Got a request about him and his book. This would have been their post in its entirety if not for our tech problems keeping out new members.
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A few years ago, someone I followed online proposed a reading group for the book Restoring the Kinship Worldview: Indigenous Voices Introduce 28 Precepts for Rebalancing Life on Planet Earth. On the cover, the authors' names are listed as Wahinkpe Topa (Four Arrows) and Darcia Narvaez, PhD. The book is structured as dialogues between the two authors interspersed with selected readings. The "28 precepts" were based on previous work by "Four Arrows".
I got the audiobook, believing the first author to be an Indigenous elder. I wasn't alone in that perception--just consider the subtitle of the book and the seemingly Lakota name. As of writing (9/29/2025), this is the first review for the book on Amazon:
5.0 out of 5 stars A mind expanding experience
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2025
This book is a beautiful conversation between Indigenous Elders, an Indigenous scholar Four Arrows. and Darcia Narvarez Phd. Presenting Kinship World View. Beautiful
I don't believe the second author (Narvaez) actually claims to be Indigenous, by the way. She's a scientist who seems to be looking to "Four Arrows" as an expert on Indigenous knowledge.
What shocked me when listening were the following sections that only occur halfway through the book:
As an Irish man with “unproven” Cherokee heritage, I was made a relative of the Oglala Lakota.
He's basically admitting to being a Pretendian here. Note that up until this point in the book, he told many stories/made many claims that made me believe he was a legitimate Lakota medicine man. Then:
When I was director of a large residential school and treatment center for adjudicated youth in Idaho, I successfully employed this philosophy. It was referred to at the time as the “restorative justice” model. [...] Indeed, such an approach scared the Mormon community around the residential school I directed so much that they got me fired when we proved our program worked so well that we reduced physical restraints where counselors brought children to the floor from 144 per quarter to twenty-two, and we reduced attempted escapes to zero.
He's bragging about imprisoning youth in a residential school and "only" having them physically assaulted in this certain way 22 times per quarter. We know Indigenous youth were most likely overrepresented at this "school", not that minors from any nation should be incarcerated. He literally made a living as the top overseer of this. I don't know how y'all feel about that, but I stopped listening to the book at that point and felt sick that I'd been conned into buying it.
I read stuff on this forum that showed me other red flags for him being a Pretendian and New Age Fraud, IIRC including his public use of a name supposedly given to him in ceremony and claiming to be a pipe carrier.
This is his full bio from the back of the book:
Four Arrows Currently a professor of educational leadership at Fielding Graduate University, Four Arrows (a.k.a. Wahinkpe Topa), a.k.a. Donald Trent Jacobs, is a made relative of the Oglala Lakota and a member of the Medicine Horse Tiospaye. He is a pipe carrier, having fulfilled his Sun Dance vows while living on the Pine Ridge Reservation and serving as director of education at Oglala Lakota College. His great grandmother was adopted by a white family in Missouri after escaping from the Trail of Tears, according to family history and an old photo, but he had no exposure to that culture while growing up. After his experiences with the Rarámuri of Mexico, as described in his book Primal Awareness, he obtained a doctorate in education focusing on Indigenous worldview from Boise State University. The Alternative Education Resource Organization selected him as one of thirty-five visionaries in education who tell their stories in the book Turning Points. His many books, chapters, peer-reviewed papers, journal articles, and online presentations have made him an internationally recognized and respected authority on decolonizing, counterhegemonic democracy, and Indigeneity. His work has been endorsed by such notables as Vine Deloria Jr., Greg Cajete, Daniel Wildcat, Ed McGaw, Rebecca Adamson, Noam Chomsky, Vandana Shiva, Bill McKibben, Thom Hartmann, John Pilger, and many others. He is a recipient of a Martin-Springer Institute Moral Courage Award for his activism on behalf of American Indians, and he has continued such activism for Indigenous peoples in many countries. He lives with his wife, Beatrice Angela, in Mexico and British Columbia, where eco-activism, surfing, handball, horses, music, and grandchildren are important focuses.
The bio on Amazon, which is likely all readers would have access to before buying the book or audiobook, doesn't mention that he's a "made relative" or that his own claim to Native lineage isn't verifiable:
Don Trent Jacobs, aka Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa) AUTHOR OF MORE THAN 22 BOOKS ON Indigenous worldview, education and wellness. Recipient of Martin Springer Institute Moral Courage Award. Selected by AERO as one of 27 "visionaries in education." Former Director of Education at Oglala Lakota College and tenured AP at NAU. Currently a professor in educational leadership for change at Fielding Graduate University.
He says he was taught/included in ceremonies by Rick Two Dogs. I did a quick search and, as a completely unqualified non-native, don't see any reason to think Rick Two Dogs is not legit.
