In a column in The Daily Telegraph a short while back Andrew Bolt used the word ‘pretendian.’
I conducted a careful search, and, so far, cannot locate this word in any of the major dictionaries.
However, it does appear in the hyper-hip online Urban Dictionary where ‘pretendian’ is defined as ‘a white American who claims to be at least part Native American.’
And that is how Andrew was using the word.
The most famous case in America is probably that of Senator Elizabeth Warren.
She claimed to be partly Cherokee, but this claim was rejected by some commentators.
So, she took a DNA test which showed that, yes, she did have a small amount of Native American DNA going back possibly six, more likely ten, generations—but it was not Cherokee.
She later apologised to the Cherokee people.
Then there was Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, an Englishman who migrated to Canada, changed his appearance, and claimed to be an Indian man named Grey Owl.
He wrote books and went on well-paying lecture tours and was only exposed after his death in 1938.
He was definitely a ‘prentedian.’
Then there’s the case of Thomas King—a Canadian writer and broadcaster who claimed to be at least part Cherokee.
However, he accepted findings by genealogists in 2025 that he has no Indigenous ancestry. Another ‘pretendian.’
Andrew Bolt also writes about Australian Bruce Pascoe, author of the best-seller Dark Emu who claims to have Aboriginal ancestry.
There is a website that has been set up to debunk his claims—darkemuexposed.org on which genealogists have confirmed that his ancestry is 100% British.
These are people that are said to be covered by the newish expression ‘pretendian.’
There have been earlier labels for them.
At one point they were called ‘race switchers’—people who grew up as white Australians and later announced that they had some Aboriginal blood and, therefore, now identified as Aboriginal.
Later this label was changed to ‘box ticker’—because on many official forms no evidence is required of Aboriginality, all you have to do is tick the box that says ‘Indigenous’ and whatever benefits go with that label are yours.
And in those cases where ticking such a box has unjustified, and has no supporting evidence, this new word of ‘pretendian’ applies.
The Urban Dictionary has traced the origin of ‘pretendian’ back to 2007.
Tonight, I will join John Stanley on 2GB, 4BC, 2CC and the Nine Radio Network for 'The Word Clinic' -- right after the 10pm news (9pm in Queensland). This is your chance to text or call with any question or comment you have on words or language.
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