#the places they live in america are all the indigenous names!

[aroaessidhe]

2022 reads // twitter thread      

A Half-Built Garden

aliens make first contact & offer to help humans evacuate from what they think is a dying earth

but actually human networks are trying to heal from climate change and don’t all want to leave

diplomacy, navigating different cultures, non-anthropomorphic aliens, parenting, family,

queer, trans, jewish

#A Half-Built Garden #a half built garden #aroaessidhe 2022 reads #ok overall i really loved this #really complex and interesting alien culture/human culture discussions #it felt a litle odd that of all of earth there was only like 3 groups of people talking to the aliens? I didn't get a sense of the global di #distribution of human society #like obviously if there were tons of different [countries] all there it would have been distracting but idk #(I think it did explain why there were only a few of them lol but) #obviously i prefer the intimate complexity of just focusing on a few anyway; so #The following is not really a critique of the book just something that was really distracting for me: #there's an artifical island called zealand which is south of australia; and is like. supercorportate/capitalist/antagonists #and im like. is this the future version of NZ? or is it separate? there's no acknowledgment of any of this other than its name #they also go there and there's none of our culture or anything. it's also in an australian timezone and has aussie native plants #and i'm like - are you implying nz is australian? also someone there is talking about fruit and calls kiwifruit 'kiwis' . #basically i'm just like why is this called zealand!! it's distracting!! you could have made up a name!! #also besties in a somewhat progressive future it should be called Aotearoa!!!! #like if there was mention of the fact that aotearoa exists and also this corporate zealand was made by the rich white billionaires? #i'd be like yeah ok. because there is mention/discussion of colonialism and indigenous cultures in other parts of the book! #the places they live in america are all the indigenous names!

[shopcat]

also whenever i joke about going to america and getting cheeseburger that is obviously in a loving way i never had a cheeseburger when i was there and it ruins me. and the joke is funny but like that post that's like americans live to say brother this one's on the house. which kills me. but it's not hateful ☝️ OR in that way those wet eyed losers who call all americans dumb and stupid and are like insane and classist and racist abojt it. also apparently when i was there we also went to a diner where the waitresses were on rollerblades and i didn't even fucking notice because i had a cold and was zonked out of my mind which also is just crazy. Land of dreams

#🐾 #and then they went off menu to make me a chicken soup which was really sweet and makes me cry a little thinking about it #anywya i love america any hate i have is for individual idiots who americans would also hate #ans anyone not from there can probably relate it's all just minor annoyances that stack up over a life time but that they don't even think #abt. like the centralisation of american media and news #RMR WHEN j posted about drinking alcohol when i was 18 and someone was like but that's not the drinking age #and i was like no it is where i live and thy were like well you should still abide by the 21 age bc that's there for a reason and ur #setting a bad example. BRAH #or when the election comes round and people forget there are ? 😭 other countries #honestly politics is such a big one the audacity to be mad that we don't CARE at all about american politics like that #i don't care who the president of a country 15000 miles away is 😭 name one australian state #but i dunno like yeah it's all petty shit but i think we're allowed to be annoyed 🤨 #also when americans in particular but europeans as well try and have opinions on things happening HERE #still mad that one time i saw a callout for someone for race faking bc they were whitepassing and said they were indigenous australian #like you have to be actually fucking stupid to ignorantly comment like literally do one google search #or when they make fun of city and town names here sounding silly or made up 😭 wild #anyway. way too much to even go over but this is still all individualised annoying cunts #i think america is a cool place 👍 with as many flaws as every other country and as much history of covering them up as them as well 👍

[o-wyrmlight]

I haven't said anything on here because I've been so focused on what's been happening on Twitter. I spent six or more hours last night just retweeting whatever I could to help raise a ruckus. For anybody who isn't aware of what's been happening:

For the past 75 years, Israel has been doing exactly what the United States of America did to indigenous natives when we first began to claim the territory. They've been pushing Palestinians off of their homeland and claiming the land for themselves. They've been stealing homes and territory that doesn't belong to them, engaging in a quiet genocide.

They control what goes in an out of the border. They control how much food Palestinians are allowed to have access to. They control how much water and electricity Palestinians have access to in a day. They control how many times a year and how far out fishing boats are able to go, and they're relegated to areas where there are no fish. The amount of ships aren't enough to sustain the population. Israel has ensured that Palestinians cannot build bomb shelters by preventing those materials from coming into the country.

On October 7th, 2023, a Gazan organization named Hamas, which is stationed in the Palestinian city of Gaza, decided to retaliate. They did a plethora of horrible things to Israeli people, taking hostages. In response, Israel has begun being more aggressive and upfront in its genocidal attempts to eradicate Palestinians.

This is not an exaggeration. Israel is very upfront about what they want. The official Israeli account has posted what they've done proudly. The first event that made people outside of Palestine aware of what was going on was the bombing of a hospital that Israel boasted of, and then later walked back to claim it was a Hamas base.

There are rules of war to follow. Among them, it is a war crime to attack where people are taking shelter in places of religion and hospitals. Once this information was revealed and made obvious, public outcry for the support of Palestine began to ring out. Apparently it wasn't even the first hospital that Israel had targeted--there were over 10 at the time and more to come in the following days.

Consider that Israel knew they were targeting the hospital and sent out a warning for them to evacuate, and then remind yourself that there were people in the in the hospital who relied on the medical equipment to live. Where were they supposed to go on such short notice? Children and babies were killed. Israel admitted to doing this and then claimed that the hospital was a Hamas base. And soon after, they claimed that it was a misfired rocket by Hamas that hit the hospital. Isn't that so convenient?

Israel has warned a city to travel the road down south in ten hours--on foot, on a hiking trail that takes more than twelve--to reach safety. They promised they would be safe and that Gaza was the only place they were aiming to destroy. Instead, Israel proceeded to bomb and destroy the only safe passage that they were able to get. They weren't safe at all.

In the days to come, Israel would proceed to turn off all electricity and water in Palestine. They would continue to bomb various places under the presumption that they were Hamas bases. Hamas comes from the city of Gaza, so that doesn't explain why several of those places--even hospitals--were much farther south.

Yesterday, they bombed the communication tower that Palestinians have been relying on to communicate with the outside world. As far as I know, they've been dark ever since.

Egyptians have been trying to help. They've been trying to demand the gates to open so that they can send humanitarian aid in. There are people--good people--who don't care if they die for the cause or not. Hardly any humanitarian aid has been able to come in, and Israel has been teasing Egypt, their own weaponry poking at their boarder as a threat. If several missiles cross Egyptian boarders, how is it their fault of they were aiming at a hostile air craft?

Remember how much Israel monitored what comes in and what comes out of Palestine. They control how much electricity and water a day they have. They control their maritime and how far from the coast they're allowed to fish. Do you think that Palestinians are able to build such air crafts?

Egyptians have witnessed the horrors that have been happening from across the sea. The sky was red with fire and alight with bombs. The horizon echoed with the noise and the assault didn't cease. I don't know if it's still going on. I don't know if it ever stopped. But Israel is sending out ground troops now, and who knows how far that went since last night.

Israel calls this a war. Palestinians haven't been able to fight back. They don't have any weapons or a military of their own. Entire families have been wiped off of the face of the earth, numbering probably well over forty by this point. Entire generations are at risk of being killed. This isn't a war. This is a genocide.

Israel claims that Hamas hides behind its civilians for protection, but all Israel is doing is hiding behind Hamas as an excuse to commit ethnic cleansing.

