Would it work to use cultural artifacts but not the culture or history?

Perle_Rare said:

Basically, will the reader's potential knowledge of the origins of that artifact shade their perception of what the story will be about and reduce their ability to suspend disbelief?


Thanks!

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It depends. If you use the words like dream-catcher or tomahawk, it will be very jarring to me personally if you appropriate those artifacts for a culture different from NA Native.

It might be better if you use a more culture-neutral artifact which is still associated with a NA culture.

Example: basketry. If you have a grass basket, for example, I will be willing to accept that a local culture other than a NA culture produced the artifact from local materials - because basket-weaving is more or less universal, while a dream-catcher is a unique cultural artifact associated with a specific culture.

Other examples of more 'neutral' artifacts include masks and beadwork.

I personally would be happier with an updated artifact (i.e. in your culture they do pottery, but it is unique in ways specific to your culture, which you may want to incorporate in the story), or a plain old womfoodle.

Just my 2c. Good luck!

I would avoid it - I used the word Shaman and got told it has too many cultural associations to work with a fresh meaning or context.
I think you risk shattering the suspension of disbelief.

oscuridad said:

I would avoid it - I used the word Shaman and got told it has too many cultural associations to work with a fresh meaning or context.
I think you risk shattering the suspension of disbelief.

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Not sure about Shaman. There are Shamans in many different cultures, not just NA. Sometime in the future I want to write a Siberian-based piece, and what will I do without the word Shaman then?

sorry I didn't make myself clear - Shamen appear in cultures all over the globe, but I approriated the term in a fantasy context that was somewhat out of kilter with the broad understanding of the term. Does that make sense. Any usage that knocks the reader out of the bubble of your fiction should be avoided. IMHO.

I'm not sure how to answer this really - on the one hand I'd much rather see a term I could relate to in a book, like dreamcatcher tells me right away what the thing is. I would think it was an object that fulfilled the same purpose as the ones in this world, and so long as you set up your fantasy society in a believable way I don't think that would jar me. Weirdly I was having this sort of discussion with Voyager just last night, on inventing names and terms for fantasy - one thing that really puts me off more than anything is when the names and titles (as in titles of lords, rulers etc) are really impenetrable or unpronouncable. I know that's probably just me but I find it much easier to suspend disbelief on a fantasy society if there is something in it I can relate to.

Like oscuridad said though, I think if you are using a term from an existing culture to describe something that fulfils the same purpose in your fantasy world, be careful that you use it correctly, otherwise it might jar. But just to give a really daft example, the UK TV show Dr Who has used terms for 'ruler' and 'leader' in nearly every culture or language in the world for it's alien peoples. I've seen a lot of books where the culture is obviously based on something existing (Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, which is one of my current favourites, is heavily based on Venice and uses a lot of terms that make me immediately think of that city.

I'm not sure if any of that is making sense as I'm in a bit of a blurry mood tonight, but I guess what I'm saying is, I find it helps the reader to have some point of reference in the midst of a totally alien world, so in that case I would be all for using a real-life term that gives an idea of what the thing is, rather than making some term up.

You can do it, sure. It's only a problem if you don't do it well.

What the heck does that mean, you ask?

Well, if your beta readers can suspend their disbelief, then fantastic. If not, keep working on it until they can.

One thing you can do is use the word, since the object serves the same function, but then make the object itself somehow different enough that the reader will know aha, this item functions like a dreamcatcher, but it's obviously not a regular native american one. Like, if your dreamcatchers were star-shaped nets woven of unicorn hair, hung in chimneys because everybody knows bad dreams are attracted by smoke and soot. Familiar, but not the same.

Or, you could pick a similar name that's still based on function. Dreamnet. Sleep-sieve.

Well, since I've never heard of dream-catcher before, it certainly wouldn't jar me and I'm thinking there are a lot of people who have no exposure to Native American culture.

Gray Rose said:

It depends. If you use the words like dream-catcher or tomahawk, it will be very jarring to me personally if you appropriate those artifacts for a culture different from NA Native.

