Ward Churchill and Yinishye Nasdijj - Blood Brothers?

What is it about authors of books or professors who proclaim themselves to be Native Americans but are not? Easy money? Recognition? Want attention? Indian wannabes? Yinishye Nasdijj, a fake name, is another recent addition to a list of fake Indian wannabes. But let's start with Ward Churchill.

As of late the investigation surrounding the scandal involving Ward "I-wanna-be-an-Indian" Churchill continues with the addition of two outside scholars to included as part of Colorado University's Investigative Committee. The IC is currently reviewing charges of research misconduct alleged against Professor Ward Churchill at the University of Colorado at Boulder. But two weeks later after the inclusion of two new outside scholars into the investigation Ward Churchill smugly smiles saying that the UC gave it their "best shot" and that he is "still here." Although the investigation is by no means over and is just starting but he still get "A's" from his students for his classes and he still gets his wampum. Recently in David Horowitz' Frontpage Magazine he called the investigation of Ward Churchill as the "Enron of the academic profession."

And now you thought this fake Indian thing was over after Ward Churchill? Apparently not. We have the next wannabe indian named "Yinishye Nasdijj." The difference between Churchill and "Nasdijj" is that Churchill's name is real while "Nasdijj" is not. Also, Churchill tried to look like an indian while "Nasdijj" doesn't but instead retained a fake Indian name of a "Navajo" descent.

Morris has suspected for years that Nasdijj is not who he says he is. A full-blooded Navajo and a professor of literature and Navajo studies at Dine College in Tsaile, Arizona, on the Navajo reservation, Morris is among the world’s foremost authorities on Navajo culture. Shortly after The Blood was published, he saw Nasdijj’s name listed on the national index of Native writers. Under the author’s bio, it said Nasdijj claimed his name meant “to become again” in Navajo Athabaskan. This came as news to Morris, who is fluent in Athabaskan. “There is no word Nasdijj’ in the Navajo language,” he explains. “It’s gibberish.”

"Nasdijj" was able to fool a lot more people than Churchill did, and for a long time, fooled US Publishing companies such as Ballantine books.

To catch "Nasdijj" as a fakery and a sham artist the investigion took documents like the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Division, social security and other public records to come up with a real name for this wannabe Indian "Yanishye Nasdijj." The person turned out to be Timothy P. Barrus, age 55, who had a prior career writing gay pornography.

A North Carolina newspaper The News and Observer was able to confirm the true identity of "Nasdijj" one day after an article called Navahoax where the author, Matthew Fleischer, questioned the identity of "Nasdijj." The article made compelling arguments on the possibility that Tim Barrus' past was all a fabrication by drawing similarities between Barrus and "Nasdijj."

The author of Navahoax, Matthew Fleischer, tried to contact Tim Barrus a week earlier before the article came out. He was never able to get a hold of him.

When I approached Nasdijj last week, via e-mail after many attempts to find a working phone number, I received a quick reply from someone called Mike Willis, who identified himself as Nasdijj’s assistant. He told me that Nasdijj was high in the Sierra Madres of Mexico without access to phones or the Internet. He offered no sense of when Nasdijj might return, adding that it was “quite sad” that the author couldn’t “defend himself.” When asked for a phone number for either himself or Tina Giovanni, Willis did not reply. Shortly thereafter, Nasdijj’s Web site was taken offline and all mention of his daughter Kree Barrus was removed from the archives of Giovanni’s blog. The next day, that blog was also shut down and queries sent to Nasdijj’s e-mail address went unanswered.

Tim Barrus' website may have been taken offline but not out of sight. A Yahoo search engine cache results were able to show his websites (here, here, here and here). Just click on the "cache" link to get to the saved websites. The Yahoo cache results lacked any pictures using the www.nasdijj.com website address or the www.nasdijj.typepad.com website. Using the Google image search came up with a plethora of pictures with some of them being a bit disconcerting knowing now that Tim Barrus has a certain predilection for young boys (see here and here for the two website address image results).

Though incestuous rape may be difficult to trump, perhaps even more disturbing is Nasdijj’s tendency to sexualize teenage boys. A recent post on his Web site featured a nude photograph of the open anus and testicles of a supposedly cancer-ridden teenager. Nasdijj claims this was done in an effort to humanize the disease, but such pictures are often posted alongside graphic accounts of adolescent sexuality. Indeed, they are sometimes posted alongside naked sadomasochistic pictures of Nasdijj himself.

Besides Timothy Barrus' website, his wife, Tina Giovanni, hosted her own blogsite (see www.autism911.blogspot.com). After the author of Navahoax tried to contact Barrus and Giovanni a week ago Giovanni's blogsite suddenly went offline but only to come back online minus its archives which only shows the January 2006 archive.

A post from Giovanni in July 2005 shows a picture of Nasdijj’s daughter, Kree, and Kree’s husband, Steve, both of whom, Giovanni says, are teachers in La Paz, Bolivia. A follow-up Internet search reveals the December 13, 2004, meeting
minutes of the American Educational Association of La Paz, announcing the hiring of Kree Barrus and Steve Poole as teachers at the American Cooperative School in
La Paz. (A photograph of Steve Poole on the American Cooperative School’s Web site confirms that he is the same Steve pictured in Giovanni’s blog.) As for Giovanni, a records search reveals her legal name to be Tina Giovanni Barrus, with addresses in and around Taos, New Mexico. This obviously begs the question — who exactly is Timothy Patrick Barrus?

Tina attempted to erase this information found in her blogsite sensing that the author of Navahoax, Matthew Fleischer, was already on to her and her husband. First, Nasdijj’s Web site was taken offline and all mention of his daughter Kree Barrus was removed from the archives of Giovanni’s blog. Or so they thought.

A Yahoo cache holds the archived Autism911 blogsite prior to January 2006 going back to June of 2005 where it began. The name Kree Barrus can be found in Yahoo's cache. Although pictures will not show up in the Yahoo Autism911 cache a simple right click of the mouse with the cursor over where a picture would be and click on "properties" to get the picture web address that can be copied into the URL address bar of your browser.

After all that ruckus by the Barrus family over the many years that it finally caught up with them did Tim and Tina disapear. Another difference between Ward Churchill and Tim Barrus is that one disappeared and ran away from any media spotlight while the other seems to bask in it.

John Miller of National Review Online discussed in his January 27, 2006 article "Honest Injun?" saying that the incidence of fake Indians is almost "epidemic" here in the United States. A good read.

We have Ward Churchill, Tim Barrus and James Frey who should answer on why on what they've done in order to make a buck from their book writing endeavors.