#indigenous coding

Coding Fantasy Indigenous Peoples

You’re getting conflicting answers because there is truly no right answer to this question, as with most things when it comes to representation. Some people will prefer one thing, others something else. If you’re trying to find the Perfect Path Without Backlash, it doesn’t exist. Sorry.

Also, just as a note, a lot of nations cross the border between Canada and the United States, because that border is artificial and colonial. So you might very well be looking at Canada even if you’ve picked an “American” tribe.

In my personal, singular Indigenous opinion, my process would look something like this:

1- Pick A Region First

Region will give you the environment that the tribe(s) live in (I’ll get to that plural in a second), which will then inform basically everything about how they built their customs. A lot of Indigenous beliefs are tied to natural resources and constrains of the land, so it’s very hard to code an Indigenous society without figuring out what sort of land you’re working with.

This applies even if you’re working outside of the Continental US, because even just within the States they’re subjugating wide swaths of Polynesia (including Hawai’i), Alaska, the Philippines, etc. Not to mention how many Indigenous groups there are around the globe being erased by their local states.

Indigenous peoples are everywhere. You don’t have to include them all the time, but they exist beyond Turtle Island.

2- See Who Lived There

And now, the plural. Because unlike a lot of Western places, there’s a lot more nomadic groups when it comes to Indigenous peoples. 

So the region you picked could have multiple groups that cycle through the same landscape, and this will also inform the representation. Did they like each other? Or were they traditionally enemies? 

How about in lands that changed hands a lot? Because the borders of what Native population owned what lands are flexible, and you can find areas where the region changed hands a dozen times over even just a couple hundred years. How will you handle that?

Now here’s your first fork in the road: You can combine the groups that were friendly (key word: friendly) with each other into one large group, or you can have multiple Indigenous groups in the worldbuilding that are mentioned in passing, like how x cycles through in certain seasons, and y in another.

I would not follow this fork if they were traditionally enemies. Because it’s just… not respectful to have two cultures that were incompatible enough they were enemies for large swaths of their history together. It does happen where traditional enemies sometimes live together for awhile, but if you’re an outsider, I’d keep them separate.

This does mean that if you’ve picked a region with traditional enemies, you’re going to need both groups. Because the “enemies” part will have also shaped the culture, like how many men were alive in ages where men were expected to be warriors. Cultures adapt for certain percentages of the population to die in war, after all.

This also provides an interesting avenue for your non-Indigenous population, because are they allied with one group? Both? How do they maintain relationships? If these non-Indigenous people are not colonial, then be very careful not to have them try to play both sides too hard, because helping both sides kill the other is a tool of colonialism. If they are colonial, they’re going to be doing this and it’ll be a villain move.

Personally, I’d toss more diversity instead of less because it helps avoid tokenism. Instead of having this One Token Nomadic Group, the One Token Indigenous Group, you have two, or three, and you’re showing a diversity of cultures instead of just throwing in Natives because you feel like you have to in order to be diverse.

But if you do want to blend (which might be useful, even if you just want to make a new culture that mixes “European” with Indigenous as people intermarry), I’d read this post: Pulling From Multiple Indigenous Legends

3- See what exists and what’s open

A lot of Indigenous practices are closed, meaning we don’t tell them to outsiders. At all. This doesn’t mean that those practices aren’t out there as appropriated pieces of “folklore”, but you need to be aware that some folklore is Indigenous and therefore should be closed.

Putting these closed practices in fantasy is generally considered a bad move (see: almost every non-Indigenous use of the w3ndigo ever), unless you can work closely with the tribe to figure out how to do it respectfully (see: Teen Wolf doing a Skinwalkers episode with the Navajo; ironically enough they did not work with the Cree when they had a w3ndigo episode, as far as I can tell)

I’d suggest reading this post: All Myths Are True, Native Spirits Invisible to Outsiders for how to include closed practices.

