Mana, Shamans, and the Cultural Misappropriation behind Fantasy Terms

[billd91]

* 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.

I'm sure we could but... the current socio-political conventions of appropriation claims would say that they're fair game to use/reuse/mutilate since they're European in origin.

 

[Maxperson]

Nope. Carelessness is enough, in most cases. If you do a thing without taking reasonable precautions to ensure it isn’t criminal, in a situation where a reasonable person could suspect that it’s criminal, and it ends in fact being criminal, you’ve committed a criminal act.

What part of borrowing your roommate's bike would a reasonable person suspect is criminal?

The level of carelessness required to be a crime is great. Not checking whether the bike you just borrowed from your roommate is stolen doesn't even begin to come close.

Like taking the bike in the side yard shared with your neighbor, that you assume is your room mates, without checking to make sure it is theirs. If it is your neighbors, and the report it stolen, and you’re caught with it, you’ve stolen their bike.

Nope. Even that level of carelessness isn't sufficient to rise to the level of crime. You might get arrested for theft, but once the DA learns that it was a shared yard and you thought it was your roommates, no charges will be filed.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm sure we could but... the current socio-political conventions of appropriation claims would say that they're fair game to use/reuse/mutilate since they're European in origin.

Maybe, but I wanted to cut "but what about..." ahead at the curve when it came to other a few other cultural specific terms that became generic fantasy terms.

 

[dragoner]

It's worth noting that paladins no longer exist ...

The west with it's Germanic roots still honors the Holy Warrior, Beserker, etc. with it's veterans days, thanking a soldier, guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier, and all that.

Yes, Shamans still do exist, here is a picture of a Buryat one:

Photographer Spends 6 Months Traveling Alone to Photograph Siberia's Indigenous People

Alexander Khimunshin continues his portrait project 'The World in Faces' by spending 6 months photographing indigenous people in Siberia.

mymodernmet.com

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I should have added to my original post that, being in the US, when I hear the term Shaman referring to the present and not the past, the first thing I think about is the Native American Medicine Man/Shaman, of both North America and Central/South America.

 

[Eltab]

4e's Primal Power did a good job taking the class name "Shaman" and offering a variety of images of how the abilities might work in the world.

As said above: add, don't subtract.

 

[aramis erak]

My first encounter with ‹Mana› outside a biblical context that I can recall was in GURPS Magic, circa 1987.

My brain immediately made an association between the two.

I'd not encountered the austronesian term labeled as such in the 2010's...
... so its austronesian origin is irrelevant to me. On the other hand, the SJG use as the amount of magic energy able to be drawn from the local environment, and thus a limiter on spell casting, never mentions the austronesian context. But since Mana can produce Manna in GURPS, the biblical meaning ties nicely.

Except that the semitic Mann is a real food, made to this day... and IS the cognate of the old Hebrew Manna/Mannah... from the honeydew crystalized on plant stems in desert plants, collected, then worked to a nougat-like consistency.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Well, much of the english language is taking terms from other languages. So do we stop using "sugar" because it has Arabic roots?

At this point, we either need to make up thousands of new words to replace English words with, or acknowledge were speaking English and if a definition of a word fits what you're describing, you go with it. Might as well replace the numeric system while we're at it so we don't culturally appropriate Arabic culture.

Cultural appropriation is a very real thing. But because a word had it's origins from another culture, doesn't mean the current definition is cultural appropriation itself.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, much of the english language is taking terms from other languages. So do we stop using "sugar" because it has Arabic roots?

At this point, we either need to make up thousands of new words to replace English words with, or acknowledge were speaking English and if a definition of a word fits what you're describing, you go with it. Might as well replace the numeric system while we're at it so we don't culturally appropriate Arabic culture.

Cultural appropriation is a very real thing. But because a word had it's origins from another culture, doesn't mean the current definition is cultural appropriation itself.

This is a very kneejerky reaction that I wouldn’t normally expect from you.

The OP doesn’t claim that it’s appropriation because it’s from another language.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Nope. Even that level of carelessness isn't sufficient to rise to the level of crime. You might get arrested for theft, but once the DA learns that it was a shared yard and you thought it was your roommates, no charges will be filed.

Thirty plus years as a police officer, and I've seen countless convictions on similar circumstances.

Taking material property without the express permission of the owner is a crime. The only exceptions are if you are an agent of the owner, or married to the owner.

There's a guy here in the USA, to use just a single example, who did prison time for borrowing a set of tools from his uncle's garage without express permission.