Aldarc
Legend
So here is a short 10 minute video from an educational YouTube series called Religion for Breakfast that discusses how the term "mana" entered into the lexicon of fantasy novels, tabletop roleplaying, and video games to mean "magic".
Long story short is that it came from a white English anthropologist in the 1800s misunderstanding a common word that exists in various Austronesian language families and then misapplying his misunderstanding of 'mana' to other cultures outside of Austronesian cultures. However, despite some scholarly opposition to his ideas even then, this misunderstanding nevertheless became relatively pervasive in cultural anthropology, whose books eventually made their way to the hands of fantasy authors who read those anthropologists, and the rest was mostly history.
Similarly, the word "shaman" is a culturally specific term for the spiritual leaders of Tunguska in Siberia that Euro-American anthropologists would use to apply to basically the spiritual leaders for every non-Western culture they encountered, regardless of whether it was appropriate. And often its use comes with the implicit judgment of Western superiority wherein "shaman" is applied to the spiritual leaders of "primitive" cultures. (I suspect that most fantasy depictions of "shamans" will probably have them as "primitives" wearing bones, feathers, fur, and other trappings, no?) The ubiquity of the term "shaman" for basically all indigenous spiritual leaders has even led to coining of the term "plastic shaman," a pejorative for people who pass themselves off as "shamans" and basically prey on ignorance while perpetuating nonsense cultural practices. Because when there are so many "plastic shamans" out there, how can one take the real spiritual leaders seriously? Therein is the harm. As a result, there are a number of various indigenous cultures that are fighting to get Westerners to stop using the term "shaman" in a generic sense or applying the term "shaman" to their spiritual leaders. Likewise, cultural anthropologists are also having the discussion about how appropriate using these terms are.
Why does this matter? Terms like "mana" and "shaman" almost feel like an inseparable part of the fantasy lexicon, almost to the point of feeling generic. The word "shaman" readily evokes an archetype of one who works with spirits, typically through magic, so it serves as an easy shorthand for a fantasy concept, similarly in the same way that "paladin" has become a shorthand term that evokes the image of a "holy knight."* But as noted above, using these terms are not without their problems, as these terms (and a number others) entered our lexicon through Euro-American cultural misappropriation. It's worth noting that paladins no longer exist; however, Tungusic shamans and Austronesian-speaking peoples still do. These were terms that Euro-Americans divorced from their original indigenous contexts to apply to "other" non-Western cultures that are still around.
I am not necessarily suggesting that we replace or ban these terms, but it is important for us to understand how a lot of "generic" fantasy terms that we have inherited as gamers sometimes have a dirty, problematic history of Western misappropriation that are less generic and more culturally specific than we imagine. Moreover, our ignorance of the history behind the "generic term" perpetuates ignorance of those terms in their native contexts. I am advocating caution with their use, that we reflect on how our generic terms perpetuate cultural ignorance about real peoples, and that we consider how we label certain fantasy tropes going forward, especially if there are more apt or less harmful descriptors we could use.
* I'm sure we could likewise cite 'druids' and 'bards' where the original cultural context of a term was transformed into a generic fantasy term.
Long story short is that it came from a white English anthropologist in the 1800s misunderstanding a common word that exists in various Austronesian language families and then misapplying his misunderstanding of 'mana' to other cultures outside of Austronesian cultures. However, despite some scholarly opposition to his ideas even then, this misunderstanding nevertheless became relatively pervasive in cultural anthropology, whose books eventually made their way to the hands of fantasy authors who read those anthropologists, and the rest was mostly history.
Similarly, the word "shaman" is a culturally specific term for the spiritual leaders of Tunguska in Siberia that Euro-American anthropologists would use to apply to basically the spiritual leaders for every non-Western culture they encountered, regardless of whether it was appropriate. And often its use comes with the implicit judgment of Western superiority wherein "shaman" is applied to the spiritual leaders of "primitive" cultures. (I suspect that most fantasy depictions of "shamans" will probably have them as "primitives" wearing bones, feathers, fur, and other trappings, no?) The ubiquity of the term "shaman" for basically all indigenous spiritual leaders has even led to coining of the term "plastic shaman," a pejorative for people who pass themselves off as "shamans" and basically prey on ignorance while perpetuating nonsense cultural practices. Because when there are so many "plastic shamans" out there, how can one take the real spiritual leaders seriously? Therein is the harm. As a result, there are a number of various indigenous cultures that are fighting to get Westerners to stop using the term "shaman" in a generic sense or applying the term "shaman" to their spiritual leaders. Likewise, cultural anthropologists are also having the discussion about how appropriate using these terms are.
Why does this matter? Terms like "mana" and "shaman" almost feel like an inseparable part of the fantasy lexicon, almost to the point of feeling generic. The word "shaman" readily evokes an archetype of one who works with spirits, typically through magic, so it serves as an easy shorthand for a fantasy concept, similarly in the same way that "paladin" has become a shorthand term that evokes the image of a "holy knight."* But as noted above, using these terms are not without their problems, as these terms (and a number others) entered our lexicon through Euro-American cultural misappropriation. It's worth noting that paladins no longer exist; however, Tungusic shamans and Austronesian-speaking peoples still do. These were terms that Euro-Americans divorced from their original indigenous contexts to apply to "other" non-Western cultures that are still around.
I am not necessarily suggesting that we replace or ban these terms, but it is important for us to understand how a lot of "generic" fantasy terms that we have inherited as gamers sometimes have a dirty, problematic history of Western misappropriation that are less generic and more culturally specific than we imagine. Moreover, our ignorance of the history behind the "generic term" perpetuates ignorance of those terms in their native contexts. I am advocating caution with their use, that we reflect on how our generic terms perpetuate cultural ignorance about real peoples, and that we consider how we label certain fantasy tropes going forward, especially if there are more apt or less harmful descriptors we could use.
* I'm sure we could likewise cite 'druids' and 'bards' where the original cultural context of a term was transformed into a generic fantasy term.
