Marshall "Dancing Elk" Lucas/Notoweega Nation

[milehighsalute]

Not sure where to put this

I think we need a section for artists (that include authors, actors too) passing themselves off as native and also fake tribes

This relatively unknown actor.....probably slightly less known as jai janini popped up....i read his bio then read his "tribal history" and yep it screams fake

I also cracked up reading that the notoweega were formed in ohio and warred with tribes down in south carolina? Woodland tribes werent known for being nomadic right?

They applied for state recognition in 2022

[educatedindian]

Lucas is their chief as well as an actor. Whether he or they are legit are completely tied together. Here's what their site says:

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http://notoweeganation.org/index.php/about-us
he Notoweega or Norwards, also known as, Andatses, Hurons, Susquehannocks and Mingos, are an inter-tribal grouping of Southeastern tribes, that were one fire with the Delaware, Iroqouis,   and warred Tutelo/Catawba/Saponi's of South Carolina and Virginia. The Notoweega consisted of mainly, the Cusabo(Wapoo), Nottoway, Shawnee(Showanose), Meherrins, Cherokee(Tsalagi), Delaware(Lenape), Conastogas, Tuscaroroa's, Mingo-Seneca and eventually the Tutelo, Saponi, Catawba.

Through, war disease, and intermarriage, the various tribes banded together to retain their culture, land and traditions....

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Some of those are very distinct from each other, and some are still very much around. Mingos mostly became the Seneca Cayuse. Huron mostly became Wyandotte. Susquehannock and Andatses were wiped out, extinct. And that sentence "The Notoweega consisted..." goes on to list one people after another I think wpuld be very surprised to hear they are or were part of this group.

The group calling itself Notoweega seems to have only been around a few decades. They didn't file for state recognition until 2012, federal earlier. Then there's this:

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http://notoweeganation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&layout=edit&id=116[
Retired Hereditary Chief of the Notowega Band of Chickamauga Creeks
Written by Sachem Great Elk Dancer Published in Hereditary Sachems
Was Head & Hereditary Sachem of the Chigamaugua Notoweega Creeks, whose Councils at the time were held in Staten Island, N.Y. until the year 2000. He was the signer of our Federal Petition with the United States Government. The Council was then moved to the ancestral homelands of the Ohio Valley under then, New Principle Sachem Sylvester Myrick and Original Council Member, War Sachem Great Elk Dancer For His Elk Nation.

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So the "tribe" was based in NYC because one leader lived there? Then they all declared themselves moved to Ohio. And at one point they petitioned Maryland for state recognition.

Lucas has been pretty active. He tried to have a casino in Ohio which was also accused of being a head shop, selling marijuana paraphernalia. I don't support the War on Drugs by any means, but doing this is just asking for people to consider your group a bunch of flakes.

Then he tried an online casino. He's filed suit against the city of Logan, state of Ohio, and federal gov't. You can find the long list of news accounts about that on their own site, alongside cultural events.
http://notoweeganation.org/index.php/news/notoweega-news

Not sure how many are part of this group. FB page lists 923 followers, but in the photos you rarely see more than a few together. Their supposed tribal forum is really empty.
http://notoweeganation.org/index.php/forum/index

There are several online obituaries for members who passed on who are listed as chiefs or other ranks. Can't help notice many mixed ancestry Black people. There are references to Notoweega as Qarsherskiy. Looking that up turns up this site and others:

https://qarsherskiy.simdif.com/faqs.html
https://micronations.wiki/wiki/Draft:Qarsherskiyans
https://www.instagram.com/qarsherskiy/
https://www.waivio.com/@koudeiland4news/islamic-sultanate-of-qarsherskiy
And dozens more.

Describing themselves as mixed race Creoles, Muslims and others. There was a strange offshoot, a supposed sultanate.
https://www.reddit.com/r/micronations/comments/1mdsia9/the_dark_truth_about_the_islamic_sultanate_of/

[Sandy S]

Marshall Wayne Lucas, born 1961.

Active Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dancing.elk.3

Name of business is Notoweega Nation Inc. First filed in Ohio in 2002. Search here: https://businesssearch.ohiosos.gov/

They received USDA funds for a Notoweega Nation Beekeepers Training Program to maintain bees in "the tribally designated jurisdictional area of the Notoweega Nation".