4- Magic gets its own point

The thing about fantasy is that you’re dealing with the supernatural, and in my experience on WWC, some of the biggest “uh” moments are whenever people don’t realize how culturally Christian their magic systems are, and how incompatible they are with Indigenous beliefs.

So you’re going to need a degree of research into Native mindset, and then extrapolate what sorts of things that make sense for them. This can fill in some blanks for not touching Native spirituality with a ten foot pole, but you are going to need extensive research to have it actually make sense.

Read through the tag and note every time I poke at the concept that Natives are more magically attuned, that there’s something like “the gods told me to”, or other little tiny “basic” things in a lot of fantasy that just don’t feel like they fit.

Or, come back after you’ve gone through steps 1 to 3 and can be more specific!

Still, I would suggest you do this sort of research anyway just to be respectful. Figuring out how magic works and dovetails with Native populations is just a nice side benefit.

Overall:

To very directly answer your questions:

Best way to respectfully include Indigenous cultures in fantasy: I’d prefer very little colonialism if any; no such thing as noble savage (aka: we are not “better” because we live closer to nature and don’t have the humdrum of Western society); complex, rich societies with social rules and the same level of care you’d give Western cultures; just generally considered valuable, complex, and sustainable.

Better to use one tribe and hard code or no tribes and blend: Whatever makes sense for the story, but I’d err on the side of trying to capture the feel of the area with the peoples who already populated it. Like, if you’re trying to work with an area that has a confederacy of tribes, you’d be better off coding multiple tribes within that confederacy because being part of a confederacy is usually pretty important to tribe leadership and general functioning of the group; if you’re writing an area with a lot of roaming nomads, you’d be better to have multiple nomadic groups; etc.

Some aspects but not whole vs the whole: Keep closed practices closed, and figure out where magic and your unique worldbuilding breaks how an Indigenous group would function in the world.

What’s the best approach: If you’re attempting to make Indigenous people feel seen in fantasy, then whatever means to that end is the best approach—while understanding there’s not going to be a solidly unified opinion that everyone will agree on, but at best broad generalities. In my opinion that is nailing down coding enough that the peoples from the region you picked can spot their own practices and mindset and know somebody cares enough to have found those details.

I personally err on the side of closer coding to irl than looser at least to start, just because the way my brain works I need a lot of details from the culture in the early stages of research, just so I can gain the confidence in what to put on the page and have it feel real. 

Especially if you’re trying to unlearn a colonizer mindset through writing, and really trying to broaden your worldview, going towards an initial goal of closer coding will really help break apart the base assumptions about How Things Work, and you’ll develop the mental flexibility to write about differences more easily.

You can loosen up coding later, if you want to, once you’ve learned enough to know what you’re consciously adapting to your fantasy world instead of just throwing your ideas of how you think the culture works into the plot and expecting it to be accurate.

Hope this helps!

Anonymous asked:

Confusion about coding and critique

So, recently I got a concerning sort of critique about one of my characters - and I want to know what I should do about it, considering who and where it is coming from.

Recently one of my non-Jewish friends pointed out that my main OC character could be considered coded Jewish and began to tell me her portrayal was offensive - but only pointed to their snake familiar (as the character is mage, from a long line of mages) and dehumanization from his abusive mother that resulted in internalized demonization as elements of that.

The only issue I really take with this is these are A) stereotypes from what I’ve read, B) came from a non-Jewish friend, and C) my character is aggressively stated to be mixed Indigenous and their appearance, practices, and their experiences and interests come from things I’ve experienced or held value in during my life as a mixed-race Indigenous man from a rocky back life…

I really don’t want to be offensive to anyone of Jewish heritage, but I don’t know how to take this critique, and I’m scared that my projection of experiences could be read as negative coding…

I appreciate that you are being careful and respectful about this and I am very sorry that your friend minimized your expression of your identity like this. Is the character clearly distinctly practicing a religion other than Judaism? That would be good enough for me because our specific faith is such an important marker of our identity. The Indigenous traditions described in the story will also help to cement them as "not us."

