[ SECRET POST #5458 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5458 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 14 secrets from Secret Submission Post #781.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. https://i.imgur.com/sws2Xc6.png

[(Anonymous)]

We share the same wish. I'd love to have more Navajo and Algonquian folklore in my media. Some of the best and creepiest horror stories I've read/watched had some element of them and I especially love Wendigos! I think I find them particularly fascinating because I'm not American and it's so different from the mythical creatures I'm used to.
It's a shame and I actually didn't know that non-Navajo writers can't write about them, but I get it.

[(Anonymous)]

Well... to be precise it's not so much "can't" but these days people are a lot more sensitive about cultural appropriation and using that aspect of Navajo folklore might be viewed in a negative light.

[(Anonymous)]

AYART
Ah, thanks for pointing it out! I thought thay maybe Navajo people recently IDEK got copyright or something on their mythology to protect their folklore.
I have very conflicting feelings about cultural appropriation in this case because, while we should absolutely respect that community's wishes to not see their traditions be exploited from people outside their communities, it's such a shame not a have more media depicting Navajo's stories.
Unfortunately authentic Navajo's voices are not very loud outside (and inside?) the USA. I'd really like to know more.

[(Anonymous)]

I read this wendigo one and it was pretty good.

Windwalkers by R. Michael Burns. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B098RW83B1?ref_=pe_3052080_397514860

(I picked it up initially because he was my sophomore English teacher, lol. He was a really good teacher)

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks! It's pretty cool that your teacher published a book.

[(Anonymous)]

He has two! I haven't read the other yet.

[(Anonymous)]

Point one can hurt research, but point two only applies to Navajos. Nobody is bound by the wishes of another person's religion.

[(Anonymous)]

Technically true, but these days when people are more sensitive about possible cultural appropriation, how many people are going to try?

[(Anonymous)]

I think we're at a far more nuanced understanding of it now, especially when it comes to fantasy stories and mythology. The puritanical stay-in-your-lane mentality that has hamstrung fantasy books for the last ten years is wearing off, thank Mohammed. You can write about other cultures, and fewer and fewer screamy people are objecting.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm genuinely curious, do you have any examples of this actually happening?

[(Anonymous)]

As I understand it, this isn't an issue of "don't write about other cultures" as a puritanical over-generalization, but an issue of "the few genocide survivors maintaining this culture actively do not want to share this piece of their traditions with the civilization that colonized and decimated them for entertainment purposes, and if, as an outsider, you decide to ignore that fairly clear request because you can't stand one thing you want not being yours to take and use as you wish regardless of your relationship with the community it's part of.........you're being a gigantic dick.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, while a bunch of people I knew on the rez were fairly tickled by Alan Dean Foster's Cyber Way and generally regarded Tony Hillerman favorably, writing about Navajo culture and people as an outsider can be looked on dubiously, but especially writing about skin-walkers or something like Yébîchai would likely be condemned. But there do seem to be more Native writers out there and some of the older traditions and taboos are softening in the younger generations, so maybe you'll get your wish.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I don't want anyone to break any taboos for my entertainment, but if Native writers choose to tackle these topics in fiction or non-fiction, I'd love to read more about it.

[(Anonymous)]

Taboos are made for breaking.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, there are some Navajo writers out there that have written about some mythology

Vee F. Browne writes children's literature - Monster Slayer: A Navajo Folktale, Monster Birds

Aaron Albert Carr wrote Eye Killers, which combines elements of European vampire legend with Monster Slayer of Native American Myth.

Irvin Morris wrote From the Glittering World: A Navajo Story, which combines Navajo creation narrative, history, fictionalized memoir, and Navajo stories.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks, nonny!

[(Anonymous)]

Is writing about skin-walkers condemned because describing them gives them power/makes them more likely to exist or show up? Or like not naming school shooters or publishing their manifestos in case it inspires copycats? (If this is one of the taboo things it's cool if you don't answer.)

[(Anonymous)]

It is for the same reason Muslims don't like paintings of Mohammed.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT--huh, I always understood the Muslim ban on figural religious art as a veneration thing; that images of him were disrespectful because only Allah could make the form of living things, and doing otherwise risked idolatry.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

This is coming from an Anglo (or bilagáana), who spent 11 years on the Navajo reservation growing up, so take that as you will. Some things are taboo because they are revered, and some are taboo because they are not right. Skin-walkers have some connection to spirituality, but it's... twisted. And yes, there is at least some wariness that speaking of them will summon them.

[sabotabby]

I'm going to put in a recommendation for Cherie Dimaline's Empire of Wild, which is about the Rougarou, a Métis werewolf.

Also the guy who did a sensitivity read for me is apparently working on a compilation of monsters from various Indigenous traditions. Anishinaabe and Cree really don't want outsiders writing about Wendigo, and it's important to respect that, but that doesn't mean that we can't learn (and in some cases write, but carefully and with respect and research) about creatures from Indigenous traditions.

Also also, we are fortunately in the midst of a renaissance of really brilliant Indigenous authors (Dimaline among them) so while certain subjects will likely remain off-limits, there is increasingly more weird scary fiction rooted in Indigenous storytelling.

[tabaqui]

If you had a list of Native authors you would rec, that would be awesome.

[(Anonymous)]

Anything by Jamake Highwater.

[sabotabby]

Besides Cherie Dimaline, off the top of my head I'd rec:

Eden Robinson (skip the last Trickster book, but everything else is amazing)
Rebecca Roanhorse
Tanya Tagaq (she's mainly a musician, but her one book is mindblowingly weird)
Drew Hayden Taylor
Joshua Whitehead
Waubgeshig Rice
Darcie Little Badger (she's just starting out but I'm finding her writing promising!)
Thomas King

Also two story collections with similar names, Love After the End (edited by Joshua Whitehead) and Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time (edited by Hope Nicholson) are amazing and worth checking out.

Also check out Métis In Space, which is a podcast about Indigenous representation in sci-fi and fantasy and absolutely hilarious.