The worst part to me is that world powers who could have done something to prevent this are actively doing nothing. The United States has been providing Israel with the very weapons that they're using to obliterate Palestine off of the face of the map. Britain has outlawed protests speaking up in support of Palestine. And there are a lot of protests. The public opinion knows that this is wrong. Joseph Biden has casted doubt on how many Palestinians have actually died just before the blackout occured.

The warning signs have been here for 75 years, and nobody has done anything about it. And now Palestinians are facing the most brutal evil that mankind is capable of, and nobody who can do anything about it is willing to lift a finger. What's the point of the United Nations to create laws of war that are to be followed if those laws aren't going to be enforced? What kind of message does that send to countries that violate those laws?

That they can get away with it.

This isn't even to touch on the fact that Israel has been paying content creators and companies to speak up in support of Israel. I wouldn't be surprised if they're doing the same with popular celebrities in the United States and elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if this is a part of why politicians are refusing to lift a finger to hold Israel accountable for their actions. Israel has always wanted control of the narrative. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

I do want to point out that despite these horrors, it's important to remember that, while Israel has done these horrible things, you shouldn't blame the individual people. Not every single Israeli believes in this genocidal cause, but the system of government that encourages and rewards these behaviors should be held accountable. Israelis who disagree with Israel are very likely at risk of being punished severely if they express their beliefs. It's important to remember that.

Israel will cry antisemitism because they are a Jewish state: Holding them accountable for their actions is not antisemitism. Do not be afraid to do so. I have seen videos of Jewish people in the United States leading mass protests in support of Palestine, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, for Palestine to be free. Don't blame all Jewish people or Israelites for this horror. Be angry at Israel the government, Israel the politicians, Israel the people who support them rabidly and celebrate the death of millions.

I know for a fact that there are some things I've missed. It's so difficult to tactfully cover everything that's happened over the past couple of weeks. But hopefully this is enough to let those who aren't aware of what's been happening know.

I'm ashamed to be a United States American. And I am angry at the politicians and the people in power who could have voted for a ceasefire and didn't. We are witnessing the evils of humanity at work this month. And yet we are also witnessing the selfless good that humanity is capable of, leading protests to free Palestine and call for a ceasefire, trying their best to raise attention to the people who did nothing. History will remember them as the villains of this story.

It feels like there isn't much you can do. But just knowing and spreading awareness of the situation is enough. It is enough. Israel has hired companies and social media to do their best to stifle talk and conversation about Palestine. YouTube has deleted fifteen years' worth of videos examining the Palestinian occupation and Palestinian culture as a whole. Israel wants Palestine to die in silence and be forgotten.

All you need to know is what is happening. All you need to know is to remember and not forget. All you need to know is acknowledge the Palestinian's generations-long suffering, know that we're living through a genocide, and see how world powers do nothing about it. This is how Adolf Hitler got away with it for so long.

So remember. Keep it in mind. Learn the warning signs. And be sure to remember this when it happens again.

Free Palestine.

#free palestine #ceasefire in gaza #ceasefire NOW #palestine #gaza #hamas #israel #israel hamas war #israel hamas conflict #free gaza #gazaunderattack #gaza strip #save gaza

[writingwithcolor]

Creatures of Folklore Who Represent Cultures Preventing Wars Throughout History

Anonyomous asked:

Hi! I’m writing a story which is set in a fantasy version of our world. The main difference between our real world and my fictional version is that the spirits and fairies of each culture and folklore exist, and that the majority of them basically stop war from happening because they react very badly (and potentially violently) when invading forces etc try to start battles. 

I’m doing a lot of research into the histories of the various cultures that will be featured in the books set in this world so I can hypothesise how they might have developed without, for example, violent colonialism, and where trade and so on might have flourished in its place. However, it’s possible for colonialism to happen through more insidious ways, such as assimilation. In one of my books, I’m intending to use this as part of the plot, where Japan will try to colonise the Ryukyuan Kingdom through assimilation, but will be stopped by the Ryukyuan Kingdom making allies with other nations (amongst other tactics), but I was wondering if you had any advice for respectfully handling the colonialism that very much did happen in real life in a fantasy setting where it didn’t manage to occur, without erasing the history and ramifications etc of what actually happened?

Do fox spirits have citizenship? 

You mean well with this concept, but there are multiple key problems. 

One major issue with cordoning off spirits and folklore creatures by “patron” culture and have them fight said patrons’ battles is that there’s a lot of overlap. It’d be hard for there not to be a conflict of interest. 

For example, everyone knows about the kitsune fox spirit from Japan. But the story of the fox spirit was introduced to Japan and Korea by China, where they are called húlijīng. These foxes are remarkably similar, with their characteristics and stories almost borrowed wholesale. Are they all the same “species?” If so, when small differences emerge in the countries’ folktales, how do you resolve this? Do these spirits also morph and specialize, or does one interpretation win out? How about when kingdoms are unified, like the Korean Three Kingdoms–do separate versions of the kumiho reverse-evolve into a single variant? What side do they pick when these kingdoms and empires try to battle? If they live apart from humans or aren’t very friendly with them, why would they have a reason to care about invasions when they have no reason to be allegiant to said borders, or whatever name they’re called in whichever country whose land they live on?

Folkloric beings are never static, and are influenced over time by cultural shifts and exchanges, including shifting borders. Human history is stuffed cover-to-cover with events of what we called “conquest” then and “occupation” or “colonization” now. And through these changes, cultures diverged and came together, creating new stories. In other words: not even fairy tales are immune to colonization. 

Leigh can explain the rest. 

~ Rina

The Problem with Retconning War

A very simple question for you:

How are you going to rectify every single historical war that’s ever existed?

Like, the whole plot of the Trojan War as we know it is that the gods of the same culture were on different sides! And the gods made the war last as long as it did. Alexander the Great was a colonizer. Romans were definitely colonizers. Ottomans and Mongols, also colonizers. It wasn’t to the scale of modern colonialism, but it happened. If you look at census records from the 1800s of Indigenous populations in North America, you’ll find that the men 20+ have way lower numbers because they died in war! 

I’m not of the opinion that the basic state of humanity is war and we are barely contained by base instincts. But I’m also not so far in the other direction that I believe humans lack any sort of warring instincts. It shows up in chimps and other primates, so it shows up in humans.

In a way, it sounds like you’ve taken a very Christian-fundamentalist-centric view of things, which is: humans need religion to be “contained”. That humans are amoral without some sort of religion or folklore or spirits telling them to not do a “bad thing.”

This is ignoring how people have been using religion to justify wars since religion was invented. As Rina said, there can be overlap in groups’ beliefs and deities so there’s the side-picking issue, which as I mentioned is the whole plot of the Trojan War. Even when humans write about gods meddling in war, they have the gods not all be on the same side.

Humans have war. Humans try to take over other groups because they want the resources that group has. Alliances shift. Territories shift.

This is also treating humans as a monolith—there are populations within the colonized groups that agree with the colonizers because they get benefits. Claiming that all colonized groups hate all aspects of their colonialism all of the time is deeply ahistorical and flattened. Sometimes the benefits were only for a small group, but sometimes the benefits were far-reaching. It’s in the India tag on WWC, varying views of the Mughals. 

Also, how will you handle the Christianization of Europe? How will you handle all of this folklore that only got written down via monks and nuns making notes and modifying beliefs to fit the Bible? Will any area with only Christianity’s records written down not have folklore? 

And how will you handle folklore drift? Religions are not static. If you look at Greek myths, there are ten to thirty versions of each story and those are just the ones that survived. Each city-state had its own mythology, using the same gods, modified to fit the local needs.

And what about folklore that deals with war and thrives in war? What about the gods of war and destruction? I know Norse mythology is Christianized beyond recognition, but even in its Christianized form half of it is about war. Would the Valkyries, whose whole purpose is to find valiant soldiers slain in battle, not want war? Their whole purpose is war.

