Mana, Shamans, and the Cultural Misappropriation behind Fantasy Terms

[Sadras]

I think if anything I have probably been guilty of not making shamans cool enough in the game, enough to make PCs worry about facing a goblin or orc shaman and their mysterious primal powers. If anything these discussions have inspired me to play up certain monsters. For me it is not so much whether x race is non-good, just make them memorable. It is all about the cool factor.

 

[Maxperson]

Elvis yoinked black blues music and made billions of dollars on it while black artists couldn't even get played on the radio. Is that a bad consequence or not?

You're conflating Elvis singing the blues with the racism of the era. His songs weren't what were keeping those black artists off of the air.

Early Fantasy genre fiction is replete with bigotry and misogyny. This isn't an opinion, this is a demonstrable fact. Howard, Lovecraft and lots of others all benefited from the fact that minorities were excluded from the business. And, again, this isn't ancient history either. There's a reason we say J. K. Rowling but also say Stephen King or Robert Howard. It's a lot easier to be top of the business model when you exclude over 50% of the potential competition after all.

Again, your conflating individuals with the general racism of the era. They weren't personally keeping minorities out of business. Stephen King published his first book in 1974. Katherine Kurtz published hers in 1970, and Anne McCaffery published hers in 1974. Robert Howard started writing and publishing in 1936. Mary Shelley started hers in 1818.

So, when we perpetuate those stereotypes and tropes in our hobby, are we not continuing a bad consequence? No one is saying that Gygax was some closet bigot. I am absolutely sure that he wasn't. But, in the 70's, when D&D was hitting it's stride, and it was being written and edited by ... talented amateurs I guess would be the best way to phrase it ... social awareness and cultural respect weren't even a blip on their radar. They were simply yoinking ideas from every fantasy story and fairy tale they could get their hands on.

And, in doing so, continued the same bigoted themes and tropes that inhabit those early works.

So, sure, we're a couple steps removed from H. P. Lovecraft. Fair enough. But, shouldn't we fix things that we know are wrong? Using a real world religious figures to describe the religious leaders of an evil, violent, primitive groups is wrong. It is just wrong. We know better. And you fix it, not because you're winning points or trying to change minds. You fix it because it's the right thing to do.

Yoinked and altered. They didn't transplant those ideas intact. D&D isn't a couple of steps removed from Lovecraft. It's about half a mile.

 

[jasper]

We could replace "Shaman" with "Caster of Arcana, Divine, and other magics. Who are sometime leaders of the tribe this group of monsters (see Monster Manual page ? for definition of monsters).

 

[Maxperson]

you forgot a word Shaman in 5e mean "religious leader of evil, violent, primitive FANTASY groups." .

The don't even mean that much. Hussar just refuses to acknowledge facts that multiple people here have shown him and continues to repeat what he knows to be untrue. Shamans in 5e mean anyone of any humanoid race of any alignment.

 

[Umbran]

One other thing : in its best aspect, tradition is the way of the proven things.

And in its worst aspect? Slavery and oppression. So, yeah, there's that.

If you've got a tradition which has brought you good things in the past, without bad consequences, why not follow it ?

So, the devil is in that "without any bad consequences".

Absolutes (like "without ANY....") are rather extreme statements. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and we haven't haven't seen even ordinary proof on this.

If you turn this into a case where others present bad consequences which you refuse to accept, and you then stand there and say, "Well, nobody proved me wrong, so I am correct!", you have fundamentally failed to understand where the burden of proof lies in the matter.

There is also, as Aldarc has kindly brought up, a difference between cultural diffusion and cultural misappropriation that you don't seem to be acknowledging. Failure to recognize that difference leaves your argument as a "bait and switch", silently trading out definitions of the term before claiming everything is really okay.

So, I'm not terribly impressed with your position yet.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

There is also, as Aldarc has kindly brought up, a difference between cultural diffusion and cultural misappropriation that you don't seem to be acknowledging. Failure to recognize that difference leaves your argument as a "bait and switch", silently trading out definitions of the term before claiming everything is really okay.

So, I'm not terribly impressed with your position yet.

The point is, there have been no proof in this thread that people using mana in a variety of languages in CRPGs to describe a slowly replenishable resource of magic points depleted when you cast a spell is cultural misappropriation, has caused any discernable harm to Polynesians, and not just use of a loanword and ascribing to it a new meaning (like PJs). The OP would have been much more received without the accusations of misappropriation and just a neutral post stating that he discovered the origin of the mana word in a video, sharing it and emphasizing the cool stories we could tell by being more conscious on the original meaning of the word and including it in our games.

 

[Alzrius]

Shaman in the game has been altered from the original meaning.

Fun fact: when a term has changed from its original meaning, indicting its current usage based on how it was formerly used is known as the genetic fallacy.

 

[Aldarc]

The OP would have been much more received without the accusations of misappropriation and just a neutral post stating that he discovered the origin of the mana word in a video, sharing it and emphasizing the cool stories we could tell by being more conscious on the original meaning of the word and including it in our games.

Remember when we were at the stage of discussion when you were refusing even to accept that the word or concept was Polynesian in origin? Good times.

That said, the misappropriation happen, but by anthropologists. It was more of a hand-me-down to gamers via literary fiction by the time that we mostly care about.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Remember when we were at the stage of discussion when you were refusing even to accept that the word or concept was Polynesian in origin? Good times.

If you are sincere, then my ability to convey my position and your ability to understand it both have been abysmal and we should refrain from interacting, since such a complete misinterpretation seems only to happen with you. I'll gladly accept blame with regard to the English language, not being my primary language, but your depiction of my position seems so removed from what I said that I don't think such a misunderstanding is only my fault.

 

[Aldarc]

There’s nothing wrong with disengaging if you feel frustrated by our inability to communicate properly with each other.