Overall, Donald Trent Jacobs seems to be a career Pretendian scholar who likely actually has Native friends and some amount of acceptance for his writings. For example, a previous post on this forum quoted him:
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4558.msg46833#msg46833He's also smart enough to be more-or-less honest about having originally identified as certain tribes based on family lore that he wasn't able to verify, instead of doubling down on a a false story. He may still be explicitly lying where he can get away with it, though--e.g. this bio quoted in the Wikipedia article of him is still up as of writing and says, "Don Trent Jacobs, Ph.D., Ed.D., aka Four Arrows (Wahinkpe Topa) is an American Indian: Cherokee, Muscogee Creek, and Scots-Irish ancestry, a university professor, author and activist."
https://www.wcspeakers.com/speaker/donald-trent-jacobs-ph-d-ed-d-aka-four-arrows-ph-d-ed-d/Regardless of whether he's technically lying about his ancestry, I still feel sick, taken advantage of, and misled based on how he presented himself for most of this book, and I'm concerned that many other non-Native people sincerely going to his work for education are also being lied to and exploited. On Amazon, this book currently has 146 reviews, a 4.7-star average, and zero 1-star reviews, which to me suggests that well-meaning people are not seeing the red flags.
The entire premise of this book is to promote supposed pan-Indigenous ideas, which I'm sure people here would be critical of. But he's trying to innoculate readers against criticisms in advance by portraying critics as ignorant traditionalists who don't comprise a majority of "Indigenous spiritual leaders". The larger context of him admitting to being a Pretendian was this [last paragraph most relevant]:
Four Arrows: Thank you for your beautiful and supportive words about my decision to use my ceremonial and nature-based approach as an alternative way to heal. You are correct in saying that someone without a deep understanding of Indigenous spirituality may not understand. Ceremonies are at the heart of First Nations spiritual practices. To do them effectively, one must know about related ancient stories, symbolic items, songs, and language. Being far away from the Lakota culture here in Mexico, the inipi ceremony is one of my primary practices. In the purification lodge (initi), purification leads to healing, rebirth, and a reconnection with the Spirit world on behalf of all life. Inipi, the word for the ceremony, means “to live again.” With my ceremonial communications, whether in the lodge or on a mountaintop, I learn important information about my health more deeply than when in the doctor’s office. It is important to seek the complementarity between both, but the priority is what I gather from my communing with the spiritual energies. They help me see cancer as a teaching gift, not an enemy to kill.
Although, as I said, there is no question about the importance of understanding a ceremony, one can take this too far. Many American Indian traditionalists have forgotten how to conduct a number of their original cultural ceremonies. There is still interpretive variation in conducting ceremonies for those where people still remember origin stories, songs, and protocols. Ceremonies are living, changing entities. Ceremonies are like rivers and change here and there, and whoever leads their own ceremony often has their own version of it. Furthermore, ceremonies are not somber events. A sacred ceremony is not sacred without humor prevailing, for example. Mistakes are made and corrected. This said, it can be dangerous to participate in a ceremony led by someone who does not have sufficient knowledge. An extreme example of this is the non-Indian who made millions of dollars leading Lakota inipi ceremonies without sufficient knowledge. He actually was responsible for the deaths of three people who died from the heat in the purification lodge.6 In 1998 a number of Lakota spiritual leaders published their statement about “War against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality.”7 Further proclamations by Lakota spiritual leaders have said only Indigenous People can participate in Sun Dances and that in order to pour water in an inipi, one must have fulfilled their Sun Dance vows and at least know the prayers and songs in the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota language.
However, it is important to note here that Indigenous spiritual leaders are divided down the middle on such mandates about who can participate in ceremonies. As an Irish man with “unproven” Cherokee heritage, I was made a relative of the Oglala Lakota. (The “making relative” ceremony is one of the seven sacred Lakota ceremonies that includes the Sun Dance and the purification lodge). I have completed my Sun Dance vows, I am a pipe carrier, and I know my songs and prayers in Lakota. However, I am on the side that says what Fools Crow said long ago: “These ceremonies do not belong to Indians alone. . . . We are keepers of certain areas of knowledge, which we are to share for the good of mankind. . . . If we don’t the whole world will die.”8
The last citation goes to: Frank Fools Crow and Thomas Mails, Fools Crow (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 51.
I personally think this play at being the nuanced, educated person who's considered both sides is worse, at least for some audiences, than the ridiculous Nuagers selling past-life Cherokee crystal healing and other over-the-top lies. As someone who knows very little about the subject, I have to keep reminding myself that he deceived us from the very cover of the book to believe he was Lakota himself, and a white settler trying to be accountable to the communities his people harm wouldn't do that.
Anyway, I'd love other people's thoughts on whether this man is a fraud, and also if anyone does a deep-dive into his teachings, would love to read some insights into what people exposed to them might have to unlearn.
