Sunshine Featherstone/Kai Turi/Sunshine Raste Featherstone not Sámi Noaidi

[emj023]

There is a man with three Facebook profile names who claims to be a Sámi noaidi and makes extremely dubious claims to Sámi identity. His claims are in fact too bizarre to even flush out, as his story changes depending on who he is addressing. He is originally from the UK, claims to also be Welsh and speak Welsh and claims to practice the "Druid ways" too. I will leave it to the "living Druids" (haha) to take that up, but the Sámi are a living people with cultural continuity and I can assure this forum that no living Sámi community has appointed him, or anyone else for that matter, the status of noaidi. It just doesn't work that way in Sápmi.

Here are the red flags:

The name Turi -- if he was, in fact, descended from the Turi clan or one of the Turi families, they would have claimed him a long time ago. It seems that a lot of wannabees glom onto the name Turi, likely because of the famous Sámi author who wrote a book called "Turi's Book of Lapland" which was later renamed "An Account of the Sámi". Too convenient.
claims that his Sámi ancestor left Sapmi in the 1700s and moved the UK

Self-appointing himself a Noaidi -- few, if any, Noaidi are in existence today. The vast majority were burned or forced into submission during the missionizing periods of the 1600s and 1700s in Sápmi. What remains of the pre-Christian way of the Noaidi are healing traditions and other local beliefts. The Sámi are predominantly Christian, like it or not. And they are every bit as Indigenous as they were before forced Christianization.

He is from the UK. He claims his ancestor came to the UK in the 1700s. Sorry, it just didn't work that way. If one Sámi person made their way to England back then, it is rather unlikely that that ONE person would have succeeded in not only carrying but also passing down, through three hundred years, Noaidi knowledge. This is pure, fantastical, fabrication.

He uses his self-appointed "Noaidi" status to hurt and spread vitriol. He recently went off on a respected elder in the Sámi American community. This man has known Sámi heritage, and is a practicing pagan in an old European tradition. While most Sámi Americans are Christian, this man is loved and respected by all, as he accepts everyone, never prostelizes or judges, and "walks the walk."

Finally, anyone who goes by the name "Sunshine Featherstone" and claims to be Sámi or a Noaidi is laughable. We never used those names, it is pure fantasty.

I had let this go for a long time, but when an individual begins to exploit our most sacred pre-Christian figure for their own self-gain and self-agrandizement, I can't let it slide. When I challenged him he got vitriolic, abusive, and threatened to "sue me."

[educatedindian]

Musician calling himself the Alien Shaman.
https://www.facebook.com/people/Sunshine-Featherstone/100009255070899
https://sunshinefeatherstone.bandcamp.com/
Note on album called Medicinal Music and another called Animist Hymns. Playing the sample shows a very British accent and dub music.

He's also on Prison Planet, Alex Jones' far right conspiracy forum.
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=270159.0

Also music under name Kai Turi.
https://soundcloud.com/kaituri

This and the second link show his location as Minneapolis in the US.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kai-turi-0a705baa

Here he says he was raised in Wales and offers to teach the language.
https://www.facebook.com/AmeriCymru/posts/10154577009127892

[emj023]

Thanks! I guess on some level he is also benefitting commercially from the self-appointment of the title "shaman" and "badass noaidi."

[emj023]

Sunshine has written to me privately and has apologized "if he offended me." It isn't really me he has offended, he has offended an entire living people who have REAL trauma and REAL contempory problems due to colonialism, which is ongoing. When our own people are not comfortable and safe claiming a Sámi identity in Sápmi, and when there are legitimate and humble claims to identity amongst descendents of Sámi immigrants to North America, I will not stand by and let someone exploit my people, that is, my people on both sides of the Atlantic.

I made it clear to him that being Welsh is pretty cool and that he should just stick to the Welsh and leave the Sámi alone. There is plenty of room for engagement with the Sámi if one is Welsh, the Sámi and Welsh are part of a large movement for the advancement and development of lesser used and threatened languages of Europe.

You can love and appreciate the Sámi culture, but you can't take it as your own. If you care about justice for the noaiddit who were burned at the stake, then support the contemporary Sámi people in their claims to political and cultural sovereignty, fight alongside them when the mining companies come to destroy their grazing lands and poison their fjords. But walk there with humility and stop taking our stuff.

I had been "onto" him for years, like several others who purport to have fantastical stories, complete with unicorned reindeer and other mythologies. For the sake of peace and because calling people out takes a lot of time and energy and can be painful for everyone, I have let it slide, and perhaps for too long. But when people start to exploit our most sacred pre-Christian beliefs for self-advancement and abusive vitriol on social media, I will not tolerate it.

Also, I have read some other posts about some other individuals that I have also been "onto" for years. I will write an introduction soon with some clarifications on the introductions page.

I want to make one thing very clear to anyone reading this thread: there are thousands of North Americans with legimate Sámi heritage and they are usually the ones who can smell a fake. Their ancestors came alongside Norwegian, Finnish, and Swedish immigrants. There were few, if any, Sámi from the Russian side of Sápmi who would have come to North America. The Sámi in Russia are only in the Kola Peninsula. North Americans with Sámi heritage are diverse, culturally and economically. Not everyone will be able to travel to Sápmi, but they are entitled to the truth about their heritage, they have a cultural birthright, just like they would with any other heritage. We would not insist that a Norwegian American must have traveled to Norway to call themselves a Norwegian American. We should not do that for the Sámi.