Also, on top of it—how will you handle revolution?

You say yourself, colonialism could still happen subtly. Colonialism and injustice can still happen. Will these subjugated spirits force an already disadvantaged group to exclusively use a rigged system to try and politely ask for their rights back? Or would these spirits want to be free and support the means necessary to take it back?

War has happened to upend the divine right of kings. War has happened to free slaves (Haiti). War has happened for basic workers’ rights (some union strikes have resulted in war). 

You’re basically removing a whole toolbox in the fight for a better world. Yes, not being able to colonize because of fantasy AU sounds fine, until you realize that pretty much all of human history from the Romans has been created via war to some degree.

You’re basically just saying “violence is bad and humans need fantasy babysitters to not dive into it”, which really doesn’t sound that great once you sit with it. It removes human agency, removes human nature, and ignores the entire history of the planet.

-Leigh (Lesya)

Marika interjecting here:

We had an ask (Linked here) envisioning a story set in a de-colonized Hawai’i and the socio-political issues with that. Same problem.

#folklore #fairy tales #war #Religion #worldbuilding #world history #colonization #colonialism #history #mythology #asks

[alpaca-clouds]

The Nature-Culture Divide

Something I have seen a lot of people within the Solarpunk sphere talk about and wonder is: "When did we stop seeing ourself as something outside of nature?" And given that I actually had a module on that (Social Geography, best module I ever had, given we had an anarchist professor!) I thought I could quickly explain this one.

So, the names come, in the end, from Latin and back when those words were considered in Latin, the difference was, that nature was a thing that was innate, while culture had volition behind it. You could change nature into culture by putting work into it.

Something that might surprise you is, that the idea of nature then was never quite big for most of European history. And let me make one thing clear: While we have these ideas also played with in Buddhist culture - especially in East Asia - the way we define it right now is a Western idea.

And that idea... Well, that idea came with colonialism. The thing many do not realize is, how much of the rules and "lines in the sand" that we use in our culture came from colonialisation, came from the desire to make "our" culture different from "theirs". It is shown in the way we eat, in the way we raise children, in the way we view gender and sexuality. And, yes, in the artificial border between nature and culture.

Before I tell you more about this, let me please say here: Yes, this is contradictive. I am aware of it. I am not the one who came up with the contradiction. White settlers did that all on their own.

When the settlers came to America they found a landscape very, very different from what they were used to from Europe. After all, Europe has been changed through human hand for at that point about 1600 years. (And for you Europeans out there: Researching how much forest your local area might have lost through the Romans is always a "fun" thing to do! Because the Romans destroyed a lot of European ancient forests.) In Europe, even at the wildest places, there was usually some evidence of human habitation - but this was not true for the Americas. Not because there were no people there, but rather because the people interacted with the environment very differently.

See, the European idea - while never quite that defined until this point - was really, really based on this thought that nature can be turned into culture. And that this transformation was in fact a good thing to happen. So, when the settlers arrived in the Americas they did not see "culture" there, only "nature" and set out to turn that "nature" into "culture".

Of course, we - modern people living today - do realize that indigenous people had in fact cultures of all sorts and that the actual difference was, that they just did not see that culture as something different from nature, rather than a part of it. Because their culture had not been influenced by Romans. But the settlers back then did not see this or rather did not want to see this. So they "cultured" the land, with the ideas about nature and culture being further formalized at that point.

It kinda stayed like this until the late 19th century, when Madison Grant, the originator of eco fascism came to be influencial. And now he saw something that the settlers until this point were unable to see: The indigenous people do stuff with the nature around them! They change it! For example through controlled burning of forests and things like that.

And this made Madison Grant very angry, because he was very much off the opinion that nature should be "unsoiled" by human hands. So... he made sure that those indigenous people got once more pushed out of the areas they were living, with the same areas being declared natural parks and no longer interfered with by humans (except, of course, all the tourists who destroyed it bit by bit). Leading... To a lot more wild fires.

So, where does this leave us in terms of the culture/nature divide?

Well, the idea has been there since ancient Rome and has very much influenced how much we view nature as its own thing. But within Rome nature was still not quite seen as the opposite of culture - as one could turn into the other. Under the Roman view an abandoned house or a field that was no longer cared for would turn back into nature, while anything could become culture just by interacting with humans.

The modern view really came through colonialism and the way colonialist did not understand (and did not want to understand) indigenous practices. This made people more and more drift towards the understanding of humans being an entirely different thing from nature.

But this is wrong, of course. We are part of nature. We are just animals with fingers and slightly larger brains. And many indigenous cultures understood this. In the end it was the greed of some that made us loose this connection to nature. And that is exactly why we are in this climate change related mess right now.

#solarpunk #history #culture #nature #culture-nature divide #colonialism #anti colonialism #indigenous knowledge #indigenous people #national parks

[girlschasinggirls]

do you not realize that jews are indigenous to israel? there is both genetic and archaeological evidence. additionally the reason most jews who lived in europe simply can’t return (where they are not indigenous to anyways) is because their neighbors literally were robbing and raping and killing and turning them into the nazis and other armies that were trying to kill them. it wasn’t just the nazis killing them. and do you know the state of antisemitism in america? jews make up the majority of victims of hate crimes, more than any other minority group in the united states. the fbi releases statistics every year. israel is the only country where they are not subject to outright discrimination on the basis of ethnicity and religion. this is because jews are not white. they are from the levant. if palestinians are not white, and many are actually originally from even further north than israel/palestine (many common last names translate to “the (name of non-arab group formerly colonized by the arabs)), then neither are jews.

yes palestinians are also victims of colonization, by the arabs and british and turks, NOT by israel; who aside from india is the only successful state to have fully decolonized. this does not mean palestinians are treated entirely fairly, but part of this is due to the fact that palestine has an entirely separate government, and israel has fully withdrawn from gaza aside from continuing to provide water and electricity, something they are not required to do as a separate country. egypt does not provide these resources despite also having a blockade set up.

palestine was not peaceful for jews before the establishment of israel. look up any given city or town and the word “pogrom” and you will be met with the story of a systemic killing of jews in that municipality

I’m going to have to use a few examples to explain this.

Romani people are ethnically indigenous to northern India and are currently mostly dispersed thoughout Europe, they were also victims in the holocaust and they are also heavily discriminated against in all parts of the world they live especially in Europe. If, leading up to and after the holocaust a Romani person created a Zionist-like ideology of a Romani ethnostate. If after WWII, with the help of the British they mass immigrated back to northern India as refugees and were welcomed by the indigenous Indians already living there. Would it have been okay for them to then commit their own nakba and colonise a portion of northern India and rename it Romaniland or whatever the fuck?? Start expelling and murdering the Indians that had been living there for generations who also have an ethnic claim to the land? Packing 2 million of them in a 45km squared strip of land and do to them what Israelis are doing to Gazans? Having the fucking audacity to say it’s okay because “they were here first” 1000 years ago? While also somehow simultaneously claiming that there were no people there? “a people without land and a land without people” ??

Did you know that before Zionists settled on Palestine, they also considered Uganda and Argentina for their Zionist state?? The Zionist ideology is inherent to the existence of modern Israel and is the reason it was created, the racism, colonialism, apartheid and genocide is not the fault of a bad government but the foundation of the country itself. The Zionist ideology and genocidal intentions were already in place before they step foot in Palestine and could also be happening right now in Uganda or Argentina instead so don’t try to bullshit that “they were here first” because they would be doing this regardless of the location.

