ain't nothin' but a dreamer

[faery]

So this week is going to be full of all kinds of amazing activist-y endeavors. Which is so needed. My psyche needs some serious rejuvenation after last week. Activist engagements do just this for me

Comments

[faery]

I'm going to ask you a couple questions. Please do not take them as snarky: I'm happy you asked me. It shows that you have a good measure of respect and good intentions. But I'm always weary when I find out someone wants to write about a culture that is not their own, especially one that is systemically oppressed and so very diverse and complex as Indigenous cultures are (Practices vary from band to band, not just tribe to tribe).

Why is it important that your character is Native? What is it going to add to your writing? How are you going to avoid appropriation and tokenization? What exactly do you mean by 'culture'? Do you intend to publish and make money off of this story?

Honestly, you are going to hard-pressed to find a blog that focuses solely on culture. Many of us are taught to keep our teachings private because we have a long, long history of people distorting, capitalizing and stealing our cultures. Most Indigenous blogs focus on social justice and anti-oppression because they are the very most pressing issues to us. Sadly, reclaiming and celebrating our endangered cultural practices takes the back burner when so many of us are suffering. While ideally, our struggles would take a holistic approach like most of our worldviews encouraged, we simply have lost a lot of this. It's not so easy for us to include our historical practices when we don't have clean water and heat on our reservations.

So that's a very basic reason you are probably having a hard time finding things.

A whole other can of worms is our "history", as it were, with pen and paper. All of our history was transmitted through oral tradition until contact, then our language was forced out of us and we were forced to lean to read and write "as a white man". Pen and paper is also tied to the numbered treaties, an often bitter history we were pretty much forced to sign because we were starving and sick and had no other option.

It is considered extremely, EXTREMELY disrespectful to write our stories down without out explicit permission from the band you take them from. Storytelling is sacred, and often, a task designated for only really well practiced and respected "storytellers" (often our elders). On top of the fact that there are protocols for the time and place these stories can be told. For example, in my culture, our sacred stories can only be told when there is snow on the ground.
I'd urge you to consider this, too. Even if you are of the purist heart, cultural insensitivity still hurts.

There's a tonne of issues involved. I'd be happy to help you, but I hope first you can gasp all these issues and understand why it is most likely you're going to find so little information. Honestly, if you intend to incorporate spirituality, in a word, I'd say: don't. It's much better to leave things ambiguous or all together out in order to avoid hurting the peoples who've inspired you.