[ 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

[(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)]

Ask again this time next year, there are books in the pipeline.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, okay. I'll have to keep an eye out because I'm curious to see what novels are in the works and what sort of reception they get.

[(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)]

That’s how I understand it too.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeppppp

[(Anonymous)]

They'd already shared it. It is one thing if they are keeping a giant secret now, but they shared the whole skinwalker myths a long time ago. It isn't just their oral tradition anymore, once they shared it it became part of ours too. That is the thing with oral myths, once you share them they are open to everyone. The boat sailed on this a long time ago, and there is no going back to pre contact days and pretending their ancestors didn't share.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT--does it count as sharing when the school bully half drowns you in a toilet, throws your backpack out a bus window, shoves you into a wall, and breaks your glasses because you won't give them your lunch every day and let them copy all your tests while you do their homework, and then you give in when they punch you in the face repeatedly while saying they'll kill you and your dog?

Are you sharing your food and your knowledge and your labor after that when they eat your lunch, copy your tests, and have you do their homework?

If someone sets out to destroy you and you give them what they ask for in the hope that they won't, are you sharing? What if what they set out to destroy was your family, friends, culture, religion, food, home, language... your everything?

Also, I don't know if it's true, but I've heard the reason we (white people) found out is they were comparing our behavior towards them to these "mythical" monsters.

[(Anonymous)]

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if that last part was true.

[(Anonymous)]

When did they share it, and in what setting? Because I have my doubts that they meant for the outsiders to the tribes they shared a religious legend to then spread the legend out further. And just because “the ship has sailed” on certain people being told the legends, doesn’t mean those tribe members who decided to share set the standard for what all members of the Navajo tribe intended to do with their stories. And the wishes of all the tribe members that came after to not discuss skinwalkers if you’re an outsider should still be respected, regardless of what those certain individual ancestors have done or said. It’s not a matter of it being a grand secret that’s never been told, it’s a matter of respect for a culture that’s not your own.

“It isn't just their oral tradition anymore, once they shared it it became part of ours too. That is the thing with oral myths, once you share them they are open to everyone.”

That’s not really how oral tradition works. When that oral tradition still originates in a specific area made up of specific people, they do still have more of a tie to it than anyone who learns of it afterward. They can’t stop anyone else from spreading the oral tradition to others, of course. But it doesn’t “become” those outsiders own oral tradition too just by it being spread to them. There’s a reason that myths and stories that started out in specific areas are still labeled by that area, such as Greek or Chinese myths. And the fact that the legends of skinwalkers is still specific to certain tribes, and was likely never meant to be spread out to as many people as it was, is important. It does not also belong to any outsiders to the tribes just because they’ve happened to hear it. And the originators of skinwalkers should still have a say in how they get talked about, for the sake of respecting them and their culture alone. To be frank, colonizers have done enough to indigenous tribes, so is a little respect and consideration for their current wishes really too much to ask?

Not that I’m calling you a colonizer, of course. I’m just using the fact that colonizers and their destructive actions started and set the standard for the erasure and appropriation of indigenous tribes that continues today. I’m just trying to point out that the current disregard for the will of the indigenous people is the current way they are continually treated poorly, which started with the obviously worse colonizers. Not everyone who doesn’t respect the wishes of the tribes are the same as the objectively worse people who started this attempted erasure of their culture. But ignoring what simple things they ask of outsiders is still not a great thing to do.

But seriously, despite what I might believe on the subject, I’m not trying to write you off. I am genuinely interested in what you know on the subject of skinwalkers being discussed in the past, because I didn’t really know that.