Subject: Also considering the history of American mascots...
Author:
Posted on: 2016-05-14 08:54:00 UTC
...I really hope it's more something along those lines, like I hope whatever Native students that do go to this school consistently (and rightfully) protest about the usage of their religious symbols as House mascots.
Seriously though...
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"The names of the four houses were apparently buried in a tangle of JavaScript blogger Ian Cervantez found on Pottermore.com, and they're all based on creatures tied to Native American mythologies.
Houses Wampus, Horned Serpent, Thunderbird, and Pukwudgie are apparently the four Houses of the American Ilvermorny school. The names were revealed in JavaScript found on Pottermore that seemed to be tied to a personality quiz that wasn't yet live on the site."
I mean, it's cool, but surely JK can do better than just naming the houses directly after the creatures? :/ I'm... not gonna lie, I hope there's more to it than that because I'm pretty disappointed otherwise.
And 1visible, where are you from? Because my middle school and high school were pretty similar and didn't have any of this 'clusters' stuff you were talking about. In both middle and high school, we had our own individual schedules; it was rare for me to see the same kids throughout the day. The only difference is that in middle school, third period was aways set aside for "RE", that is "Reading and Enrichment", or as the other students treated it, "goof off and act like idiots" time. Lunchtime was determined by your fourth period class.
Elementary school for me was different, but I went to a tiny, tiny private school where forty kids to a grade was a rare, large class. There were two teachers to a grade and the grade would be split into two groups, one for each teacher, and halfway through the day they would switch (one teacher would handle half the classes like math, science, and history while the other would take, say, English, religion, and music).
/end rambling anecdote
"LOL SO THE NEW AMERICAN HARRY POTTER SCHOOL HAS NDN “MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURES” FOR ITS HOUSES
HAHAHAH “HOUSE THUNDERBIRD”
HAHAHA ... THIS"
Which is a sentiment I kind of have to agree with? Like, honestly everything about this "Magic in North America" stuff just feels like JKR wasn't really trying. We know she's a good writer so why does all of it, the new houses especially, feel like it was written by a fanfic author with little clue as to how America, both modern and historical, works?
It's been pointed out elsewhere in this thread that J.K. worked for Amnesty International once upon a time; if she's doing this, it's deliberate. Also recall that all this stuff is being released as promotional material for the runup to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a film set in that bastion of progressivism and social justice, the nineteen-friggin'-twenties. This sort of thing is unacceptable to modern eyes, yes, but it's exactly the kind of thing that would have been acceptable nearly a century ago.
J.K. Rowling is smarter than some are wont to give her credit for because she uses other people's dull-wittedness to make a point. D'you think she's a small-minded, pompous Little Englander because she wrote Vernon Dursley? Do you think she's an autocratic fascist because she has Voldemort's insurgency take control of the Ministry for roughly six months? No. Even the most cursory analysis of postcolonial North American history involves white people screwing everyone over as soon as look at them, and we have reason to believe that J.K. did considerably more than that. So yes, be outraged at what white people did in what became the U.S.
That's the idea.
Okay, so Hogwarts gets this rich history, right, and all the houses are named after the founders. The American school (which honestly probably shouldn't even have houses but whatever) just gets houses named after local mythical creatures. That would be like if Hogwarts got "House Unicorn" or "House Basilisk" for its houses. It's just lame, unispired, and from someone like JKR, it feels like she's not even trying to put forth an effort.
As for the issues with the history of magic in North America (which is really "Magic in the United States" because it completely ignores Canada and Mexico), other people have said it better than me, so I'm just gonna leave a link to their posts.
http://thewholekeg.tumblr.com/post/144593216328/philosophy-and-coffee-songofsunset
A lot of the stuff about multicultural wizarding America could still be absolutely true - but MACUSA doesn't talk about it in the officially published history. I wrote a very short story from the perspective of one of the (hypothetical) culturo-magic groups the New York wizards don't like to think about.
This assumption doesn't cover everything, but it fills in a lot of it - particularly when you view the History as being written by MACUSA. Why don't they talk about their predecessors' American patriotism? Because they're desperately trying to instill the current generation with the mindset that MACUSA Is All.
A couple specific points:
-There was a lot of thought way back that the entirety of North America would eventually join the US. MACUSA probably took that to conclusions and claims authority over the entire continent.
-House names! I agree that an American school probably shouldn't look like Hogwarts, but disagree about 'uninspired'. It's far more interesting than the three house systems I've personally experienced:
-My secondary school had houses named after the three founders of the schools it was made up of. Not terribly imaginative, given that two of them were named in the name of the school.