Palestinians are victims of Israeli colonisation as we can see with our own eyes right this moment and literally how dare you even say that. Also you know who else is killed and discriminated against everywhere in the world they go? Women, gay people, disabled people, Romani people, this wouldn’t justify any of these groups creating their own apartheid state anywhere in the world and start doing what Israelis are currently doing.

I want to make it clear that in the process of the Israeli state returning the land to Palestine and ceasing to exist, not one single person needs to be harmed or killed, a lot of them won’t even have to leave the country and can just live in Palestine, amongst Palestinian people of all religions including Jewish, as they did when they first arrived after WWII. If Romani people also wanted to move back to northern India without colonising it and creating an apartheid state this would also be completely okay fucking obviously. Modern Israel is not the Israel from the bible. Every piece of land on earth is already belonging to an existing country and you cannot create a new one without occupying another. Sucks but that’s the reality. Have a terrible day.

#also gaza isn’t a country

[jlhynde-insanitybrilliance]

UDLTTOM WORLDBUILDING RAMBLES: American Wizarding Society vs British Wizarding Society

This is like the 3rd installment of what is quickly becoming a series of long ranting posts about the lore surrounding Harry Potter & a current time-travel au I'm writing on AO3. But you don't need to have read the previous two posts to understand this one. (I still link them for those interested: pt 1, pt 2, pt. 3.) .

I think it's been fairly established that JK doesn't have much awareness of anything outside of Britain when it comes to world building. I've seen posts discussing how unrealistic the magical schools are and such. (Which obviously there can't be just 11 schools. I refuse to believe it. It exceeds my suspension of disbelief.) But this post isn't about that, but the whole societal structure of the American Wizarding society as a whole. I recently started watching my through the Fantastic Beasts films (I know I'm late to the show.) and as an American I can't help but to address some of this...

There's a lot to address & I'm sorry if this post gets a off on some tangents. But I'm just gonna jump right in with the things that bother me most.

1)The MACUSA reeks of British colonization.

As we all know, North America wasn't unpopulated when people from Europe started arriving. Native Americans, the Mayans, the Aztecs, Inuit people, and while some of them were nomadic others had established cities & advanced communities for that day in age. It was the religious zealot Protestants, aka Puritians, being driven out of England that pushed into these communities and brought with them this harmful religious dogma and pushed these people out of the homes and their lands. Like if you read into any of these cultures and their histories, you'll see that these communities were accepting of magic and in the HP world were probably very much wizards themselves.

And so the MACUSA doesn't make sense to me having been founded before the American Revolution, but after the Salem Witch Trials because in all likelihood wizards were being persecuted long before all that. Like I can't believe that the indigenous communities wouldn't have formed some sort of collective in order to combat these foreign invaders from overseas—Especially if they were wizards.

I mean so there had to be something before that, right? Like in all likelihood what I see happening is that these British wizards pushed themselves in with the Puritians (for whatever reason) and in the process brought with them their backwards views on muggles & blood politics & classism which wasn't a part of the original society. Because if you look at the indigenous histories you'll see that medicine men/women were respected members of their communities. Wizards and Muggles lived alongside each other just fine. But then the colonizers came & ruined that harmonious dynamic between the magical and nonmagical.

And that it's called the Magical Congress of the United States of America...It doesn't make sense unless that name came about after the American Revolution. Because before that it was referred to as the 13 colonies. Then it also took some time after the American Revolution for the 13 colonies to expand into the United States. (American didn't get all 50 states until 1959 with the purchase of Alaska from Russia and the forceful occupation of Hawaii.)

It makes more sense that there was a power struggle between two or more opposing Magical governments for the control of the Americas. And this would lead to a sort of Wizarding Civil War. Between the indigenous magical communities and the British, & Spanish, & French Colonies. It's a big place, huge. & it would be diced up and divided I think much more than than the muggle/no-maj community/government is.

The MACUSA being only on the East Coast makes more sense to me. (It also explains how there can only be one wizarding school in MA.) And how that school is a sister school of Hogwarts & how they are structured so similarly. Because watching the Fantastic Beasts films I don't feel like I'm watching American wizards, it more feels like I'm watching British Wizards with American accents.

And then the rest of the country is split up into districts or regions (much like it is in real life with: East Coast, Deep South, West Coast, Midwest.) where the indigenous practices and cultures are still prevalent.

I also don't buy into this idea that France and Spain would abandon their stake on the Continent. So in reality, it's more believable that Spanish Wizards would control Florida and expand all the way up to Arkansas, French wizards would Have control of Louisiana & Mississippi, East Texas, parts of Oklahoma, the British Wizards would have the colonies & maybe parts of the Great Lakes area like Illinois or Ohio, and then the rest of North America would be divided up into different territories amongst the indigenous communities.

Which then brings me to the second thing that bothers me: Rappaport's Law.

2) Rappaport's Law is a heavy-handed allegory for Jim Crowe & Segregation Laws.

As a white person, there's a lot in this topic that I am likely under informed and underqualified to unpack. It is a subject that would be better dissected by someone who understands the cultural histories and nuances better than me. But I read up a lot on random histories (because my Adhd brain leads me down some interesting research rabbit holes & I find myself fascinated by lore histories and folktales.) And I've learned a bit about the various histories pertaining to the Trans Atlantic Slave trade and how things like Voodoo made their way to America through the enslavement of various African tribes.

And again back to the British colonization, slaves were sold to the British by rival tribes & then some of those people made their way to North America when the colonies were formed , but that there was also a significant number of slaves that were indigenous to North America as well.

But how the indigenous communities were structured and how the tribal communities were structure were not all that dissimilar from each other. They both have an awareness of magic and similar spiritual practices. Again magic coexisting with muggles and what makes the most sense was that rival tribes would in fact sell the wizards into slavery and keep the squib/no-maj members of the village because they were less of a threat.

Which in turn would lead to most of the magical communities in North America being POC. Like honestly, I think they are the majority in the Americas. And the Rappaport Law, preventing the intermingling of no-majs & wizards would be heavily criticized because of the similarities to Jim Crowe and Segregation Laws.

And you might try to argue that because of the Statute of Secrecy, wizards wouldn't have any awareness of those muggle laws. But I argue that because of Slavery and most of the wizards being either slaves or negatively impacted by the European settlers would be very, very aware of those laws and prejudices & be actively fighting against them.

Like it was wizards creating and maintaining the underground railroad. It was wizards getting other wizards out and getting them away, regardless of whether or not they were magical because they were all slaves. And they would in fact still have muggles living side-by-side with them in these magical communities and spitting in the face of the Statute of Secrecy. And entire generations of no-majs would live and die in these communities and possibly even leave these communities to assimilate with other muggles and what not, but the American wizards would not be as cut off from the no-maj world like their British counterparts are.

3) Blood Politics would never be able to take root there.

Because most of them are unable to trace back their own bloodlines. It's why Americans don't have house elves working for them because it's Slavery, which they spent centuries combating and trying to escape. And why Grindelwald couldn't gain a foothold there because he was European and was actively killing muggleborns, squibs, no-majs like that wasn't their own people.

And this would also mean that, technologically, the magical communities in North America are more advanced. They are not stagnating like they are in Britain. Wizards are not a dying breed. They have a healthy growing population and low inbreeding rates, and advancements in magic and no-maj sciences. It's the sort of strength Grindelwald and Voldemort would want to recruit for their causes, but with how the majority of the continent is structured would never be able to.

[thank you for coming to my tedtalk.]

