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Magic and Elements



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Thu Mar 02, 2017 12:21 pm
shima says...



I would like to have some advice on a little concept I am developing.

Which kind of "realistic" magic would be tied to which element ?

With realistic I mean "magic" you can find in the real world, like Voodoo or Shamanism.
And the elements are just pretty simple : the four basic ones (Stone/Earth, Water, Fire and Air) with the addition of Ice, Stone as a separate element and maybe a 7th one if I can't find sufficient information about the other 6.

So, for the people who maybe know something about it, what kind of magic would be tied to which element ? It would be also nice to know what kind of culture this magic is used in.
So, like, Voodoo is strongly tied into Haitian and Black culture, while Shamanism is something used by various northern cultures and in Africa they have a special kind of black magic used by priests and similar.
Thank you very much in advance. :-)
  





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Thu Mar 02, 2017 8:38 pm
Megrim says...



This is totally not the answer you're looking for, but... why are ice and water separate elements? (And stone & earth, while I'm at it)
  





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Thu Mar 02, 2017 10:38 pm
shima says...



Megrim wrote:This is totally not the answer you're looking for, but... why are ice and water separate elements? (And stone & earth, while I'm at it)

Well, it's mostly because the people live in two different regions. One of those regions is icy and snowy, while the other is tropical, with lots of water. Same goes for stone and earth.
  





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Thu Mar 02, 2017 11:13 pm
Rosendorn says...



Again probably not the answer you're looking for, but why use closed or partially closed religions?

Shamanism and voodoo are not "magic." Writing With Colour has a fairly extensive tag on the problems with voodoo in fiction, and their Native American + folklore tags discuss why shamanism and "Native American magic" doesn't really... exist as an umbrella term. Shamanism as it's understood to the masses is appropriated and bastardized for Western consumption, and actually has very little relation to the actual cultural practices of Native American cultures.

These religions don't just exist as "look, magic!" They are real, and they are still living. This means you have to show them the respect they deserve in researching them to the point you can speak about them, and not appropriate what isn't yours to take.

If a non-Cree person used Cree religious ceremonies and artifacts to produce magic, that would be appropriation. If somebody who hasn't studied under a voodoo priest used voodoo, that's also appropriation. This is generally a not nice thing to do.

So think about why you want to use these concepts, and how you plan on respectfully incorporating them into your story.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  





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Fri Mar 03, 2017 2:17 pm
shima says...



Rosendorn wrote:Again probably not the answer you're looking for, but why use closed or partially closed religions?

Shamanism and voodoo are not "magic." Writing With Colour has a fairly extensive tag on the problems with voodoo in fiction, and their Native American + folklore tags discuss why shamanism and "Native American magic" doesn't really... exist as an umbrella term. Shamanism as it's understood to the masses is appropriated and bastardized for Western consumption, and actually has very little relation to the actual cultural practices of Native American cultures.

These religions don't just exist as "look, magic!" They are real, and they are still living. This means you have to show them the respect they deserve in researching them to the point you can speak about them, and not appropriate what isn't yours to take.

If a non-Cree person used Cree religious ceremonies and artifacts to produce magic, that would be appropriation. If somebody who hasn't studied under a voodoo priest used voodoo, that's also appropriation. This is generally a not nice thing to do.

So think about why you want to use these concepts, and how you plan on respectfully incorporating them into your story.

Well, that is the thing. That is why I'm asking this question. I know well that there are various kinds of shamanism, since a couple of my ancestors where shamans as well. I know too that the "shamanism" used by the Native Americans is different from the one used on the icy plains of Siberia and different from the one used by the Mongols of the steppe. I also know that there are various kinds of voodoo and trust me, I am gonna do my research before beginning with something like this. I have seen documentaries, movies and stuff so I know that there is a difference between African Voodoo and Haitian Voodoo.

Because I don't want to confuse various things together, I'm asking this question. The culture of the people of the swamp may be similar to the culture of the people of the Ice, but it is still different. Adapted to their environment.

Why ? Well, because it is going that main conflict of the story - native, shamanic heroes as good guys versus a homogeneous (rather neutral actually) religion that combines elements of science and religion in the way of Christianity.
  





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Fri Mar 03, 2017 8:39 pm
Rosendorn says...



You can get an idea of voodoo in the tag I linked, so there's a start.