-My primary school had Diamond, Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire. Thrilling, no? (Diamond was best.)
-My son's school has Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, and... I dunno, probably Milton Keynes or somewhere equally banal. No, they have no connection to any of those universities.
The Hogwarts idea of houses that a) people care about, and b) have actual distinguishing features is either a very weird one, or a very Upper Class Public School one.
hS
My primary school's houses were named after old students who'd done something exemplary, I think (Sutton, Weymouth, and Fiske). My secondary school, on the other hand, only introduced houses while I was there and after it got status as a language college. These were named after European cities, namely Barcelona, Delphi, Helsinki, Neuchatel, Sorrento, and Tallinn.
I should point out that out of the whole school, only two people in my year took A-Level French.
Well done, Specialist Language College Dane Court Grammar School.
Hogwarts:
-Gryffindor = lion = brave
-Ravenclaw = corvid = smart
-Hufflepuff = badger = ... I dunno, cuddly?
-Slytherin = snake = super evil and sneaky
So what about [possible] Ilvermorny? Let's look at Wikipedia for guidance.
Horned Serpent
The various Horned Serpents are associated with water (and there's apparently an element theme to Hogwarts too, so that's interesting). Its character is... debated. The Muscogee version is a friend to animals and humans, but the Cherokee one is deadly poison and will murder your family. Both of them apparently draw other creatures in, though, so perhaps this is the Hufflepuff 'friendly' house?
Or, more crackpotly: they have some nonsense attribute, but their real characteristic is 'smothering'. That would make them the Slytherin analogue (serpent, so it's likely anyway), and would tie in with the oppressive nature of MACUSA. An evil house that wants to grab you and not let go... I can see that.
Wampus
So... it's a big cat. The Cherokee legend attached to the wampus talks about spying, so how about 'stealthy'? Your Wampus kids are going to be the ones who can blend in well, and tend towards small, non-flashy magic. They're also stuffed with anti-MACUSA dissidents - the ones who managed to get in at all - because they're part of an entire hidden subculture.
Thunderbird
The thunderbird is powerful and dangerous, and embodies a force of nature. Wikipedia also uses the word 'wrathful'. Your Thunderbird kids are going to be 'brave' in a way that even Gryffindor would say 'hang on a minute' to: they will charge into danger without regard for their own life. Are they doing it for their friends? Are they in a rage? Or are they just out for glory? Depends on the kid.
Pukwudgie
It's a... wow. It's a poisonous invisible were-porcupine that wields malevolent ghosts as weapons.
Uh.
Okay.
The only remotely positive trait I can really associate with this is 'mischievous'. Perhaps the idea of pukwudgies being anti-human is a lie, and they're really just playful creatures. Sure. Let's go with that. And never believe anything a Pukwudgie kid tells you.
So we have smothering, sneaky, headstrong, and tricksy houses. That sounds really interesting! So I suspect it'll be nothing of the sort. Here's the Did Not Do The Research alternative:
-Thunderbird = bird = Ravenclaw
-Horned Serpent = snake = Slytherin
-Wampus = big cat = Gryffindor
-Pukwudgie = looks like a hedgehog = Hufflepuff
(Which is why I'm a bit dubious about them being real - surely she's got enough imagination not to literally copy her previous houses, right? ... right?)
hS
After some cursory research this is what I came up with.
I think Thunderbird will be the Gryffindor Analogue. It seems to fit pretty closely with them. Given that the Horned Serpent in at least a few traditions is the opposite of the Thunderbird I think it is most likely to be the Slytherin Analogue.
I have nothing for either Wampus or Pukwudgie. To me nothing seems to quite say any other house. Maybe the traits associated with the Ilvermorney Houses are different?
Another theory, as far as the good/evil go, maybe both Pukwudgies and Horned Serpents are the preferred houses of Dark Wizards? I could definitely see the Serpents being in charged, the Pukwudgies as essentially being their enforcers, those two filling in the Slytherin role in MACUSA. I see Thunderbirds as being the front line shock troops, riot in the streets types of rebels and the Wampus being the behind the scene version.
... why the internet (or bits of it) are calling this cultural appropriation?
I can just about understand the skinwalker thing. But... why is 'using native mythological creatures (which aren't religious practices)' appropriation/viewed as by some? Surely it's... good to reference the magical background of the continent?
~
Of course, the idea that the USA has a magical school exactly following the pattern of the UK version is a bit weird; do American schools have houses? And particularly since we've got the canon statement that Ilvermorny started out as a shack in the woods, rather than being established by four wizards a la Hogwarts. So I'm mildly dubious about the truth of this (but not too much so).