It might be better if you use a more culture-neutral artifact which is still associated with a NA culture.

Example: basketry. If you have a grass basket, for example, I will be willing to accept that a local culture other than a NA culture produced the artifact from local materials - because basket-weaving is more or less universal, while a dream-catcher is a unique cultural artifact associated with a specific culture.

Other examples of more 'neutral' artifacts include masks and beadwork.

I personally would be happier with an updated artifact (i.e. in your culture they do pottery, but it is unique in ways specific to your culture, which you may want to incorporate in the story), or a plain old womfoodle.

Just my 2c. Good luck!

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I don't agree. Almost everything has cultural connotations. Much of fantasy is set within a pseudo-western medieval world, with all of the culture of said period and place. Why not use another such import?

JimmyB27 said:

I don't agree. Almost everything has cultural connotations. Much of fantasy is set within a pseudo-western medieval world, with all of the culture of said period and place. Why not use another such import?

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a very good point, I think but somewhat undermined by the history of the development of most fantasy tropes out of European folklore, Mallory's 'Morte D'Arthur', the legends of Charlemaine and early European history.

JimmyB27 said:

I don't agree. Almost everything has cultural connotations. Much of fantasy is set within a pseudo-western medieval world, with all of the culture of said period and place. Why not use another such import?

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I am not sure I completely understand you, Jimmy.When people use a medieval European artifact in fantasy, they are not tearing it out of contet; rather, they drag the whole context and culture with it. Readers of fantasy are familiar with European Middle Ages. They know how Middle Ages feel, and if the artifact you use is recognizable, you cannot really tear it out of context because the context itself is recognizable.

Not so with NA stuff. How much do you know about the Ojibwa? How about the Wintu? The Naskapi? The Greenland Eskimo? Such cultural appropriation borders on the unethical, IMHO. You are treating the culture disrespectfully when you are taking artifacts that way, IMHO.

You know, Professor Barre Toelken was asked by his Navaho nformants to send certain tapes of fieldwork back to the family to be destroyed (it had to do with Coyote stories, and the belief that voices of the deceased should not sound). Coyote stories could only be told alive, and in context, the context of the tribal sacred performance. Professor Toelken obliged, and the tapes were destroyed, fieldwork never published. This caused quite an uproar in certain circles.

This is just to show you that cultural appropriation of this kind may pose an ethical problem. This actually reminds me of the racism thread.

I hope someone with a better ability to phrase this comes along soon. Please, anthropologists!

Perle_Rare said:

If I put in a dream-catcher as a rather extreme example, will the reader accept that there are no Ojibways in my story? Will it be possible to convince the audience that some other author-invented culture might have created such an artifact? Will the reader expect to see white men taking over the land with musquets and guns though my story will not contain any such technology or event?

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It *can* work, because independent development of unusual ideas does exist. Take the boomerang, which we associate with Australia.

There are, however, examples 3,300 years old in the Cairo Museum, found in the tomb of King Tut. Those didn't come from Australia.

Deirdre said:

It *can* work, because independent development of unusual ideas does exist. Take the boomerang, which we associate with Australia.

There are, however, examples 3,300 years old in the Cairo Museum, found in the tomb of King Tut. Those didn't come from Australia.

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There are prehistoric boomerangs that are 20,000 old.
However, the word 'boomerang' is of Australian Aboriginal origin

So before the Australians (who didn't know that's what they were, then), everyone called those things (in their own language): "come back sticks?"

Gray Rose said:

You know, Professor Barre Toelken was asked by his Navaho nformants to send certain tapes of fieldwork back to the family to be destroyed (it had to do with Coyote stories, and the belief that voices of the deceased should not sound). Coyote stories could only be told alive, and in context, the context of the tribal sacred performance. Professor Toelken obliged, and the tapes were destroyed, fieldwork never published. This caused quite an uproar in certain circles.

I hope someone with a better ability to phrase this comes along soon. Please, anthropologists!