None of these really fit, but here are some stories/religious aspects off the top of my head:

The Inuit concept of death and ancestors is very air based, with how they tie it to the sky and stars. Meanwhile, Sedna is the mother of sea creatures and shamans brush her hair for her, because she lost her fingers to make sea creatures. So you've got two elements in there.

Great Lakes creation stories are very tied to earth and endurance in water. I say "Great Lakes" because it spreads from Huron/Wyandot to Ojibwe to Iroquois. Each one has a different animal associated with it.

Polynesian peoples have a healthy respect for the ocean and are some of the best seafarers, with also a strong creation story around volcanos.

Mohawk were People of the Flint, which can point to either stone or fire.

I think the thing that's tripping me up is each Native culture I know has so many elements associated with it that I'm going story by story to say what the associations with that story are, not the whole practice itself. Cleansing is done with smoke, preparations done by fire (in North America). Meanwhile Central America is heavily tied to stone for how they crafted it, but at the same time one of their gods is where we get the name hurricane from.

So when you say "what magic is associated with what element" I'm going "well, this part of religion is associated with this element, but that part of religion is associated with another element. Or this story heavily incorporates two elements and it's kind of impossible to split them up." So it really doesn't ring true for me that a whole religion with thousands of practitioners can be associated with one element. Because like I said. These "magic"s are a religion.

I also feel you're not accounting for how scientific Indigenous groups around the world are, with your core conflict? As I said, Polynesian people are excellent seafarers— to the point they could tell a land mass was hundreds of miles away based on how the current flowed. The Iroquois learned how to tap maple syrup by watching squirrels chew into trees and get sweet liquid, then eventually they figured out they could concentrate it by boiling.

I could go on and on about how Central and South American peoples carved stone blocks so finely you cannot fit a hair between them even after hundreds of years, and how Australian Aboriginals have a manmade astrological tracking circle that predates Stonehenge by possibly seven thousand years, or how many African tribes identified mosquitos carried malaria long before western scientists realized. Science and Indigenous knowledge are very intimately tied, and in many cases the Indigenous knowledge surpasses Western by a very long stretch.

Your core conflict seems to have traces of Noble Savage in it, where Natives are better for being closer to nature, so I'd examine those in depth. Christianity has a whole lot of reasons it can be a villainous force (like, how its practitioners tend to assume God gave them the whole world to own all to themselves, or how they've leaned pretty anti science for most of history) without knocking down both science and Indigenous use of it in the process.

If you broke the elemental association, that would be helpful. Then you could take the religions as their living, breathing wholes instead of cutting bits off that don't fit in with "this religion= this element".
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  





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Fri Mar 03, 2017 11:07 pm
shima says...



Thank you for this information. :-) I know about the fact that a lot of them had a lot of scientific knowledge, and I won't disrespect that. Like I said, I will do my research and above that - if you place multiple tribes on one island, it would mean that the cultures of those tribes would mix in one way or the other.

The point you made about breaking away from the elemental association is interesting.
I will consider that. The reason why I tied them to one particular element was because on that island they had "protectors" that were tied into element magic that would resemble shamanism and voodoo. Now I have read about it, I will reconsider my position and the way these characters are portrayed.
I have to admit, the idea with having multiple elements being tied to one "protector" is pretty interesting. Will have to consider that.


I am not going to make one side or the other side of the conflict particularly bad or particularly "good" - both of them have their good sides and bad sides and as a result are more neutral than anything.
  





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Fri Mar 03, 2017 11:22 pm
Rosendorn says...



So here's the thing about culture development: continental nations develop differently than island nations because they have different resources available. Especially on the religious front. It of course depends on the size of the island/island chain, but they develop much differently.

As a result, if you're trying to use continental peoples for an island nation, you're going to run into places you need to modify. You might be better off moving to other island nations to see where you go.

The best place to look is Polynesia/Oceana, which is kind of what all of this sounds like based on very rough knowledge. The Polynesian Triangle is a relatively well documented group of Indigenous cultures; if you add in Australia, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea, you can get a few more flavours of cultures on some larger islands.

You'll probably find some stuff that ends up pretty similar; the stories I've read from Polynesian peoples have some of the "flash" you're looking for, with magic and rituals and strong elemental ties (because the lands are so explosively elemental, literally and figuratively), but I'm not well educated enough. Australian aboriginals also have a very robust totem system that determines kinship, which could be fun to play with and tie into protectors. I doubt it will be an exact match, so keep an open mind (I'd strongly suggest not putting your own ideas over the real life culture if something drastically clashes).
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  








Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
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