~
And that is an amazing picture of a thunderbird. Whoooooa.
hS
I went to a New England snooty prep school, and I can say that we didn't have houses. We had dorms, but those were, well, dorms. So yeah I think she just didn't do any research on American schools.
Some people are just thin-skinned. To them, cultural appropriation means any nod to a real-world culture. They can't stand the thought of someone taking inspiration from their own (or worse, someone else's,) culture.
They tend to congregate in communities on Tumblr under a flimsy banner of "social justice".
~
I can't say anything about college, but in the US, middle and high school are organized into clusters. In middle school, at least, each grade has three clusters. Our school system is so crowded that the 6th and 7th grade have an extra shared cluster. Everyone in the same cluster has the same math, science, english, and history teachers, and they are called and dismissed from assemblies as a group. In high school, the distinctions are more fluid. A student could have teachers from any part of the school.
The cluster system is the closest thing in the US, outside of college.
Yakama students at my university get their cars keyed while being told in class that wearing a feathered headdress and buckskin as a costume is fine by their classmates. While being paraded around as the "token Indian" by some of their own faculty. While their younger siblings get bullied in school for wearing braids, those same bullies go to festivals and wear feathers.
It's not thin skin, it's getting fed up of beig treated badly by a culture that tries to erase their identity while taking bits of it to play with. And I'll thank you not to put down social justice with regards to an issue you don't see no have done much research on.
While Tumblr communities may get carried away, social justice issues are not born there, nor are they confined to Tumblr. These are real issues, effecting real human beings. Complaining about "social justice" is kind of uncool in a world where the opposite is, y'know, injustice.
It's mostly that almost no research was done on the cited cultures, along with complete disregard for actual historical facts.
Seriously. Is J.K. saying PoC wizards just didn't care for muggles, who could have been their family and friends, being slaves or genocide victims? Or even that no wizards were oppressed for their ethnicity, ever. Racism not existing in the wizarding world is just stupid, not to mention the obvious fact that, even then, it's still a thing in the muggle world which would obviously have consequences for wizards. And don't even get me started on the no-pure-blood-families thing. It's the United States, and you're telling me the obvious racism metaphor is NOT A THING?
Also, notice how, suddenly, a few centuries ago, magic in Northern America apparently became all about imported European traditions. No racism here going on, nope, nuh-uh.
I was asking about the fact that some people are saying that using 'Thunderbird' as a house name is "practically the platonic ideal of cultural appropriation". Which is an argument I don't really understand.
I'm still voting for A History of Magic in North America being an official MACUSA-sanctioned propaganda document, for the record.
hS
Warning, one-sided discourse ahead!
There's a long history between the United States and the Native American nations, most of it very ugly - we've gone from actively genocidal to passively genocidal (via forced assimilation) to "merely" pushing them into corners and neglecting them to death.
A big part of this ugly history is religious - as Morally Upright White Christians, it was our job to Civilize the Savages and Enlighten the World. This didn't go well, but it went - the Indian boarding schools (or Residential Schools, if you're looking for Canadian information) intended to, among other things, forcibly Christianize a generation or two of native youth. They didn't succeed, but they did irreparable damage to the cultural fabric of Native America, and as it really only stopped a generation or two ago, we still don't know its full effects.
And now we come to the details of this case, and Thunderbird. (I'm weak on this chunk of the story, VM, please help?) Thunderbird is a specific - and rather significant - entity in native spirituality. I'm not going to try to compare them to western mythologies/religions, because that's a Bad Idea, but Thunderbird is very important, especially in the pacific northwest traditions. And, because Thunderbird is included in the category of Things To Be Suppressed Because They Are Not Christianity, a lot of native people, including native youth, were forcibly indoctrinated because of their belief in Thunderbird (along with other entities and reasons).
So, the message being sent by using Thunderbird as a house name reads like this: You know that thing that is an important and powerful symbol of strength to your people? The one that we-as-white-people tried to destroy, and used as reason to try to destroy your culture? Yeah, it's ours now. We're going to take the pretty pictures and strip them of their meaning and run them through a marketing machine on a scale you can't even imagine and spread our milquetoast, inaccurate vision of your most sacred stories further than you'll ever be able to reach - and, oh yeah, we'll treat it with no more reverence than a high-school mascot.
It's like the worst bible fanfiction ever, but with extra terrible twists - instead of a single writer posting terrible badfic on ff.net, this is an immense publishing conglomerate, with a name on the title page bigger than the media presence of the entire religion she's borrowing from. This isn't a religion that's a household name like Jesus Christ, either- this is a belief that has been suppressed and repressed and attempted-genocided, right up until it became the exotic fetish of the New Age decade. And that's cultural appropriation in a nutshell: we-as-white-people are going to take a culturally significant entity from people we have oppressed, and use it to make money and spread our culture instead.
