Krystalline Kraus attacks Dave Courchene

[AClockworkWhite]

Oh goodness. Caught before the act even happened!

[AClockworkWhite]

 Never mind. That act is in an extended run here, I see. LOL

[E.P. Grondine]

Interesting name,
but I'll have to leave the name"SipsShineWithRednecks" for someone else.

The people here generally know who they are, and are very rigorous about facts,
as peoples' lives, sanity, reputations, and spiritual well being are at stake.

If you are unclear about any of them, you will be reminded.
Sometimes hard reminders are given, sometimes very quickly.

[AClockworkWhite]

Huh? Sorry. You lost me.

[RedRightHand]

Hey, I deleted this post. I made a mistake regarding identifying someone from a specific club I'm not a member of that club so I didn't know I shoudln't have done that since it breaks their rules. I apologize if I offended anyone. I was simply posting a friend's query but I should have doubled checked myself before posting. Again, I apologize.

Bullshit, Krystalline. You violated the protocol of the twelve-step group you attended and broke confidentiality. I tend to think you were court-ordered to attend, given the other questions that surround your history and your recent presence and behavior at demos.

So i  think that rocky m is  probably a student of Dave Courchene. and it sounds like the turtle lodge is the real deal, so i;m assuming the wisdom passed down would be sound.

i guess i just flagged it when people mix first nations spirituality and catholicism/christianity in the same breath.

You tried to use us to attack people who have welcomed you to ceremony. Whether or not those ceremonies are authentic, or theirs to lead, or done correctly, you lied. Before you came here you had already posted pictures of yourself smiling with these two individuals on your Facebook page. You posted photos of yourself with them at a restaurant and at Turtle Lodge itself. There are also videos of you online singing songs you claimed you learned from these men.  You tried to set us up, and throw people who thought you were their friend under the bus. You are a provocateur. 

You also posted pictures from a Canadian sun dance that were not yours to take or post. If someone said you could take those photos, they don't know basic protocol. 

There are some questions and issues around Courchene, but the main criticism I've heard is that he's made the mistake of letting white appropriators like you in, who then go out and misrepresent yourselves, and try to turn what little you know into a commodity for media attention and agendas that look to be even worse.

[guest1]

Kraus's heritage is German and Russian, not Saami. 

To be fair, the Sami lands stretched across northern Scandinavia, Finland and Russia. According to Wikipedia:

Since prehistoric times, the Sami people of Arctic Europe have lived and worked in an area that stretches over the regions now known as Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Russian Kola Peninsula. They have inhabited the northern arctic and sub-arctic regions of Fenno-Scandinavia and Russia for at least 5,000 years.

You can read more about Russian Sami at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_people#Russia

Until recently, it wasn't unusual for mixed families whose ancestors included members of a discriminated group to treat that as a family secret and not tell the children so it's quite possible Krystalline didn't learn of her Sami heritage until adulthood, and then embraced it. There are certainly numerous examples of people who grew up not realizing that a grandparent (or even a parent) was Roma, or Jewish, or Black, or Indian. I can't speak to the other criticisms about Krystalline's conduct in indigenous circles but I don't think it's fair to accuse her of faking her heritage without proof (and having part Russian ancestry would actually be consistent with being Sami).

[Smart Mule]

Guest, she's posted ridiculous fantasies about having herded reindeer as a child and other outlandish untrue claims. She grew up in Canada. Her twin sister is honest and admits Krystalline is a liar.

[AClockworkWhite]

OMG what a fake ass. Her FB profile makes me sick. https://www.facebook.com/krystalline.kraus?fref=ts

[RedRightHand]

To be fair, "guest1," I will disclose that I have spoken directly with Saami people about her. Real ones. Not the hobbyists who've never even been to Sapmi. They are concerned about her misrepresentations. They do not claim her.

Just like Europeans who don't know how to evaluate the claims of pretendians who head to Europe and lie about who they are, Americans, Canadians, and even most Europeans don't know enough to evaluate fake Saami claims. Just like you with your Wiki quote. That's the only reason she's gotten away with this as long as she has.

She has been exposed over and over again, and she keeps on lying. All she's done is try to hide the evidence, like when she took down the "white trash" blog (her words of self-definition).

If she has distant blood, which is highly doubtful, that doesn't make her Saami as she's not part of the community. She hangs with the other fakes and pretend-Saami, and then she sucks up to NDNs, lying about who she is, trying to learn ceremonial things she can then "share" with white people. Preferably when the media is present. Ask her about the time she smudged the church. Or the plains-style man's pipe she made for herself. Or her "vision quest". Yeah, soooo Saami.

And if you're serious about fighting fraud, and not just defending it, how about going to the intro section and introducing yourself?

[guest1]

I'm not Indigenous or a New Ager so I'm not expecting to have anything more to contribute to this forum. I've met Krystal a few times  and accepted her self-identification as Sami at face value and have given her the benefit of the doubt so when I stumbled upon this site via Google and saw the statement that she's not Sami but of mixed German/Russian ancestry I, giving her the benefit of the doubt, thought I should point out that there are also Samis in northern Russia. You seem to have more evidence and I don't have anything to respond with because I don't have any other info - and I'm not here to defend or excuse her if she is engaging in cultural appropriation and misrepresenting her ancestry. If that is the case, then it's very unfortunate. I don't think she's doing it maliciously, maybe she's yearning for some meaning in her life and maybe this is a way to cope with some of the issues in her life, but that doesn't justify what you're accusing her of. I really don't know what to say. From a compassionate place, what steps do people suggest she (or anyone else in her situation) take in order to get out of the hole they've dug for themselves?

[Smart Mule]

Guest, aside from the false claims of Saami, she came to THIS SITE and trashed her friend and supposed Elder. She lied, bold face lied about never having been in recovery (being in recovery is nothing to be ashamed of) as an excuse for having trashed people who were kind to her. Watch your back. You could be next for simply coming here and resurrecting the thread.

[RedRightHand]

Guest, Russians and Germans living in the lands their ancestors drove the Saami from are not Saami any more than white people living in America are Indians.

[RedRightHand]

Here she is with Montesano and Courchene, three months before she came here and pretended not to know them.

Also included is a photo she posted of herself making the catlinite pipe along with an excerpt from her 2006 blog where she self-identifies as "white trash," and an additional blog post where she uses her email, publicly. These were all public posts. She chose to post this stuff about herself on the Internet.

No one has to "accuse" her of anything. She did it to herself.

[guest1]

Has anyone challenged her on this face to face? How did she respond?

[Smart Mule]

It is my understanding that a number of people have called her on her bs and she then targets them with lies, rumors and innuendo. I don't live in Toronto so I don't have the ability to confront her in person.

Perhaps you could ask her where in Sapmi she and her sister were born and which Saami community her family resides in? Or why she felt it was acceptable to lie on this forum about people who were nothing but kind to her?