Jamake Highwater

Jamake Highwater
Born
Jackie Marks

13 February 1931
Los Angeles, California, US
DiedJune 1, 2001(2001-06-01) (aged 70)[1]
Los Angeles, California, US
OccupationWriter
AwardsNewbery Honor

Jamake Mamake Highwater (born Jackie Marks; 13 February 1931 – June 3, 2001[1]), also known as "J Marks", was an American writer and journalist of Eastern European Jewish ancestry who mispresented himself as Cherokee.

In the late 1960s, Marks assumed a pretendian identity, claiming to be Cherokee, and used the name "Jamake Highwater" for his writings. As Highwater, he wrote and published more than 30 fiction and non-fiction books of music, art, poetry and history. His children's novel Anpao: An American Indian Odyssey (1973) received a Newbery Honor. His book The Primal Mind: Vision and Reality in Indian America (1981) was the basis of a PBS film documentary about Native American culture.

Marks was exposed as an impostor in 1984 by Assiniboine activist Hank Adams and reporter Jack Anderson in separate publications.[2][3] Despite this, Marks continued to be widely perceived by the general public as Native American.[4]

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