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Oh...I somehow deleted "cultural appropriation"...below I hint that if you know what the object meant to its original users and are relatively upfront about it it...perhaps its not a big deal.

As an anthropologist who used to work with the Navajo, the thing about the Coyote stories sounds like a Joke. First of all, you can tell Coyote stories in the season when the Thunder Walks, so they are relatively safe and not all that sacred. Second the Chantways (which are all about 10,000 times as sacred and dangerous as Coyote stories and cannot be told except in the winter) have been written down and parts of the ceremonies have been recorded. Also "tribal" for the traditional Navajo is a meaningless term; they always thought in terms of clans and outfits. Sounds like a political disaster story to me. Maybe Mister T. just got in with the wrong bunch of Navajo, ie factionalism got him. And where did this happen? How were the recordings arranged? Were the groups really "family" (ie outfit) groups?
I just checked on Mister T and he was a Folklore dude. Probably had no experience with Athapaskans and offended the wrong people.
Also, for reasons associated with matrilineal clans or politeness in general, women have often had much better luck with finding out what is going on with the Navajo (eg. Franc Newcombe, L. Lampere and Gladys Reichard)...and if Mister T. transgressed on any ghost sickness type taboos...well, he's dead now.

As for American Indian cultural objects in stories...well, if you read up on the object and do what you can to understand it, what's the big deal? You're doing far less damage than the cultural policy of obliterateing American Indian Cultures that was all the rage well into the last century. Moreover, the amount of internal (quasi factional ) misrepresentation is much greater than anything an outsider could do...considering for example that I saw an unlabeled basalt puncher that was used to ritually kill slaves in potlatches cheerfully exhibited in the Museum of the American Indian under a lot of Christian verbiage...could anyone outside the "tribe" do anything as bad as that?
Sometimes I wonder if Museums don't exist just to scare the shit out of anthropologists...the faction of the Indians who put in the slave sacrifice punch without labeling it knew perfectly well what it was. And they put it in the exhibit to show that they used to capture and kill their neighboring tribal groups. Factions never die...they just get as much revenge as they can.

Perle_Rare said:

Amendment to my original statement:

It was never my plan to completely disregard the cultural history of the North American native community. I simply want to base my story in a similar environment and have characters with a similar way of life BUT NOT THE SAME. I undestand that I'll never know enough to truly understand the rich heritage these people have. This is one of the reasons my story will be fantasy. If I knew enough, I'd be tempted to write historical fiction instead.

Within the confines of fantasy, I'm planning to have a world where snow falls in winter, maple syrup (or something similar) is made in the spring and corn (or something similar) grows in summer. I'd like to have two different cultural groups sharing the land. One that's based loosely on the European immigrants and one that's based loosely on the natives. My European-ish people can easily use European artifacts without raising anyone's eyebrows. But can my native-like people use North American indian artifacts without causing discomfort?

No racism was ever intended in the making of this project.

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Why not just read up on the Indians who would have encountered European-ish immigrants in the land where maple syrup flows and corn grows? I don't know anything about North Eastern Indians, but if I was going to put them in a story even vaguely, I would do some intensive research.

Perle_Rare said:

I will definitely do research but I know I'll never get to the point where I intimately know them and can portray them completely accurately. And if I do, I'll have a lot of research to show for it and very little writing.

So bottom line:
1. research the culture (within reasons)
2. pick generic artifacts that many groups may have invented in parallel or change the name of the special ones and give them new but similar characteristics so that it feels familiar without being totally taken out of context.

I can live with that. Thanks everyone!

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What artifacts would be that problematic? Toboggans? (an Algokin word and object I think)..canoes, squaws? Tomatos and chocolate (Aztec-Nahuatl words and things)? Are these sacred objects? sacrificial Knives? Pyramids? Underworlds? Noserings? Ballcourts? Lightning Puppets?

I just can't think of any artifacts that would be particularly problematic.

If I were doing ancient Romans I would think the more peculiarly Roman artifacts the better. Same with Indians as long as you have some idea what the artifact really is.