Yesterday's Blaze report on Massachusetts senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren revealed two thing: a) her claim to Cherokee Indian heritage was touted by more that just Harvard Law School and b) she and her campaign staff have done a pretty dreadful job of handling the public’s (understandably) negative reaction to her failure to produce proof of ancestry.

And it looks like one of the pieces of evidence she provided as proof of her Native American heritage (an obscure 1984 cookbook, “Pow Wow Chow,” written by her cousin Candy Rowsey) is going to be another headache for her PR staff.

Image courtesy Boston Herald

“Elizabeth Warren was touting her claim of Cherokee heritage as early as 1984, according to a cookbook titled ‘Pow Wow Chow,’” the Boston Herald’s Hillary Chabot reports.

In the cookbook, the senatorial candidate is identified as “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee.” In fact, her Cherokee title can be seen next to the five recipes she contributed. But what’s particularly interesting is that although Warren has the title of Cherokee, she isn’t identified as an official member of the Cherokee tribe in the cookbook.

“News of Warren’s Cherokee recipes comes as outraged members of the tribe — including a Warren supporter — demanded she release her employment records following reports that she has no documentation to prove her Native American ancestry,” Chabot reports.

Image courtesy Boston Herald

“If I were her I would release those employment documents,” said Steve Russell, an enrolled Cherokee, “I guess she thinks because she doesn’t have to release them then no one will care, but I guarantee you Indians care, and I care.”

Twila Barnes, a Cherokee genealogist, was a little more straightforward: “She needs to admit the truth. There is no documentation showing that she has Cherokee ancestry. She needs to come clean and release her employment records.”

Needless to say, if it’s shown that Warren only claimed she was Cherokee Indian to help launch her prestigious careers at top tier universities, it will reflect very poorly on said universities. Perhaps realizing this, Harvard Law professor Charles Fried, the man who recruited Warren, has rushed to her defense.

Image courtesy Boston Herald

“In spite of conclusive evidence to the contrary, the story continues to circulate that Elizabeth Warren enjoyed some kind of affirmative action leg-up in her hiring as a full professor by the Harvard Law School. The innuendo is false,” Fried said in a statement yesterday. “I can state categorically that the subject of her Native American ancestry never once was mentioned."

William A. Jacobson of Legal Insurrection offers a little perspective (just in case you think this whole thing is just too silly):

In isolation this story is a little silly, except that it’s not in isolation. Warren was touted as Native American at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, listed herself that way in law association forms in the mid-1980s through mid-1990s, and touted herself in a cookbook as Cherokee. Yet there is no evidence that she is Cherokee, and all the evidence is to the contrary.

(H/T: Hot Air)