I'm curious what kind of feathers shown in this photo of him. He's holding one and looks like at least one in his hair. https://www.logandaily.com/news/lucas-given-probation-in-illegal-gambling-case/article_d3fd6c10-84de-559d-9bf9-212bbd18eec5.html

"Notoweega Nation - A Pre -Jesuit, Pre - U.S. Constitution, Tribal Government"  https://www.facebook.com/NotoweegaNation

[Sandy S]

In the initial articles of incorporation, 2002 for Notoweega Nation Inc. the purpose of corporation is "To preserve Native American Culture, History, Languages and to educate the population at large of Native Traditions."

Directors:
Sharon 'Mide" Land
Marshall "Dancing Elk" Lucas
Sylvester Myrick  (Raven/Fox)

The form is filled out by several people, all handwritten, I may have some spelling wrong.

[Sandy S]

Some beginning genealogy leads here:

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/dispatch/name/maxine-howard-obituary?id=28779586

I used some social media leads also to figure this out.

Marshall "Dancing Elk" Lucas,  "Great Elk Dancer"

his mother Shawna Burkham

maternal grandparents Maxine M. (Adams) Howard https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47841207/maxine-m-howard and Marshall Andrew Howard https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47841191/marshall_a-howard

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We are one of the few Nations, whom has a core family group (Mayle, Mail, Male) is listed on a federal census that is not an specific Indian Census or Roll. By 1837, 46,000 Native Americans from these southeastern states had been removed from their homelands, ours, never left the bones of our Ancestors

http://notoweeganation.org/index.php/public-documents/146-1860-preston-county-census-indian
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I don't really understand what he is saying here. But I do see a Mayle in a crowd sourced genealogy of his maternal grandmother. Crowd sourced and online meaning it easily could be inaccurate. Even if everything is backed up with records that does not prove his claims.

His emphasis on "core family group" leads people to believe that if they have a surname on the claimed list that they then are members of this "tribe".

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"Tribal offices located in Logan, Ohio. United States, "Turtle Island".
Inherent Sovereign Government
Affiliated with the Escuit, S.C.
Over 30,000 members
Pre United States Constitution
We do not recognize the authority of Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Conducting Business as a self sustaining people."

http://notoweeganation.org/index.php/facts
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(ESCIUT https://cherokeeofsc.com/ , not federally recognized)
30 thou members? The Notoweega FB page has 923 followers.
As Dancing Elk he has about 4 thou followers. Marshall Dancing Elk Lucas on Instagram has 361 followers.

[Sandy S]

According to records uploaded to a crowd sourced family tree, everyone in censuses is listed "mulatto". All the way back, quite a few generations, to a slave owner who was born in England.

But this isn't professional genealogy. He'd need to pay a pro.

Everything he claims looks invented. He is performing, acting.

[educatedindian]

"Pre Jesuit" meaning they were supposedly around before Jesuits arrived in the 17th century? Seems strange to emphasize though. The first missionaries or whites their alleged ancestors would have met would likely have been Protestant.

I've never seen feathers that look off yellow like that. They don't seem to be eagle, hawk, or turkey. Or could very old ones turn that color, or ones that were treated...

ESCIUT has its own documented problems with their claims, but they're not as out there as Lucas's group.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Cherokee,_Southern_Iroquois,_and_United_Tribes_of_South_Carolina
"The ECSIUT was originally founded as a Cherokee heritage group in 1997, including Native Americans and individuals from other ethnic backgrounds, without requiring ancestral or blood relation among members.[1][2][3]
Gene Crediford, who photographed and interviewed various groups in South Carolina from the 1980s through the 2000s, has noted that Columbia, South Carolina, where the ECSIUT was founded, lacked central communal organization in modern history and had been historically associated with Cofitachequi rather than the Cherokee people.[22] He concluded that the ECSIUT, like the Midlands Intertribal Empowerment Group (MIEG) from which it evolved, represented recently formed urban groups rather than "traditional communities."[12] Similarly, Wes Taukchiray, writing fifteen years earlier with Alice Kasakoff in 1992, observed that while Cherokee heritage groups were forming near Greenville and Spartanburg, their members could not trace descent to historically documented Indigenous communities in the state, all of which being located in the South Carolina Lowcountry.[23] Crediford has noted that some individuals with ambiguous ancestry often identify as "Cherokee," regarding the term to be synonymous with "Indian."[22]" -quoted as of 12-31-25.