Thank you so much for this forum. I am grateful.

[RobinMavis]

Thanks for this post EMJ! I think Mr. Turi's approach is so reflective of the ways colonization and industrialization have corrupted hearts and minds. There is no longer a true respect for the sacred but a focus on fame and money. I often am informed by other traditions that have somehow managed to survive colonization - their approach is stillness and the quiet. The sacred (in this case talking about noaidi/shamanic worldview) doesn't need mankind to advertise it's validity or people to proclaim they are shamans...The sacred chooses its people not the other way around and comes through the quiet times...with no words.

Thanks again for standing up for Saami culture and people.

[SallyN]

If this is the same person - he's now looking for money.... got all the way to the US but couldn't afford to ship his instrument(s)? Really (sarcastic voice)?
https://www.gofundme.com/telyn

[emj023]

Yes. It is the same person. 

The vitriol has continued. First he apologized and "sort of" admitted wrongdoing. Then, swiftly, he ramped up again and started a little campaign against me with more abusive, highly personal, and bizarre spew. Culture thieves will always implode and they always seem to get really aggressive or behave in the most bizarre ways when they are revealed and called out. They also always seem to meet their own special karma.

How do we move this content from thread from a Needs Research to Known Fraud category? Does the admin do it or can I just start a new thread?

[Saami descendant]

I too have met Kai Turi/Sunshine Featherstone/Kai Featherstone/Kai Raste Featherstone, and I liked him.  I thought he was a very interesting person, a good musician, well-traveled, keenly intelligent,  etc.  He and his wife are into "back to the land" sort of existence,  hunting, farming, natural living, gardening, etc. which I greatly admire!   I'm not a pagan or new age in any way, but pagan and new age people don't bother me, as long as they don't judge my own beliefs.  The first time I met his wife, however, she told me that (because I practice Christianity) that my ancestors had burned her ancestors to the stake, and how did I feel about that?  That was not called for.  At that time, she wasn't claiming Sami identity, but Swedish.  As many of my ancestors are from Finland, there's a better chance that her ancestors had forcibly colonized and Christianized my people, since Finnish people were colonized by the Swedish people, given Germanic names, forcibly converting them to Christianity by the threat of the sword hundreds of years after the Swedes by and large gave up their ancient religion.  Previously, the Finns practiced a religion very close to that of my Saami ancestors, as both are Finno-Ugric people as well, though the Saami are the only ones with indigenous status and Finland evolved into a western, agrarian society with a Swedish ruling class (and sometimes Russian).  But I digress. 

At some point, his wife began identifying as Saami.  She did not believe she needed genealogy to do this.  She thought going into some kind of trance through a ceremony(?) she retrieved the name and identities of her Saami ancestors.  I have to say, the Saami community is very tolerant.  People don't know what to do when people say things like this.  On one hand, they try to be open to non-scientific experience and other ways of knowing.   So it is difficult to call out this stuff as bunk.  Kai's wife even offered to teach a workshop on ancestor name retrieval, but it didn't appear she was charging for it or that there were any takers.  Most folks just nod their heads and divert the conversation

When I first met Kai, he claimed his great-grandmother was from Norway and she was going to immigrate to North America but got off the boat in England and ended up marrying into a local family.  He claimed his family remained in touch with the family in Norway.  I thought he would have other "Turi" facebook friends and associates, as 2nd cousins is a rather close relationship in Saami terms, but he doesn't seem to be associated with any of them.   Then, later, I heard him claim his great-grandmother was from some other part of Sapmi.  Now emj23's post says he claims now that his family left for England in the 1700s, which is a complete shift in stories.  I've known other Americans who make nebulous claims about parents and/or grandparents being from Sapmi and once people get to know them, the stories change.  On one level, I feel sorry for them, because they seem to need community so badly, it is difficult to reject them. 

Also, because my Saami ancestry is a bit distant (great-great grandfather was part Saami) I feel like I am not the person to call out people on their level of Saami-ness. Maybe someone more Saami than I should do it, and it never seems to get done. 

I have come to realize the Saami-American community operates a bit like the Basque associations in North America; anyone who can show or prove a Basque ancestor, has a Basque surname, is accepted as Basque regardless of blood quantum.  We operate the same here in North America by accepting people with distant ancestry or those who seem sincere and whose stories seem plausible.  They tend not to have much to gain by being Saami.    No one in North America or Sapmi has never made me feel like I am not Saami enough to associate with other Saami, but knowing there are wanna-bees out there who make everyone else look bad makes me fearful.  Some of the wanna-bees seem to want to whip up Saami clothing so they can go to pow-wows in them, without regard that Saami clothing is highly specific to family clan and region.  On the other hand, Americans have left regions in Saamiland that have not had a dress tradition since the turn of the century or even earlier, and there's nothing contemporary in which one can model. But one can come to Native country with a sincere desire to help and to serve without dressing in indigenous clothing at all. 

The sad thing, is, that regardless of whether they are indeed Saami, no one would have cared had they come around with their Swedish and Welsh identities.  Everyone would have accepted Kai, his wife, and supported their interest in Saami people and they would have been invited to visit with Saami visitors and share in potlucks regardless if they were Saami or not.

When they were not calling people out, accusing people of things they didn't do to their ancestors or of beloved friends and elders of being Nazis, and claiming to be noaidi and other ridiculous tellings-off, I liked them both.