There is a comic book shop in Albuquerque that sells only Native produced comic books.
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It seems we haven't determined a way to measure a culture's response or how one might balance multiple contradictory responses. How does one measure which are reasonable? Whose sense of reason?
Nor have we established whether cultural appropriation is appreciation or theft or what? Mainly, is it beneficial or harmful? The 'who' is obvious, but using whose terms?
We here do seem to agree that accuracy is key as is sensitivity to harm.
Yet as pointed out, myths have variants and harm's difficult to predict or estimate, much less calculate or balance vs. other factors. Oy.
So now what?
We're 300+ comments in and I still haven't seen evidence there's an RPG Wendigo Problem in reality, only a potential issue which may have impacted somebody or maybe nobody. Has harm been done or could it be? Is the PF Wendigo not true to at least some real-world variant of the myth?
Paizo's obviously actively alert to cultural sensitivities, ahead of the curve and transparent when asked about each topic. Other than keeping diligent that they keep diligent and informed, what more's there to do? What more is there to discuss?
Well, I saw a twitch in the glue, so I don’t think it’s quite dead yet.
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The impact of a systemic problem isn't really visible in the individual acts that it consists of but that's no reason to just throw one's hands up in defeat.
Does the culture from which the monster is taken suffer from historical injustices that continue to this day? Yes.
Does the culture consistently get mocked by other examples of appropriation? Yes. Through mascots and costumes.
Do members of the culture face challenges with lack of opportunity? Yes.
Does the way society currently operates in relation to the culture need to change? Yup.
Maybe the monster isn't a 'problem', maybe it is, people who aren't of the culture don't get to decide. But it's an opportunity to transfer some agency back to the people of the culture the monster is from.
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I've pretty much said my piece on the main point.
Meanwhile, sources prior to that date are from outside people. Talking about a few temples, religious (called pagan in the wikipedia article) practices, or encounters with traders.
But I'd like to take a moment to note, speaking as a pagan and something of a mythology buff, in regards to the bold part, that pagan is perfectly acceptable terminology to refer to Norse religious practices.
The use of pagan or paganism did start as a slur for polytheistic religious practices, but over the past century the pagan community has reclaimed it pretty thoroughly, so now it's just a general term for polytheistic religious practices of primarily European origin. I can't even find anyone who objects to it on an internet search, never mind in real life and we generally call ourselves pagans. It's 100% fine.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
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I highlighted that to show that culture has an impact on how we talk and how cultures change.
Pagan is now nothing bad. But at one point being Pagan could mean death.
Culture does not stay still for anyone.
That's fine, I just wanted to clarify given the subject of the thread and the fact that I can actually speak as a member of the minority in question in this case.
For many Natives their religion, culture and tradutions and langauges, are all tied up and not necessarily compartmentalized.
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A "culture" that is static, unchanging, etc. is not truly a culture since "culture" basically exists as a means for a group of people to collectively deal with the situations those people find themselves in, and as those situations evolve so must the culture.
To "preserve" a culture is to destroy it; it's like preserving a cheese or preserving yogurt- the thing in it that's alive makes it what it is.