#hp fandom #harry potter #harry potter meta #udlttom #udlttom worldbuilding rambles #north america wizards vs british wizards #tomarry fic #time travel au #macusa #rambling thoughts on wizards in north america #non canon compliant #poc in harry potter verse

[sir-josh-of-art]

⚠️URGENT!⚠️URGENT!⚠️:

A WEEKLONG ACTIVE STRIKE AGAINST GENOCIDE IS NOW IN EFFECT.

DECEMBER 18 THROUGH DECEMBER 25TH.

FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BEST OF YOUR ABILITY. NO EXCEPTIONS OR EXCUSES ARE APPLICABLE:

MINIMIZE PURCHASES AND AVOID NON-ESSENCIAL PURCHASES ENTIRELY.

AVOID CONTRIBUTING TO THE ECONOMY.

STRIKE OUT AT WORK AND IN PUBLIC SPACES.

DO NOT WORK OR ENGAGE IN WORK PRODUCTIVITY.

DO NOT JUST STAY HOME, ATTEND PROTESTS IF AND WHENEVER POSSIBLE.

DISRUPT AIR AND SEAPORTS.

WITHDRAW YOUR MONEY FROM THE BANKS.

REFRAIN FROM DEBIT OR CREDIT.

DO NOT BUY GIFTS DURING THE STRIKE. THEY ARE WORTHLESS COMPARED TO THE INNOCENT LIVES THIS STRIKE IS INTENDED TO HELP SAVE.

Why the strikes and protests So close to Christmas Day?:

It is paramount that this strike be carried out diligently to it's utmost extent in order to harm the economy enough for our representitives to actually listen to our desires.

As it happens now, Gazan Palestinians are being slaughtered indiscriminately and pushed out of what homeland they have left with no intention of them returning home by the israeli government.

The attrocities commited are an attempt at exterminating some of the oldest and most ancient remnants of Palestinian history, for every hour our leaders have stalled, for every bit of military aid sent to the "IDF" and israeli settlers, innocents (nearly half of whom are CHILDREN) are shot, bombed, maimed, imprisoned without trial, starved, and dehydrated through manual control of supplies by israel.

Israel makes very little effort in hiding their intentions with gaza: to bomb it flat and settle there. Israeli officials have repeatedly used the label of "hamas terrorist" on civilians, press journalists, doctors, humanitarian workers, and whole hospitals all the while stripping down, beating, killing, and abducting random civilians.

The Palestinian west bank is also the stage for settler colonialism as ethic Palestinians are driven off their rightful land and livelihoods, often by violent or even deadly force, all to make way for armed israeli settlers to move in and stay there, leaving the Palestinian no hope to return home.

Israel as a state has no right to exist, it is an occupying force built solely on money and crime, Israel does not need to exist either, antisemitism is a horrid prejudice with no place in society and therefore jews should be safe wherever they decide to live, but israel is built largely on the idea that jewish people absolutely MUST be entitled to a state, and that "entitlement" is being used to stamp out Palestine's actual indigenous inhabitants.

It is likely (if not certain) that if you live in a western nation your country is liable in some way for the sluggish pace at which action is taken against israel.

If you live in the United States of America you are at a particular responsibility to perform this strike, this is because the united states provides weaponry (some of which violates international law just by existing) to israel and completely nullified the overwhelming votes for a ceasefire at the UN security council with it's unfair veto power.

I'll say this again: The United States of America vetoed the end of a military genocide via bombings. The United states also insists upon supplying death weapons to israel.

AGAIN: NEARLY HALF THE PEOPLE BEING BOMBED AND STARVED ARE CHILDREN AND TEENS.

THERE ARE WHOLE LISTS OF BABIES WHO DIED BEFORE THEY COULD EVEN BE NAMED.

CHILDREN WRITE THEIR NAMES ON THEIR LIMBS JUST TO BE IDENTIFIED.

As our leaders fail to demonstrate humanity for longer and longer unopposed, more of the blood on their hands trickles onto ours. That is not something anyone of us wants during the holidays, the so-called "most wonderful time of the year."

I cannot order you to do anything, nor can people in Gaza, but I can beg you to listen and act, just as they have.

So please, share this around, reblog it, put it on your other socials, whatever, and carry out the strike and protests to the best extent you can. It's needed. It is so sorely needed of you as it is from all of us. Are peace and freedom not the greatest gifts of all?

.

.

.

.

This is our test in humanity, will you pass?

#important #christmas #holidays #United Nations #human rights #social justice #United States #Canada #united kindom #english #britain #uk #US #france #signal boost #current events #palestine #gaza #israel #gaza strip #genocide #jerusalem #ethnic cleansing #gaza under attack #free gaza #free palestine #important info #general strike now #general strike

[youcantdateosmosisjones]

How YOU, the average citizen, can play a part in ending the fascist plague ruling over the people that need your help:

We are now in a time of open, uncensored political unrest regarding the atrocities being committed- and that have BEEN committed in Palestine, the D.RC, Yemen, Sudan, New Guinea, Mexico, Algeria, Ethiopia, and so many more- because the colonial interests of nations like the U.K, the U.S.A, Canada, Israel, and so many more.

Why has this been happening in the first place? Money; land; resources; and the expansion of their economic empire. The people of Africa and the Americas were slaughter over rich resources and access to trade routes, and today colonial powers still exploit Africans for cheap access to what they sought after in the first place. In the Americas, the indigenous peoples were murdered and disregarded for a new empire to be built. These are only 2 vague examples I'm using that I'm sure most of you that see this (if your living in a western country) know about to some degree.

The very systems we live under and rely on for our contemporary survival are the same ones actively oppressing and colonizing those who have the resources they need, in order to sell those products back to us, so that we keep the workforce upholding this country intact. That's why it's so hard for people in 1st world countries to come to their senses and force themselves to face the reality of millions- because to them it isn't real. Our governments keep us docile and comforted, because we fuel their banks.

I'm done ranting, now. But it's important for you to know this information going forward. We the people have no hand in making legislation, passing laws, visiting the presidents of other nations, or making real global decisions- because the system isn't built for us to be able to do that. However, you still fund your government by participating in commerce. Commerce is truly all your government cares about. If you want to pressure your representatives into taking action, take part in boycott's; protest outside of tech stores in the name of the D.R.C; withdraw your money from the bank; disrupt any sale you can. I understand that the majority of citizens have jobs, families, and responsibilities to attend to, which is why even the smallest of deeds matters.

We as a global community have reached a point of total unrest about the treatment of our fellow human beings, and it is vital that we hold our ground- even as we are overwhelmed by the flood of information that previously unaffected our lives. But why do we get to be uncomfortable when there have been countless people dying all over the globe, using OUR GOVERNMENT'S MONEY, without so much as a protest for them? Please, use what resources and freedom you have right now to fight for those who don't.

None of us are free, until we're all free. To everybody everywhere, fight for peace.

#palestine #��� #free palestine #free gaza #peace #freedom #activism #social justice #free congo #free sudan #boycott israel #boycott starbucks #boycott technology #today on tumblr

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (December 9)

On December 9, Roman Catholics celebrate St. Juan Diego, the indigenous Mexican Catholic convert whose encounter with the Virgin Mary began the Church's devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

In 1474, 50 years before receiving the name Juan Diego at his baptism, a boy named Cuauhtlatoatzin — “singing eagle” — was born in the Anahuac Valley of present-day Mexico.

Though raised according to the Aztec pagan religion and culture, he showed an unusual and mystical sense of life even before hearing the Gospel from Franciscan missionaries.

In 1524, Cuauhtlatoatzin and his wife converted and entered the Catholic Church.

The farmer now known as Juan Diego was committed to his faith, often walking long distances to receive religious instruction.

In December 1531, he would be the recipient of a world-changing miracle.