I'm sure your friend means well but snakes are not "creepy" in every tradition and the folks who have positive snake traditions should be able to participate in those legends without it having anything to do with us.

(A disclaimer: yes, there is the snake DILF in my books. He's a dreamboat and my ideal man and a giant reclamation of many antisemitic tropes at once. I've gotten multiple pieces of feedback saying the only reason he works is that it's coming from the inside. These are dangerous waters :P )

--Shira

Um yeah I know there's a lizard thing but I'm not aware really of a snake thing, especially if that's the only feature that makes your character seem Jewish/anti-Semitic. Definitely agree that if the character participates in another religion, there is little danger of him being read as Jewish in any offensive way. Thank you for checking though! 

-Shoshi  

Coding, in its purest sense, is a combination of multiple traits that adds up to create an impression of a particular group. 

It is a collection of items, and everyone who only points to a single feature as proof of a single group’s coding is someone with a weak argument, and there needs to be more clues towards identity. Especially since most singular traits can be related to multiple groups, and it does take multiple traits to create solid coding (this goes for both positive and negative coding, btw, you cannot just give someone brown skin and have that be enough to make them a character of colour).

A single snake familiar for a magic user does not a code make—now, if you had someone with curly hair using blood magic with a snake familiar, I would raise an eyebrow; but if it is just the snake familiar, then the issues are less.

As Shira and Shoshi mentioned, you’re going to need to ground this in Indigenous practices (whether they be Creator-based or more polytheistic, that’s up to your nation), and/or ground this in non-Jewish practices to ensure this isn’t harmful. But if all you have is a snake familiar and general vague “magic”, then you’re at a lower risk. Some people will see this as Jewish regardless, and I would suggest a sensitivity reader to ensure you haven’t woven in some subconscious stereotypes because those exist, but you cannot control everyone’s reactions.

Is it right to question stuff we put into our work subconsciously? Yes, and subtle things can indeed be harmful and go unnoticed. But if you have no other signs that point to a Jewish protagonist, then it is simply a false check; you lose nothing by doing the research, but you don’t have to throw out everything that might lead to people misreading it. If that was a requirement, then very little could be written.

~Mod Lesya

A snake familiar, and an abusive mother don't code a character as Jewish!

I appreciate you taking the time to double, and triple (or with all of us here, quadruple) check your work, and your assumptions. To echo what Shira and Shoshi said: if your character is explicitly practicing a religion other than Judaism, that's going to be enough for most folks especially since, as you suspected, what's included in the work doesn't really point to a Jewish character anyway. 

As a side note, being Indigenous isn't necessarily enough to show that a character is not Jewish, since there are indeed Indigenous North Americans who are Jewish (not a massive population, but they're out there). You've put a lot of other work in to create this character, and show that he isn't Jewish in other ways, and that is enough. 

Representing Pueblo/Zuni Peoples Respectfully

1- put in details that the culture has chosen to share with the world. Native tribes do share some parts of their culture according to their guidelines, and that material is usually okay to share. When in doubt, ask the tribe if x part is allowed to be redistributed by outsiders.

But, in general, when somebody Native publishes a story on the internet, that story is considered safe to share. Note how I specify on the internet because sometimes tribes will tell you things in person but it can never be transcribed in text.

Make sure it’s published by somebody genuinely Pueblo/Zuni, and that stuff is where you should base your research.

I’d personally rather more detail than less, because when you get too fuzzy with coding in fantasy then it can reinforce the concept that all Natives are the same— and you’ll be more likely to pull from your own biases. The more research you do and the more you refine the coding to be as close to that people as you can safely get it, the more likely you are to get good representation.

2- I’ve seen a few cultures be okay with feathers in hair. This isn’t to say all of them are, but the ones I interact with are. I’ll leave this part open for Pueblo/Zuni people to answer, since I’m very far removed from that region.