JK Rowling has been accused of “cultural appropriation” in the first part of her new series of writings on the history of magic in North America.

Her history of the 14th to 17th century was released on Pottermore on Tuesday, but it was quickly criticised for placing Native American customs among, and even attributing some legends such as skin walkers to, her wizarding world.

JK Rowling
Rowling’s latest writings have come under fire (Dan Hallman/Invision)

Dr Adrienne Keene of the Cherokee Nation, who is a post-doctoral fellow in Native American studies at Brown University, wrote in a blog post on her website Native Appropriations: “Native spirituality and religions are not fantasy on the same level as wizards. These beliefs are alive, practised, and protected.”

She took particular issue with Rowling’s claims that skin walkers – people who could shapeshift into animals in Navajo lore – are actually Animagi.

The Pottermore post read: “The legend of the Native American ‘skin walker’ – an evil witch or wizard that can transform into an animal at will – has its basis in fact.

“A legend grew up around the Native American Animagi, that they had sacrificed close family members to gain their powers of transformation.”

One Twitter user asked: “Were the skin-walkers evil or not? Or were they simple animagus?”

In the blog post, Keene added: “We fight so hard every single day as Native peoples to be seen as contemporary, real, full, and complete human beings and to push away from the stereotypes that restrict us in stock categories of mystical-connected-to-nature-shamans or violent-savage-warriors.

“How in the world could a young person watch this and not make a logical leap that Native peoples belong in the same fictional world as Harry Potter?”

Her comments were backed by those on Twitter.

Debbie Reese, of the Nambe Owingeh tribe, called Rowling’s writing a “misrepresentation” of the culture.

One sarcastically wrote: “‘Hey, is it cool if I just lump this part of your tribal legends under ‘animagi’?'… The answer was pretty obviously going to be ‘No’.”

It is worth noting that not everyone in the Native American community has been upset by the story.

Rowling is yet to respond to the accusations of cultural appropriation.

The rest of her writing explained that wizards knew about America long before it was “discovered” by Christopher Columbus due to magical forms of communication.

It also goes into more detail about wandless magic, with wands introduced to North America by the European wizards.

Rowling will be releasing three more parts to her history of magic in North America over the coming week.