On December 9, Juan Diego was hurrying to Mass to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

However, the woman he was heading to church to celebrate came to him instead.

In the native Aztec dialect, the radiant woman announced herself as the “ever-perfect holy Mary, who has the honor to be the mother of the true God.”

“I am your compassionate Mother, yours and that of all the people that live together in this land,” she continued, “and also of all the other various lineages of men.”

She asked Juan Diego to make a request of the local bishop.

“I want very much that they build my sacred little house here” — a house dedicated to her son Jesus Christ, on the site of a former pagan temple, that would “show him to all Mexicans and exalt him throughout the world."

She was asking a great deal of a native farmer. Not surprisingly, his bold request met with skepticism from Bishop Juan de Zumárraga.

But Juan Diego said he would produce proof of the apparition, after he finished tending to his uncle whose death seemed imminent.

Making his way to church on December 12 to summon a priest for his uncle, Juan Diego again encountered the Blessed Virgin.

She promised to cure his uncle and give him a sign to display for the bishop.

On the hill where they had first met, he would find roses and other flowers, though it was winter.

Doing as she asked, he found the flowers and brought them back to her.

The Virgin Mary then placed the flowers inside his tilma, the traditional cloak-like garment he had been wearing.

She told him not to unwrap the tilma containing the flowers until he had reached the bishop.

When he did, Bishop Zumárraga had his own encounter with Our Lady of Guadalupe – through the image of her that he found miraculously imprinted on the flower-filled tilma.

The Mexico City basilica that now houses the tilma has become, by some estimates, the world's most-visited Catholic shrine.

The miracle that brought the Gospel to millions of Mexicans also served to deepen Juan Diego's own spiritual life.

For many years after the experience, he lived a solitary life of prayer and work in a hermitage near the church where the image was first displayed.

Pilgrims had already begun flocking to the site by the time he died on 9 December 1548, the 17th anniversary of the first apparition.

Pope John Paul II beatified him on 6 May 1990 and canonized on 31 July 2002.

He is the first Catholic saint indigenous to the Americas.

#Saint of the Day #St. Juan Diego #Our Lady of Guadalupe

[lingthusiasm]

Lingthusiasm Episode 76: Where language names come from and why they change

Language names come from many sources. Sometimes they’re related to a geographical feature or name of a group of people. Sometimes they’re related to the word for “talk” or “language” in the language itself; other times the name that outsiders call the language is completely different from the insider name. Sometimes they come from mistakes: a name that got mis-applied or even a pejorative description from a neighbouring group.

In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about how languages are named! We talk about how naming a language makes it more legible to broader organizations like governments and academics, similar to how birth certificates and passports make humans legible to institutions. And like how individual people can change their names, sometimes groups of people decide to change the name that their language is known by, a process that in both cases can take a lot of paperwork.

Read the transcript here. 

Announcements:

We’re doing another Lingthusiasm liveshow! February 18th (Canada) slash 19th (Australia)! (What time is that for me?) We'll be returning to one of our fan-favourite topics and answering your questions about language and gender with returning special guest Dr. Kirby Conrod! (See Kirby’s previous interview with us about the grammar of singular they.)

This liveshow is for Lingthusiam patrons and will take place on the Lingthusiasm Discord server. Become a patron before the event to ask us questions in advance or live-react in the text chat. This episode will also be available as an edited-for-legibility recording in your usual Patreon live feed if you prefer to listen at a later date. In the meantime: tell us about your favourite examples of gender in various languages and we might include them in the show! In this month’s bonus episode we get enthusiastic about some of our favourite deleted bits from previous interviews that we didn't quite have space to share with you. Think of it as a special bonus edition DVD from the past two years of Lingthusiasm with director's commentary and deleted scenes from interviews with Kat Gupta, Lucy Maddox, and Randall Munroe. Join us on Patreon now to get access to this and 70+ other bonus episodes, as well as access to the Lingthusiasm Discord server where you can chat with other language nerds, and get access to our upcoming liveshow! Here are the links mentioned in the episode:

‘A grammatical overview of Yolmo (Tibeto-Burman)’ by Dr Lauren Gawne

‘Language naming in Indigenous Australia: a view from western Arnhem Land’ by Jill Vaughan, Ruth Singer, and Murray Garde

Wikipedia List of Creole Languages

Wikipedia entry for Métis/Michif

‘A note on the term “Bantu” as first used by W. H. I. Bleek’ by Raymond O. Silverstein

Lingthusiasm episode ‘How languages influence each other - Interview with Hannah Gibson on Swahili, Rangi, and Bantu languages’

Wikipedia entry for Endonym and Exonym

All Things Linguistic post on exonym naming practices in colonised North America

Tribal Nations Map of North America

Wikipedia entry for Maliseet

OED entry for ‘endoscope’

Wikipedia entry for Light Warlpiri

Language Hat entry for Light Warlpiri

Los Angeles Times article about the use of Diné instead of Navajo

OED entry for ‘slave’

Wikipedia entry for names of Germany

You can listen to this episode via Lingthusiasm.com, Soundcloud, RSS, Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also download an mp3 via the Soundcloud page for offline listening. To receive an email whenever a new episode drops, sign up for the Lingthusiasm mailing list.

You can help keep Lingthusiasm advertising-free by supporting our Patreon. Being a patron gives you access to bonus content, our Discord server, and other perks.

Lingthusiasm is on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.

Email us at contact [at] lingthusiasm [dot] com

Gretchen is on Twitter as @GretchenAMcC and blogs at All Things Linguistic.

Lauren is on Twitter as @superlinguo and blogs at Superlinguo.

Lingthusiasm is created by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our senior producer is Claire Gawne, our production editor is Sarah Dopierala, and our production assistant is Martha Tsutsui Billins. Our music is ‘Ancient City’ by The Triangles.

This episode of Lingthusiasm is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license (CC 4.0 BY-NC-SA).

#linguistics #language #episodes #main episodes #episode 76 #names #language names #Arnhem Land #Yolmo #Creole #Kriol #Métis #Michif #Bantu #Swahili #endonym #exonym #Maliseet #Warlpiri #Light Warlpiri #Diné #Navajo #Slavic #German

[fiddles-ifs]

I love those portraits! They're beautiful! I was curious about the setting for Erinys. What's the world and society like?

You know the phrase "crabs in a hot pot?" Basically that.

After The Fall(tm), people packed themselves into walled cities, starting with the newly renovated and revamped Kowloon Walled City (now called "City 1"). Since there's not a lot of square mileage, Cities tend to build vertically. Cities in the US, UK, and Canada are also split into "districts," which have unique names but are often just called Lower and Upper. This is pretty much only a class thing -- an Upper District could be in the southern part of the city, for example.

The Lower Districts tend to be grungier and the first victims when there's a power shortage and the energy company decides to do rolling black outs. Lots of neon, aluminum shacks, and tenement housing. Some are nicer than others, but the middle class is pretty much extinct by this point. In Erinys, you're either living hand-to-mouth or sucking the life out of the proletariat.

here's enough of a scare surrounding dirty poor people that travel between districts is tightly controlled; there's always checkpoints to deal with whenever Upper and Lower Districts butt against each other. This is where Lane lives.

The Upper Districts by comparison are the kind of sleek, neutral-toned sci-fi neighborhoods seen in a lot of futuristic fiction. There's also a lot of rooftop gardens -- farmland is non-existent, so people who can afford it grow their own food. (Which really just means they have people from the Lower Districts come to their house and maintain their gardens. Standard rich people shit.) Apartments are disgustingly spacious and brightly lit, especially if you manage to buy a place that has a view from over the wall. This is where Fury, Mattie, and Marik live.

