuban and Jewish heritage — was accused in an online forum of actually being white, Madison365 reported on Tuesday.
Greendeer, a former president of the Ho-Chunk Nation, a tribe of more than 8,000, told The Post that members of his community were shocked by LeClaire, who wrote academic papers and spoke at conferences, railing against the appropriation of indigenous culture at community events in Madison and other parts of the state.
LeClaire, who has identified as “two spirit” — a term many Indigenous people use to describe a non-binary...
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