And that's the angry anti-appropriative view.
And I completely agree, AHoMiNA is definitely MACUSA propaganda.
What Juliette (DJ?) has said is a big part of it. But also . . .
One: My friend Grace pointed this out. To have white wizards from England come to America, then a school is set up under their traditions, and yet colonialism is brushed aside as "they just got along" feels wrong to me.
Two: Boarding Schools to American Indian tribes have an utterly horrific connotation - it's where kids were forcibly taken from their parents and sent off to unlearn their language, tradition, and religion. They were beaten for speaking their own language, very, very often physically and sexually abused, and treated as a rent-able workforce for the surrounding community… while being taught skills to occupy the lowest rungs on the wage-ladder, since it was never assume they would be capable of college. The death and disease rates were astronomical. Running away is a common narrative.
I will note that some tribes later took possession of these schools and turned them into real schools for the tribe. That's pretty rare, though, and it was done while remembering the history that brought them there. To take a boarding school for wizard kids in America and slap tribal symbols on it out of context, without a single reference to that trauma, is utterly wrong.
Three; There were at least five hundred different nations on this continent before it was "discovered." Thunderbirds mean something to some of them, something else to others, and nothing at all to others. Again, you cannot take these symbols out of context, or they lose all meaning. Are we talking about Hopi/Pueblo Thinderbirds? Diné Thunderbirds? Paiute? Or Dakota, Lakota, Oglala? And if you're making a school for the Algonquian peoples, Thinderbird makes significantly less sense than, say, Whale and Snake.
Four: American Indian religions are STILL treated with disrespect in much of this country. We still say "shaman" or "wizard" or what have you when we mean "Medicine man/woman." This system also disregards that practice.
That's what I've got off the top of my head.
A) Yes, Thunderbirds are significant in religion. Thunderbirds, in some cultures, bring water (in others, not so much - again, this is a highly diverse environment with drastically different traditions and interpretations), and are a Other-Than-Human-Being* to be prayed to.
B) The Horned Serpent may well also be a spiritual symbol of some significance, as may be Wampus. I don't know much about either of them, since I've studied the Western nations a lot more.
*OTHB is a clunky phrase in English, I know, but it's the most recent attempt by academics at categorizing the group of . . . well, other-than-human beings that inhabit the North and South American worldview. They're not gods, or Gods, so that phrase is misleading, nor are they entirely or only spirits, so that doesn't work, but even those that look human and those that look like animals are not only animals, but beings in another sense. So... Other Than Human Beings. Lengthy but useful.
I've seen them referred to as supernatural beings/creatures, which is a little less clunky. . . Is there a problem with that phrase? It sounds like it might be problematic but might not. . .
I don't think I agree with it - it makes major assumptions about magic in North America in general, and Ilvermorny in particular, and I'm none too keen on the 'all [English-speaking] white cultures are interchangeable' notion in there - but I understand it. Which is what I was after.
So, follow-up question. Starting from the premise that Potterverse magic works the same everywhere, and that non-magical history there matches ours (including things like prevailing attitudes among the populace), how could JKR have used the existence of Native Americans in her writings in a way that wouldn't be [generally] seen as cultural appropriation?
(That's an open question; I'm happy for you to answer it, but you've already given one excellent and extensive answer, so I'm also fine if you want to step back and let someone else take it.)
hS
Because if it ends up being played straight... She can kiss goodbye to success.
It seems to me that this is white American wizards being just as stupid as their muggle counterparts were when it comes to indigenous peoples, an interpretation which I really hope is correct. If it isn't, I'll be very disappointed with her.
Well, not 'this' with the success comment - I think you underestimate JKR's popularity there - but... I really hope she's deliberately setting up a commentary on 1920s America with all this.
At the moment, it's impossible to tell. Is she outlining a worldview that the film will hold up as awful - the Rap, MACUSA, and possibly the 'natives are just like us but not as good!' overtones in the History - or is she just chucking stuff out there without doing real research or thinking about what it means?
If it's the former, then she's doing a really good job, and [after the film is out] her response to all the outrage will be 'yes, it was outrageous; well done for noticing'.
If it's the latter... well, I hope it's not the latter.
hS
...I really hope it's more something along those lines, like I hope whatever Native students that do go to this school consistently (and rightfully) protest about the usage of their religious symbols as House mascots.
So.
Putting that out there.
I could kinda see how it could be cultural appropriation, but that would be making way too many assumptions to assume it is right now, with the little information we have.