That's just inside the Cities -- outside the walls is much different. Especially in North America, since the world's governmental bodies and oligarchies have basically fucked off to space, a lot of indigenous communities have started reclaiming their ancestral lands. Lane grew up in one of these communities -- a small commune in Kitáwahsinnooni, which includes almost all the land that makes up the Blackfoot Confederacies. Post The Fall, and outside of the Cities, most of the world runs on mutual aid and support while avoiding city folk like the plague and existing beside the Giants.

#fury in the askbox #not to say there's not cultural clashes #especially in the early days the US government *really* wanted everybody in Cities #and would destroy communities to push them toward assimilating #also thank u!!!!!!!!!!!

[avatarvyakara]

So I have a small thing in the works. And by small I mean “over 40,000 words before 1900”. An alternate history, if you will.

The gist of it is that a species of camelid survives the Ice Age in North America, allowing domestication by the locals and the building of bigger and longer-lasting settlements across the continent. The Norse come along and, amazingly, are assimilated; the Inuit accidentally cause a plague that decimates (in fact removes about a fifth of) the “Old World”; Kuroda Kiyoshi discovers “France (actually *California); Vinlanders discover Spain. It gets more complicated from there, but the gist of it is that the various indigenous civilizations? They’re still around. Better than that, they’re much bigger players, both at home and elsewhere in the world (ask me about U’lpaltiwey sometime).

(And you would not believe how many languages I had to at least discover if not learn for this project.)

Right now I have five potential ideas for a book in this world:

Kingawa: an abbreviated version of the foundation of the Japanese colony in British Columbia.

The Western Worlds: a peek at the development of Earth in this timeline, from 1504 through to 1899.

The Last Crusaders: a story of a Muslim family living in southern Iberia during the last push against the Emir in Málaga—in the 1880s. Also there’s a Lakota medician working with the militarized equivalent of Doctors Without Borders.

Dugan Quirk: short stories about the titular character, starting with his attempt to round the world in 77 days and accidentally setting off a train of catastrophes in the process. I can neither confirm nor deny that there’s a vampire involved.

The Burning War: the First War of the Worlds, taking place in North America, as told in small snippets from all sides.

So! What say you? Preferences?

(EDIT: ignore the misspelling. It should be Kaaruhaar, not Kaahuraar. Either way, the usual English name is Alcazar, but I wasn’t using that.)

#alternate history #indigenous people #aboriginals #canada #unitedstateofamerica #Mexico #book idea #lakota #ojibwe #miwok #vinland saga

[7serendipities]

Dryads and Wood-Wives: A Question of Categorization

I got an interesting question on tumblr last week, and while I’m not going to copy the entire thing over here, nor my entire rambling response, I thought it brought up two important worldview questions that might illuminate my practice a bit for ya’ll, and may help out others who are new to walking the path of a fairy witch.

The first question was, basically: is a Germanic wood-wife the same thing as a Greek dryad? Are these just two names for the same exact thing? On the surface, it does sort of seem that way; they’re described in very similar terms. But one of the trickiest things about the realms of Fairy (and one that I think is the hardest for people to wrap their heads around) is that we can’t cleanly separate fairies into specific species. There’s a lot of evidence in the Scottish Witch Trial manuscripts that the difference between a devil and an imp and a fairy and an elf was pretty much a difference of attitude, and that the same being might be called two or more of these terms even by the same person.(1) And there’s plenty of folkloric evidence that these beings can change their appearance, or at least deceive our senses. So we just can’t quantify and identify them as we do with animals and plants, and just because they seem similar doesn’t necessarily mean they are the same.

On top of that, we have to add the complexities of culture - both ours and theirs. I think it’s reasonable to say that some of the Fair Folk seem to have a sort of symbiotic relationship with nearby humans, to the point that there’s some cultural bleed between the two groups.(2) So it would make sense to me that the dryads would have more Greek sensibilities and prefer offerings of common Greek foodstuffs, whereas wood-wives would have more Germanic sensibilities and prefer more common Germanic foodstuffs - and that seems to be born out in the folklore about what to offer and how to give it. So it doesn’t make sense to me to try and force a pattern on that - there’s no way to reduce them all, to the point where you can say “all feminine forest spirits should be offered [some kind of food]”. I think it’s better to just not worry about whether wood-wives and dryads are the same “species” and instead of highlighting the similarities, learn about the differences, so that you don’t accidentally offend anyone.(3) When I encounter new beings in the landscape, either Over Here, or Over There, as I’m going about my business, one of the things I ask is what they call themselves - not their Name or even name, but what type of a being they want me to know them as. They are usually willing to either show or tell me enough that I can at least figure out what paradigm will work best in my interactions with them, and I then move forward treating them as the folklore surrounding that being suggests that I should.(4)

That brings me to the second question: do fairy beings travel to places other than where their original folklore is from? I think they do. I think it would be strange to think that only humans travel across our world, when plants and animals have done their best to migrate (with and without our help) as well. I also think that the symbiosis I spoke about in the last section plays a roll, but this time on a more macro scale. I’ve heard stories of brownies and nisser traveling with their families on boats to the Americas, and there are stories of fairy beings being “chased out” of certain areas (often by Christian priests). I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that some of them might’ve come that way to the Americas or Australia or wherever. Personally, I’ve met a lot of fairy beings who, when I ask them what type of being they are, identify themselves as something from European folklore. Near where I live, it’s been mainly beings known from Celtic or British or Germanic cultural folklore, and I think that makes sense given the colonial history of this area. (I’ve met some indigenous otherworldly beings as well, but they’re usually fairly shy, and so far none of them are specifically symbiotic to the indigenous cultures of that side of my family, but I’m nowhere near the traditional homelands, either.) I wouldn’t be super surprised, either, to find beings from Central American or Islamic or Korean folklore nearby, either, considering the current demographics of the area, but I also can’t say that I would necessarily recognize them if I did, as I’m not as well versed in those. Generally though, I think it’s not impossible to find beings from any culture that is currently represented in your area or has ever lived there, because these beings are usually believed to be both powerful and long-lived, and it’s therefore a good idea to just learn as much as you can about anyone you might encounter.

When I ask fairy-like otherworldly beings(5) what kind of a being they are, I’m not looking to categorize them, to check them off in a field guide, or to decide what “species” they belong to - I’m trying to gain context. How they present themselves tells me a little about their expectations, their likes and dislikes, and their sensibilities. And then I’ll use that information, and offer Dryads clean water, diluted wine, and olive oil, and offer wood-wives bread or other things made of grain, and perhaps a bit of milk. I’m a witch looking to create relationships, not a scientist trying to answer questions that might just be unanswerable.

See Emma Wilby’s Cunningfolk and Familiar Spirits (Sussex Academic Press, 2005), and Seo Helrune (www.seohelrune.com) has talked about the same in the Nordic sphere, with alfe vs jotnar, in some of their classes.

“Symbiotic” here not necessarily meaning “mutualistic” (benefitting both parties) on a micro scale. I think it’s likely that it’s mutualistic on a macro scale of our two populations, but on a micro scale yeah some humans definitely get fucked over, more along the lines of commensalism or straight-up predation.

Really, learning as much as you can in order to avoid giving accidental offence is probably my #1 Fairy Witchcraft rule.

To an extent: there’s plenty of folklore that says “don’t ever fucking talk to these omg just leave quickly and pretend you didn’t see them”. That’s fairly wise for those wishing not to end up in deep water with the Fair Folk but as I’m already fully submerged, I don’t always look away - I trust that my bargains and roles and allies will keep me safe in most normal situations, and I don’t try to mess around with things above my pay grade. A lot of my discernment has been just figuring out what is and is not within my pay grade, and while I might not rush inside and barricade the door if I see a kelpie, I’m not likely to touch it or try to banish it, either. To quote Morgan Daimler, “I like my liver on the inside.”

