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Inclusion and Respect.
Aug. 20th, 2011 12:33 amOkay, so I've been writing my novel, "Amaryllis" and have been making some big decisions.
Previously in the novel, the merman "prince" that the titular princess of the deep, Amaryllis, is being asked to marry was from the Mediterranian. A few things occurred to me as I was reading over my notes:
- Why the hell would she marry someone so far away?
- If Amaryllis' people, a small number of whitish merfolk from the southern, colder areas of the ocean, are fully integrated with the Aboriginal merfolk, why the hell would there be no notable characters of that cultural descent? It makes no fucking sense.
So I changed it. I then decided some other things:
- The important merman from the north that is seeking Amaryllis' hand shall be of Indigenous Australian descent. He is not portrayed negatively. He is not a villain. He is almost Arthurian in his purity and good spirit. I will take great pains not to portray him as a "noble savage"
- Amaryllis' family shall be mingled with the bloodlines of the local merfolk inhabitants.
- Amaryllis' family and friends shall also have mixed heritage.
All the merfolk cultures are loosely based on the ancient lore and mythologies of the human populations that live near them. This is to make it so that any human anywhere reading the book had some place to involve themselves. Where there are humans, there are merfolk. I want my story world to be accessable to everybody.
In the end I'm left with a problem. See, from what I've been able to gather from quick Googling, the Noongar people (the Indigenous Australian culture in the region where the book is set) like to keep their culture largely to themselves. They don't have big old lists of Noongar people names like us white folk do. They don't have the same publicly accessible archives like we do. The only one I could find was limited to Noongar people.
So I'm in the conundrum of wanting to include the local culture in with the book that I'm writing, and at the same time, being an awkward ignorant white girl who doesn't know who to ask about this, if she should ask at all (I don't want to offend or hurt anyone). Is wanting to include the culture in a modern fantasy novel disrespectful in itself? Maintaining the dignity and respect to the Noongar People is paramount. I want to do the right thing. If I don't include Indigenous Australian culture in this novel, I would be ignoring a vital part of the cultural identity of this part of the world. It would be terrible. Having an Indigenous Australian romantic lead in Amaryllis' intended would also be a rare and positive opportunity.
But I worry that, as a white person, it might not be my story to tell. I can go wrong so easily, I could really easily fuck up in this. But I don't want to be another white person telling an Australian story and NOT having the people that really own this land involved in any meaningful way. Especially in this novel, where the Indigenous merfolk outnumber the immigrants 5 to 1.
So, yeah, I don't know what to do. It's also really depressing in a way that Colonialism has driven a lot of this culture into secrecy and obscurity. Or maybe it's only secret and obscure because I'm ignorant. I don't know.
Previously in the novel, the merman "prince" that the titular princess of the deep, Amaryllis, is being asked to marry was from the Mediterranian. A few things occurred to me as I was reading over my notes:
- Why the hell would she marry someone so far away?
- If Amaryllis' people, a small number of whitish merfolk from the southern, colder areas of the ocean, are fully integrated with the Aboriginal merfolk, why the hell would there be no notable characters of that cultural descent? It makes no fucking sense.
So I changed it. I then decided some other things:
- The important merman from the north that is seeking Amaryllis' hand shall be of Indigenous Australian descent. He is not portrayed negatively. He is not a villain. He is almost Arthurian in his purity and good spirit. I will take great pains not to portray him as a "noble savage"
- Amaryllis' family shall be mingled with the bloodlines of the local merfolk inhabitants.
- Amaryllis' family and friends shall also have mixed heritage.
All the merfolk cultures are loosely based on the ancient lore and mythologies of the human populations that live near them. This is to make it so that any human anywhere reading the book had some place to involve themselves. Where there are humans, there are merfolk. I want my story world to be accessable to everybody.
In the end I'm left with a problem. See, from what I've been able to gather from quick Googling, the Noongar people (the Indigenous Australian culture in the region where the book is set) like to keep their culture largely to themselves. They don't have big old lists of Noongar people names like us white folk do. They don't have the same publicly accessible archives like we do. The only one I could find was limited to Noongar people.
So I'm in the conundrum of wanting to include the local culture in with the book that I'm writing, and at the same time, being an awkward ignorant white girl who doesn't know who to ask about this, if she should ask at all (I don't want to offend or hurt anyone). Is wanting to include the culture in a modern fantasy novel disrespectful in itself? Maintaining the dignity and respect to the Noongar People is paramount. I want to do the right thing. If I don't include Indigenous Australian culture in this novel, I would be ignoring a vital part of the cultural identity of this part of the world. It would be terrible. Having an Indigenous Australian romantic lead in Amaryllis' intended would also be a rare and positive opportunity.
But I worry that, as a white person, it might not be my story to tell. I can go wrong so easily, I could really easily fuck up in this. But I don't want to be another white person telling an Australian story and NOT having the people that really own this land involved in any meaningful way. Especially in this novel, where the Indigenous merfolk outnumber the immigrants 5 to 1.
So, yeah, I don't know what to do. It's also really depressing in a way that Colonialism has driven a lot of this culture into secrecy and obscurity. Or maybe it's only secret and obscure because I'm ignorant. I don't know.