There’s some disagreement about whether “fairy” includes non-European folkloric otherworldly beings, and more about whether it should, so just to be clear, when I use “fairy” I do mean it in the more general “folkloric otherworldly being” sense. But I try to use “fairy-like” when I’m explicitly talking about non-European folkloric otherworldly beings, out of respect for people in their source cultures who might not feel like the word “fairy” is appropriate. Some of that, I find, is because of a misunderstanding of what a “fairy” is, based on popculture, though - I had a long discussion with a Persian friend about fairies and djinn where at the end we basically decided both terms covered the same basic category, but she originally had thought all fairies were small Tinkerbell types which did not seem at all like her understanding of djinn!

#fairy witchcraft #witchcraft #fair folk #fae #spiritwork

[max1461]

thoughts on the relative utilities of a monolingual/multilingual society? intuitively i'm inclined to think societies should subtly nudge towards monolingualism because having to learn multiple languages seems like it'd be a big headache, like having to use multiple currencies or multiple directions on the road. "subtly nudge" because being too harsh about it would suck, but nudge nevertheless. the converse seems like shoveling work on ppl for personal taste. but I have a feeling you disagree?

I’m not a utilitarian. People should be allowed to do whatever with respect to what language(s) they speak, and we should make it easy for them to live pleasant lives while speaking whatever language(s) they want. Translation is pretty effective; whatever efficiency losses exist due to people speaking different languages are not worth worrying about.

I have made a post before, which I will try to dig up for you, on why moving towards global monolingualism would be bad. The same arguments apply on e.g. a national level (well, for sufficiently large nations, at least). The gist is as follows:

Because language changes constantly, a policy of monolingualism implies a policy of constant maintenance. That is to say, your policy options range from continuously punishing people in minor-to-middling ways for speaking wrong, for the rest of time (I believe this is the “slight nudge” to which you refer), to (on the more extreme end) massive restrictions on freedom of speech. Both of these are fundamentally authoritarian in nature and I am against them.

I am doubtful that “minor nudges” would even work—language changes very fast and very vociferously. That is, such a policy would be nothing but a continual drain on human wellbeing, leaving the only effective options major authoritarianism or major economic discrimination based on language. These have both been tried before, they both work, and they are both horrendous.

I am deeply committed to pluralism. The point is not to produce a utility maximizing society, the point is to tend to everyone’s needs sufficiently while allowing them to live the way they wish to live. State management of culture in the name of utility maximization is precisely antithetical to this and I am basically against it a priori.

As an addendum to point 3: remember, many people care about their language a lot. This is an important aspect of how many people wish to live. As such, you can’t support pluralism unless you support linguistic pluralism. I think the degree to which language matters to people would be obvious if you read, e.g., pretty much anything written by indigenous Americans (in the US, Canada, Latin America, whatever) on the long history of their cultural suppression. People want to speak the language they want to speak! And by god, in a just (a fortiori truly pluralist) society, they should be able to do so, without fearing social or economic repercussions! I think this would possibly become more obvious to you if English was dying, if you had nobody to speak it with, there was no English language art or literature being made, there was no place to obtain such art or literature outside of niche academic contexts, and indeed you were constantly worried about the stories and discourses you grew up with and which you treasured most being lost forever. If you know about the inherent difficulties of localization, you know that language death means story-death, experience-death, nuance-death, idea-death. Of course this happens naturally with time due to entropy, but we should not be helping it along!

From a more personal perspective, linguistics as a science becomes impossible if all the languages die. It’s not nearly as important a consideration as the whole “it would require massive authoritarianism” thing, but it does matter. We’d be throwing away the chance to understand something very fundamental about the human mind in exchange for minor efficiency gains. Bad, imo.

#linguistics #society

[hussyknee]

i mean as an indigenous person, the domari people and the armenian diaspora in palestine are just as indigenous as palestinians. indigneity is produced via a relationship to an oppressive, colonizing entity, not "who lived here the longest"

I don't disagree with you exactly, but colonization is also layered.

So bear in mind that my knowledge of decolonization is specifically subaltern (as in the Indian subcontinent) and patchy (disabled my whole adult life and a very start-stop-stagnate tertiary education). The Americas might be different. I'm completely open to being wrong.

In Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese and Eelam Tamils are "natives" while "indigenous" are considered the Adivasi and Tamil Indigenous people in the North (I'm sorry I can't remember their names, only found out about them last year). The distinction arises because they were Austroasiatic people (and the Tamils were maybe Dravidians? Wow, ethnosupremacist black hole discovered) who arrived in migrations millennia before they were colonized by later migrants from the Indian subcontinent about 2500 years ago. Those are the progenitors of both the later Sinhalese and Tamil kingdoms. (Obviously both intermarried with the indigenous populations; ethnic identities are cultural). The Adivasi never assimilated into the Indian migrants' agrarian societies. They still engage in hunting and subsistence agriculture rooted in the ecosystems of their ancestral lands. Unlike the rest of the population, being transplanted from these lands to anywhere else in the country would result in a devastating loss culture and community.

"Indigeneity" is an extremely fraught topic in post-colonial nations when conflated with being "native". It erases the actual pre-agrarian tribes that were victims of colonization two or three times over, and is used for nationalist ethnic cleansing and the creation of ethnic underclasses. The myth that all Tamils were descendants of "Chola invaders" that arrived only a thousand years ago is foundational to Sri Lanka's Tamil genocide. Eelam Tamils themselves heavily discriminated against the Malaiyyah Tamils the British enslaved and exported from India to work their cash crops (Indian Ocean slavery is as brutal and horrific as the trans-Atlantic one). The persecution of Muslims who migrated here the last few centuries from South India, Afghanistan, Turkey and Malaysia also involves seeing them as interlopers, even though they never claimed to be native because their ethnic identities are shaped by their migrant roots and the unique ways they assimilated into Sri Lankan society. They still have ancestral lands here from which they've been ethnically cleansed and are still under threat by both Sinhalese and Tamils.

I'm not sure whether this is something unique to countries where the Europeans actually did fuck off forever. But if even if they never did, how do we discern our layers of colonization and oppression if we all believe we're indigenous? Do we ignore that the pre-agrarian societies* here are rooted primarily in the custodianship and protection of their ancestral lands, unlike the rest of us that thrive in mono-agriculture, industrial encroachment and urban sprawl (and constant ethnic violence)? Do we have to center European violence in our own understanding of ourselves and our responsibilities to acknowledge the histories and rights of minorities vulnerable to us?

To my understanding, the difference between "anti-colonial" and "decolonial" is that one is conceptualized as "resistance" and the other as "re-existence". What I've been taught is that seeing our place in the world through the white colonial lens and defining ourselves by colonial proximity is to give up our power of self-determination. We were native to this island before these violent borders imposed on us by the British ever existed, and we were native whatever kingdoms configured and reconfigured themselves over millennia. But we have also been violent colonizers of the people who were here before us, even during and after the Europeans came and went. Indigeneity afaik is acknowledging their identities and respecting the history that formed them, and the restoration of their long-obscured sovereign right to their lands independent of the nation state.

*I can't remember whether pre-civilization was a problematic term or not. I took like two modules on subaltern indigenous peoples five years apart lol.

#knee of huss #decolonization #indigenous rights #indigenous peoples #anarchism #i'm sorry but you have to be an anarchist to be decolonial #indigenous #sri lanka #subaltern #asks #anon